Matter, Energy, and Life of Michaela A. Castello.

Category: Life

Short (and long) reads extracted from my personal life.

  • Snapshot of a Researcher: Dr. Soriano

    At least one person has told me her view of scientists was that they were all crazy white-haired men with accents. It got me thinking—I think that picture is close to a majority opinion. Indeed, if you do a Google image search for “scientist,” one of the first results is pretty much exactly that. As others…

  • Why Yes, I (Attempt to) Cook

    I have been wanting to try making this for a while, and finally made myself do it tonight (also, my vegetables were going bad). Dinner is super late, but I think it was worth it. I made a few mistakes, with some of the vegetables being a bit too crunchy; however, it’s a recipe I…

  • Today in Netflix

    Yesterday, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings announced that Netflix would be moving in still another new direction, in a reversal of decision made only a few weeks prior. Qwikster, Hastings’ stillborn attempt to save his precipitously declining customer base by forcing them to cancel two subscriptions instead of one, will be resorbed by the original Netflix…

  • Serve Chilled

    Tuesday was a long but productive day during which Appy and I ran two experiments in parallel, nested so that we worked on one while waiting for a step in the other. I decided that at the end of the day we needed to do something fun to reward ourselves.

  • Social Networking Fatigue

    My thoughts on this began with a conversation I had with my friend Caitlyn where the two of us ranted that social networking is beginning to have more emphasis on the “working” and less on the “social.” Facebook is making all kinds of changes, prompting the usual outcry from people who don’t like different. I’m…

  • Prodigious Pool Party

    Re:Live had a pool party Sunday afternoon: pizza, sodas, and a whole crowd of people. It was truly the ultimate party house: “pool” was insufficient to describe what was essentially a small water park in the backyard. Fountains, a slide, and rocks to jump from made for a wonderfully enjoyable afternoon. I took some pictures to…

  • Burrito Envy

    I have been craving a burrito for weeks. My friend Caitlyn goes to Chipotle for a burrito nearly every day for lunch (between 10 and 11 AM Eastern, or around when I’m leaving for the lab), leaving me with burrito foodlust and a packed turkey sandwich for my own noonday meal. This was heightened when…

  • These Cells Are Ready to Be Split

    These Cells Are Ready to Be Split

    Fibroblasts as seen through a 10x magnification. These are live cells, unlike my pretty color pictures. The density of the culture means we can safely split it into a number of parts, where they will continue growing to yield a greater total number of cells.