Book Review: Jurassic Park

“True” genetic engineering came about in the 70’s, and shortly after, it became very popular for its vast potential to change the world, from the food we eat to lifesaving medications. For entrepreneur John Hammond, though, its potential lies in entertainment. He develops a park where guests can experience the wonders of seeing real dinosaurs, brought back to life through these new scientific breakthroughs. But when the park falls under scrutiny for suspicious behavior and possible escaped dinosaurs on the mainland, he has his team of consultants and lawyers come for a visit to clear things up. What could go wrong?



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Nothing More Than Animals

Alex and I went to see a circus yesterday before the big snowstorm was planned to hit. Although I’ve been trying to reduce my time spent on social media, I decided to log in to Instagram to share a few clips of the performances. The first video on my feed, directly when the app opened, was footage of ICU nurse Alex Pretti being shot ~10 times by Border Patrol agents. He was being held to the ground by a number of other officers when the one in a green jacket pulled out his weapon and shot him in the back. Again. And again. And again. That footage deeply shocked me, and I’ve been unable to pull my mind away from it since. Over the last day or so now, I’ve seen countless comments, posts, articles, and government officials describing the situation as though this is somehow a justified death. I fear, quite firmly, for what the future holds.



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Hoops and Yoyo – A Case Study on Nostalgia and Impermanence

Let’s set the scene: it’s sometime around 2010, give or take. Catholic elementary school, computer class. The teacher has various office humor-style decorations scattered about. Ya know, like the red Staples “that was easy” button, ironic bobble-heads, you get it. In the mix of “working hard or hardly working” decor, there are figures of a little pink cat and green rabbit with huge, cartoonish eyes. When pressed, these creatures, named Hoops and Yoyo, would scream in high voices and crack ridiculous jokes. But it wasn’t the first time seeing them– I actually knew them from the eCards my dad would send (back when that was a thing people did regularly). And for some unknown reason, I was absolutely obsessed with them.



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The Benefits of a Functional Kitchen and a Hungry Boyfriend

Back in November, my lovely partner Alex moved to be with me here in Virginia as I work on my PhD. We managed to find a cute, spacious place at a price significantly cheaper than what a small apartment in Blacksburg (where the university is located) would cost. With more room and now more affordable, shared expenses, I’ve been making a real effort to cook and try new recipes. This has been great for a few reasons: 1) the place I was living before didn’t have a kitchen, so I primarily ate ramen, hummus and pita, or grocery store sushi most nights and I actually found myself in the ER with nutrient deficiencies once (whoops!), 2) grad school can take a toll on my mental health and creativity, so having a new thing to work on really helps the ole brain, and 3) I now have a hungry man living with me who not only appreciates the effort, but helps finish the food so I’m not eating leftovers seven days in a row!

Since all this cooking means finding our yes/no/maybe’s of recipes, I figured it would be fun to share the best. I thought about making separate posts for each recipe we liked, but since what I’ve made lately is all just a click away, I decided on just rating them and adding the link in case someone else wants to give them a try. If I have family recipes or something I came up with myself, I may just make a blog post for it, like I did a while back for my kolaczki cookies.

To make it easy for myself to update, I added a new page to my site, linked [HERE]. You can also use the tab that says “food -> recipes” at the top. If you’re into trying new recipes, hopefully you’ll find it fun to keep up with the wins of my recent home cooking (and maybe give them a go yourself!).

Happy reading,
-Beppa

Why complain science is slow when you can just hit it with a sledgehammer to painfully die?

The media paints an unrealistic expectation of science, from mainstream news to niche research articles. We see results coming from labs worldwide described in such a timeless way, as though the idea was quickly generated, the experiments run, and papers soon after published. Even for those involved in the field, who know how tricky or time consuming some protocols can be, can feel this way. A paper can say that a transformation was done to generate a mutant, but how many days, weeks, months, or years did it take? All that work in designing and making the DNA insert, prepping the media, doing the transformation, testing colonies, finding out none are valid and doing it all again? Or waiting for a necessary supply to come in that is on backorder? Maybe testing a different transformation method, or seeing if an ortholog in another species is temperature sensitive and redoing everything all over again at a few degrees lower? Rarely, unless of course for a good story, are these things told. It is just the end result, the summation of this work and time that we see, which, although this is mostly all we need to be informed, can feel daunting when you have to do these things yourself. I jokingly propose there be a “total time spent” listed on each paper.



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Book Review: The Shadow Glass

After his estranged father’s death, Jack Corman returns to his childhood home with a key to the attic. Inside lay an army puppets from his father’s cult classic 80’s movie, The Shadow Glass. Desperate to leave behind the memories of the alcohol-fueled abuse he suffered and pay back some of his debts, Jack arranges to sell the main protagonist puppet and move on with his life. That is, until a wild storm brings the puppets to life! Their fictional world Iri is on the brink of collapse, and they need to find the original Shadow Glass prop if they wish to go back home and stop the evil lizard queen from taking over Earth! Will Jack be able to return to his childlike wonder and reconcile with his feelings about the film– and all it represents– to figure out where his father hid the Shadow Glass? Author Josh Winning manages to bring to life the zany charm of classic “Jim Henson”-esque puppet films we all wished were real as children in an adult-oriented, nostalgia-packed way. If you enjoyed (real) 80’s films like Labyrinth, Dark Crystal, or The NeverEnding Story, this book is for you.



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Book Review: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

The reclusive Hollywood movie star Evelyn Hugo has been out of the public eye for decades, when suddenly her team reaches out for an exclusive interview with Vivant magazine. They have one condition, though– that Monique Grant, a young, unknown journalist who writes small puff pieces or whatever she’s told, be the one to conduct the interview. Unsure why she was chosen, Monique does her research on Evelyn, finding out that she’s had plenty of mystique surrounding the happenings of her life, especially regarding her seven salacious marriages during her film career. Yet, when she goes out to the New York penthouse to begin the interview, Evelyn actually discloses that she has no interest in a piece with Vivant and instead wants Monique to write the tell-all biography of her life. Confused and shocked, Monique wants to know why her? This book deal would easily be worth millions and there are plenty of far more qualified writers! And past that, she wants the thing everyone wants to know: which of her seven husbands did she love the most? Throughout the story, Evelyn goes through how she went from being a poor, Cuban girl in New York to Hollywood’s most iconic star, and by the end, we learn the dark reasons she reached out to Monique and the tragic secrets of her actual love.



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Recording Joy – January 2025

2024 was a doozy of a year for me, and not in a particularly heartening manner. In some ways, it’s a marvel that the sun came up on the first of the new year to see me still breathing and in one piece. Yet despite the ups and (mostly) downs, I am committed to bettering myself. Maybe in the past I would start a year with plans of grandeur– things like waking up at 5:30am to take virtual Spanish and Japanese lessons or reducing my calorie intake to a simultaneously laughable yet scary point. But with dawn of 2025, I realize that the things I need to work on are very different now.



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Painting Science in a New Light

Back in 2022 when I attended the Cellular and Molecular Fungal Biology GRC, I saw a poster with an unusual figure. It was a model of their work, but rather than being made digitally, either through BioRender, PowerPoint, or other software, it was hand-drawn. I had never seen something like this in a professional scientific setting before. Although at the time I was still a first year grad student, trying to just figure out what I was doing at any given moment, I told myself that I would one day try to approach science this way.



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Alex’s Defense! (EDIT: Now Dr. Alex)

One of the worst things a grad student can hear is “so, when are you graduating?” Even the best of grad students (whatever that means), with a set and followed timeline, will know it’s not just finishing some classes and leaving. The final thing you must do when completing a research-based degree is defend your thesis/dissertation. That oh-so-simple question calls to mind the journey one is about to embark on in order to finally be set free. Years of work, cumulated in a huge written document, then presented publicly, and then scrutinized by your committee. Despite not having my PhD defense for a few more years still, I got a good taste of it when defending my Master’s thesis back in November. Let me tell you, that was a LOT. Now, after years of grueling lab work and months of being cooped up furiously writing, my lovely partner Alex has defended his PhD dissertation. Obviously, I need to celebrate him.



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