um...gulp!

[shiato storm]

I've been asked to write an abstract (a blurb/short description) on my research I'm doing...not so hard in itself, just that its going to be scrutinised by possibly the hardest of the hardcore scientists in the field by being submitted to the (probably) top physiology journal... Whats worse is it seems to disprove a fundamental finding thats been around for a good 20 years, and i'm doing it consistanly each time I run an experiment. well, there's nothing quite like getting laughed at by a group of boffins! what was that L33T stuff again?

wish me luck!

[nichomach]

Good luck, mate; "a little rebellion now and then is a good thing", as Jefferson remarked.

[dkmech]

Could you explain what you are disproving? or is it secret at the moment?

[shiato storm]

well, its just that muscles i'm lookng at dn't behave as previously seen. though previously only done - as far as we can tell - under slightly different situations we were not expecting what we've got.
i can't really go into it due to the nature of the work - its no top secret what we're doing just 'how' we do it isn't always liked... its a bit sensitive and fanatics might 'seek and destroy' me. it has happened, trust me.

regardless of that fact its going to be interesting how people react to our findings.!

[dkmech]

Sounds like they'll just burn you at the stake. You witch.

[noah]

best of luck, i know how hard it is writing things for these publications, seems like everyone is out to laugh at you and prove you wrong, esp if you say they're wrong first. but go on mate showcase your findings and be happy with it.

let us know how it goes

[Steve]

Well I'm not exactly in a position to give advice like this, but perhaps consider wording it in such a way that invites further investigation, rather outright contradticting existing research.

[shiato storm]

we're trying to cover our bases by only leading a lttle into whats actaully said, that way it gives us a chance to write up the darn thing...we've only done a few experiments so far and need to do several more to qualify our results e.g. its better to have 20 results saying the same thing than 4 or 5...
and also for each set there's an analysis thats goes a LONG way into the data...not so bad one at a time but by the end of it I'll have so much...almost too much to keep track of. its quite tricky once you're out of the confines of a university course and fighting for your life (literally, this will probably determine whether I stay on and remain employed here!)...

[ajbrun]

Well, some of the best scientists in the past have been laughed at because of their findings.

They didn't believe the earth was round, but it is.
They didn't believe Rutherford (i think) when he found that atoms had protons, neutrons and electrons.

So you never know - you may just change the way that everyone thinks about muscles today .














Actually, I never think about muscles.

[shiato storm]

um...well....i'll sip champagne to the sounds of laughter. then get posthumous recognition as a footnote in some book

[SilentDeath]

i can't really go into it due to the nature of the work - its no top secret what we're doing just 'how' we do it isn't always liked... its a bit sensitive and fanatics might 'seek and destroy' me. it has happened, trust me.

Hmm.. It involves small animals, and lots of sharp knives, but the muscles have to be alive still... so you dont kill the animal first?

[shiato storm]

Hmm.. It involves small animals, and lots of sharp knives, but the muscles have to be alive still... so you dont kill the animal first?

ew!...its not That bad. come on, this is a family forum!

[menthel]

Sounds like interesting work, shiato. You just have to stick it to them in the politest and most convincing way possible. You can never have enough data and good, backed up stats.