By Justin Peacock

I am beginning this blog as my preliminary foray into the world of science writing. I hope that readers will find the blog amusing and fascinating as I delve into the amazing world of science, my life as a scientist, and the inextricable link that binds society to scientific discovery.

As prologue to this epic undertaking, I begin by describing my entrance into science. It is difficult to pinpoint the exact moment when I knew that I wanted to be a scientist, because I know that many events contributed to my early childhood desire to learn about and understand the world around me. However, I vividly remember my first light microscope (see an example to the right). I was so excited when I finally figured out how to angle the light just right, so that I could see the specimen through the eyepiece. I quickly tried to find bugs, plants, feathers, and other items that I could observe with my scope. I can't quite explain the rush that comes from seeing something that is blurry and obscure finally come into crystal clear focus, so that details, patterns, textures, colors, and the composite beauty of nature is revealed in all its glory. Ironically, as I am writing this post, I just finished an experiment on another microscope, a high powered scope that can magnify individual groups of proteins within cells, take movies of cells moving along a surface, and illuminate features of the cell in beautiful arrays of color (see examples of my cell images below). However, even with the power of this microscope, it does not compare to the spirit that was ignited with that small light microscope purchased from a local thrift store.

These humble yet exciting beginnings continued through my high school and college career to my current position as a PhD student at Yale University in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry. I still feel the rush of observing nature under the microscope and discovering something that no one has seen or thought of before. I think it is this rush, this overwhelming desire to discover something new that drives most scientists. I think it is very similar to the rush that Da Vinci must have felt when he finished the last stroke on a painting, that Barack Obama felt when the last state secured his majority for the presidency, that Dr. Shumway felt when the heart he just transplanted beat for the first time, or that Michael Phelps felt when he won his record eighth gold medal in the Beijing Olympics. These feelings are common to the human experience, and I hope to portray scientists and their lives in a way that will feel familiar to you, the reader. I will also highlight important and enlightening discoveries that will directly impact the way we think and live. Lastly, I hope to illuminate and bring the beauties of life and nature into crystal clear focus through the lens of my life.

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