Opinion: 6 impossible things

Science, this very creative human endeavor to understand the nature of the reality that exists independently of ourselves, is impossible. By "impossible," I am not saying "very, very difficult," although it is that, as well. We use our senses and instruments to extend them to try to map reality (at least those bits we care about) onto our consciousness and perceive that the map we collectively share is the reality. I know I am being very Cartesian here, but hopefully you can see what the problem is: the "map" is not the reality. So the endeavor is, therefore, impossible.

Flickr, Evil Erin

My mandate here is to identify the sources of stress in our scientific lives, and to suggest ways to deal with them. I have taken the Red Queen's advice regarding a number of impossible things (by which I mean "very, very difficult") that might be believed before breakfast. My only credentials are that I, too, experience the same stress every day, albeit not always before breakfast. Thing #1. You Are Not in Control of the AnswersThis is one of the greatest sources of stress in our professional lives. We know from wretched experience that most of what we try doesn't work, and this stresses us out.There is a reason for this: Life is not logical, because living things are not designed. Any biological system is a cobbled-together affair that once upon a time happened to work better than some other contraption, so that it was reproduced and subsequently built upon. And therefore our utterly logical experiments fail. So here's the thing: Control what you can control. Test and optimize every reagent each time you buy it, test your cells, do small pilots, make sure that if it can work, it will. And keep records so you can do it again. Thing #2. Ideas Come from the Eighth DimensionThere are many ideas that are not eighth dimensional (or great). So apply the coolness test -- is it so absolutely cool that someone else to whom you tell it cannot stand not to know whether or not it is true? So how do you get hold of such an idea? Or a dozen? You are going to hate the answer: Read. A lot. If you are reading five to ten papers per day, you've got the gist of it. Then, when you happen to think about something you have noticed in the lab, wondered about in the literature, or worried about late at night (you do this, right?), there emerges an "aha" that might explain something that has never been explained before. (How do you know it hasn't been explained before? Because you did the reading! I bet Buckaroo Bonzai did, too.)Thing #3. You Cannot Multitask Your ResearchOf course I multitask. My desk is mission control, complete with pulsating screens, ringing phones, flashing lights, and "Houston, we have a problem." Multitasking is inevitable.But there is a fundamental problem with this perspective (and approach). It is those things that don't snap at us and demand our attention, those deadline-less things, that often actually count in the long run. Developing our ideas, thinking about results, writing up the research, planning the next stage of the research: these things take time -- focused, uninterrupted time. We tend to feed the nearest wolf. Add these to the pack.Thing #4. Stress Can Be Good for YouWe know that chronic stress can be detrimental to one's health, but a little stress can be a good thing. A good actor nurtures and savors the pre-curtain jitters, peaking just before entrance. The trick is not to eliminate stress, but to master it, bending this evolutionary gift to our needs, those times when we need it. Thing #5. Be an AthleteAthletes will talk about "the wall," a point at which the body simply cannot continue to sustain the physical hardship of the competition. They use their training, experience, and sheer will to dig deep and press through "the wall," and we have to do something similar -- we have to be mental athletes who struggle with difficult concepts until we hit a wall, and keep thinking. You're a professional scientist -- think like one.Thing #6. You Are Your Support GroupI apologize in advance for what I am about to say: Oh, please stop whining and get some backbone! Who ever told you this was going to be easy? This is a creative enterprise that has this in common with all other creative enterprises -- you do it not because it provides you with security and a stable career ladder, but because you can't bring yourself to do anything else.These assertions, these impossible things to subvert, subjugate, and master the stress in our scientific lives are, at one level, ridiculous -- there are no simple answers as to what can lift you onto the wave so that you can ride it out. But you are going to do it anyway, so why not give it all you've got? Impossible, I know, but hey, we do impossible for breakfast.

Douglas R. Green

linkurl:Douglas R. Green;http://www.stjude.org/stjude/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=cdb410e88ce70110VgnVCM1000001e0215acRCRD studies cell death and survival at the Department of Immunology, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN. This essay is a shortened version of "Stress in biomedical research: Six impossible things," linkurl:Mol Cell,;http://www.cell.com/molecular-cell/abstract/S1097-2765%2810%2900783-5 40:176-178, 2010. He is also the author of linkurl:Means to an End: Apoptosis and Other Cell Death Mechanisms,;http://www.cshlpress.com/default.tpl?action=full&--eqskudatarq=884 available from Cold Spring Harbor Press. He is a member of the Faculty of Cell Biology at F1000. For his latest evaluations, linkurl:click here.;http://www.f1000.com/thefaculty/member/1782036998295682
**__Related stories:__***linkurl:Early stress alters epigenome;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/56139/
[8th November 2009]*linkurl:Short-term stress stops cancer;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/56023/
[28th September 2009]*linkurl:Stressed brains rely on habit;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/55873/
[30th July 2009]*linkurl:The Brain on Stress;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/home/53442/
[August 2007]