Today, Bo_ne_ _all hides bashfully behind its dilapidated façade, leaving few traces of its glorious past. (Various letters had fallen off and stayed off since the beginning of last year.) The second and third floors are now virtually emptied of labs as scores of investigators retired, passed away or migrated to better facilities across the Atlantic or just across the road. Across the road is the state-of-the-art Natural Science Building (NSB), a glass-and-concrete, award-winning modernist building that houses scientists from biology, chemistry / biochemistry, and physics in shared facilities on each of the 6 floors. The lack of funding and modern equipment in Bonner severely hampers this old maiden’s ability to attract young faculty into her fold. Tellingly, the few new faculty to join UCSD are starting their labs in the sparkling new NSB.
And the story returns to the flies still wandering aimlessly inside the glass doors of Bonner Hall. (The flies from a year back are long dead, but this station at the frontiers of fly exploration will always be manned by fresh blood.) The Chinese has a saying that translates simply to “we are what we eat”. They believe that eating a pig’s brain allows us to “build up” our own and hence improve our intelligence. (Thereby explaining the great demand for ferocious tiger’s penis.) Perhaps, in a similar way, the idea can be translated to “we are what we do” – biologists are just like the flies we work on. We cultivate the flies, use them for a short time, pamper them, torture them, and finally chuck them out with the trash. Analogously, Science cultivates our passion, squeezes our brains for ideas for a few years, pampers us with fame, tortures us with experimental failures, and chucks us out into the real world when we run out of ideas to contribute to her growth.
But scientists are a unique breed, simply different from the normal man in the street. Born with an acute sense of our surroundings and a calling from bigger mysteries of life, we ignore temptations of higher pay and respect in other professions, ignore our need for a personal life outside work, and throw ourselves headlong, illogically perhaps, into this passion. Years of continuous 90 hour weeks, throughout and running well after the prime years of our lives, scientists work for pittance merely to generate decent results that may grace the cover of a (hopefully) respectable journal. And yet, the work accumulated after a life-long career is something hardly understood by the general public, much less appreciated. Science throws scientists Evolution cards – only the fittest survive and continue doing Science. Science is logical, non-emotional, exactly the right way how good science should be conducted. No name, no fame, no shame. Just as moths willingly fly straight into an open flame, gladly dying for their love and passion, scientists are “blinded” by our own belief of the supremacy of Science, crowding out each other to jump into this one-way train to destiny. This is a short journey of passion, of discovery, of bitter sweet success and agonizing failures. A short flash of inspiration and insight before we, like all others, are replaced with fresh blood. But nonetheless, hopefully, in the midst of all the hurry, a destiny of satisfaction, of strong belief, that Science will show us the right way forward, into a better future for us all.
*****
I now work on the 4th floor (south-west wing) of Bonner Hall, in a worm lab led by Dr A, a young, single female on her first term as an assistant professor. Dr A is a energetic damsel thriving in a male-dominated field, and has received multiple accolades in her budding career. A hard worker (though not yet a slave driver), she already has two major publications under her name from this lab, and has continuously been invited to present at major scientific meetings and to write reviews in major scientific journals. Her future looks bright, her journey just starting. I can’t help but wonder if, in the little free time she has, she has pondered about the careers of her colleagues, and how her own will mirror theirs.
Looking back, I realized that perhaps, I need not have fumbled my explanation to Prof Q with fictitious “truths” that I was too busy with school work and have no spare time for his lab. Prof Q, just like Prof J, Prof S, Prof F, Prof A and I are just members of a subspecies, servants for a cause, living through this life cycle that defines what a scientist is. They have been in my place twenty, thirty years ago. And I will be in their place twenty, thirty years from today. My experiences are hardly unique to myself, just like science is hardly unique to any one person.
I look forward to living their lives.
* the end *
