Hit Me With Your Best Shot!

Recently I haven't had any passionate subjects to discuss on my blog here and today I find myself altering the layout of the blog instead of trying to write something.  I could chime in on the Penn State scandal but I am kind of tired of hearing about it.  And I could talk about how I am glad that college basketball is back or how Purdue beat OSU for the second straight time at home, both resulting in the students rushing the field. For the record, I was not a fan of us rushing the field this time.  Come on people, act you have been there before!  But neither of those would be thought provoking and insightful, which is what I am striving for.

I have recently posted about my friends and about my career, both of which seem to occupy a lot of my spare thoughts. I think that's understandable at this point in my life.  And I have tried to keep up with posting Friday Fragments for those of you who get your science fix from me on Fridays (I have few cool links already for this Friday).  

I figured this was appropriate because it is no-shave
November and my face looks a lot like his does!
But no, I do not own any purple pants like that.

My Under the Hood series is kind of on hold as I was going to write a piece about LLPS, liquid-liquid phase separation, but we are looking at some novel theories in our lab and I don't want to compromise the integrity of that research until I have a better grip on the subject.  And I'm not sure how I feel about my Behind the Bench series at the moment (Jeremy your post was great, I have other reasons).  There are a couple big political topics regarding science that are coming to front, such as the increase in the NSF budget for next year (HELL YEAH).  Or how people here at Purdue tried to allow students to carry concealed weapons, seriously?! But if you know me at all, I am not a fan of politics because of the partisanship that accompanies it.  If we were able to intelligent debates where both sides are open minded and respectful, I'd be first in line to jump into politics but for some reason people allow broad mindsets to dictate all their responses.  

So I am kind of in a low point for the blog.  I have nothing particularly interesting to write about and with the semester coming to a close, we have finals and the holidays which put a damper on research.  And even though when I have opened up this blog to "audience participation" I haven't gotten much of a response, I am going to try something new...

"Ask the (future) Scientist" will be your opportunity to ask me any question regarding pharmaceuticals, physics, chemistry, biology, math, etc.  Even if I am not an expert in a topic, I would love to do a little background learning and put together a few posts regarding anything your heart desires!  These topics can be as simple as What is a neutrino? or Why is blood red? to ask specific and complicated as What do new brand drugs cost so much more than generic? or How does quantum locking work? 

So leave you questions in the comments section or email them to me at pharmjack29@gmail.com and we will see how this goes. If all else fails, I am pretty sure my mom will have some sort question to get us started!