Lava Lamps of Biology

J: ...and so they use the power--the worm--you can see the synapse of the worm--this is taken from a live, living worm so all these are like synapses along the cell. Muscles right above it, but you can't see the muscles because we don't highlight it. And so you highlight a specific part in the normal worm. Then you enter a mutation to like a motor--a motor for it to--something that carries uh aspects to the synapse. And what happens: you don't get any of this. So it's telling you that normally it's established evenly and you can see the dots, but when you take away this it has such a profound effect that you don't get anything any more. So this guy was very necessary to carry out--or to establish the structure for this to be there.

A: Got it.

J: It might not necessarily carry this indivdual thing itself out, but it might have carried out like the like the skeleton--skeletal structure for it to reside in you know. So it's like a two-step thing you know: we don't know but this is saying without this you don't get any of this. So and also without this guy you don't get any early endosomes at the synpase, which is this mark, a specific structure called the synapse. And with this guy it's sort of different um it's smaller and uh--

A: It's visible.

J: It's visible.

A: Does that prove anything?

J: Yeah it proves that this guy is is it proves that in this background you still have this going on--normal. Whenever it's italicized with like an "e" or something it means there's a mutation to it. A specific type of mutation. So in this guy it's going normally so normally when this guy is active it's helping produce all this and when this guy is gone it's affecting like uh structures basically. It's like you take away one and the other and you get--you take away one and you see like the normal functions of what the other one normally does. Basically you know. But say you take away this one, "unc 104," you still have normal this guy, "unc 116" is normal in this in this background. So it's telling you this guy is really important you know, but if you take this guy away you still have a normal--normal this guy and so this guy is telling you how it's normally creating it, and they're a little bit smaller or bigger or whatever. If you take away both of them to see which one is more important than the other you know, it's totally gone, this guy's much more important than--

A: So what is your ultimate goal for the whole paper.

J: This paper? Is just to show that we can use this as a tool. In worms. That we--that different things are happening to all these structures given all these markers wrap 5, wrap 7, wrap 10, wrap 11, and which motors are important to do--or, to establish which structures you know. So like, creating a sort of like pathway you know. Cause like all of them kind of merge from each other cause like initially you have a thing called an early endosome. And from the early endosome buds this thing called the late endosome... if that makes any sense.

A: Kind of. I don't know what an endosome is.

J: Well--so think of a big structure like a big vesicle--you know what a vesicle is? A big like round.

[some old men start pointing in our direction and we move away from their pointing to make sure they aren't pointing at us]

J: Ok, so basically what is is you have this big like round structure like a big circle you know with a bunch of shit stored in it. We call that an endosome. The structure. And from that like basically the way these work is like things like bud away from it kind of like you know the--I guess the best analogy for what it looks like is you know those glowing like tubes? You know those like glowing uh hippy tubes? Like the--

A: Yeah yeah yeah.

J: That's like the--

A: You put around your neck.

J: Huh? No no no it's like one of those structures where you plug it in and it like glows orange or something and you get that big blob--

A: Oh a lava lamp?

J: The lava lamp yeah! That's what it is, an early endosome is like a lava lamp, a big lava lamp, and things move away from it you know, like a big like lump, that's like a vesicle. So a lava lamp is like a big vesicle and when things move away, small vesicles move away you know. So the main, the main structure is the early endosome. The big lava lamp is the early endosome and when things bud away from it they can go different ways. Like they can go left, like depending on the way. So the lava lamp can be like up or down. Up goes to another structure called a late endosome, that does something a little bit different where things get destructed. Or down: recyclying endosome: where things go to get recycled and can be reused.

A: So do we have these in our bodies?

J: Yeah every cell does.

A: Every cell wow.

J: And every neuron does. No work has been really done to see like which motors are really necessary to establish these structures.

A: So you're basically studying that.

J: Yeah we're studying--

A: You're studying white cells, stem cells.

J: No we're studying just neuron cells. The polarized cell. No one really knows what happens in a very polarized cell. So this the first like absolute, high, high analysis of what's going on. From this one image--these images I like do this, [flipping pages] I do all this, from this one image I do this and this and all this analysis basically, like three pages of analysis based on four images you know. But of course I take a bunch of these images and I do a lot of calculations.

A: So you--Ok, so it's interesting for me to actually see it visually because you always talk about it but I don't really--but now I can understand it more.

J: These are good images you know. All these are like--they're showing you that different things are happening like equilibrium you know of the like lava lamp if you will you know. Normally it's like this, you take away something and you're lava lamp is much smaller you know but you have to think about what's going on. So like this guy, his main importance is--so this is like the bottom of the lava lamp. It's interesting because this guy is important to make--he comes from basically this guy--they say, the path goes--uh it doesn't really matter. I think it's only in like the world of like endosomes where people really understand what's going on you know. It's a really difficult project, a really difficult project to talk about you know, it's like "What have you been doing?" Well I've been doing like this but--

A: How to put it into like laymen's terms.

J: I can't. Can't do it. I shouldn't, it's not worth it for like--I need to fix this.

A: I don't care. But I--I'm interested in like to know more but--

[as Jad reads some of his paper the Lebanese music swells and his voice becomes unintelligible]