Lots of good things today, although not the weather. It is amazingly cold, and has been for days (I mean, like, 9 degrees cold. I now constantly wear at least two layers, and three layers of socks at least. Plus our bathroom is even colder now, since the HVAC guys needed access to the wall with the plumbing stack in order to run the new gas line to the upstairs :(

But... we'll have a new heating system, and be able to move forward to outlets up there! So it looks like the dry rooms up there, at least, will be finished by the summer. Yay!

In other good news, I got my boss to look over my first draft of my paper introduction, and she did a bit of editing, and pointed out some pieces of information that are missing. So I've got a little more work to do on that.

We also met with our statistics advisor today, and got more good news there. *** Science alert*** - I know everyone will skip this next part, but I want to try to live up to the neuropgh name by including a bit more about what I do.

It looks like I have a difference between my regions on my measure of linear density (I know, it's a technical oxymoron, but that's what it is - # transporters/ perimeter of plasma membrane). The difficult part is that the terminals in these areas are different sizes, and the efficiency of my labeling method varies from section to section. Actually it varies even within a section, as the distance from the section surface increases (I think, this is more a theoretical supposition, but it certainly does vary between terminals).

So, if these measures (i.e. size, and density of labeling overall (# gold particles/area of the labeled profile)) vary systematically between my two regions, these things could be responsible for the apparent regional differences. We try to deal with this statistically, by analyzing the relationships between all these variables. So far, I know that there is a difference in size between regions, and that the overall density of labeling is a significant predictor of the linear density of labeling. We forgot to ask is the overall density of labeling differs between regions, but those results will be in by the weekend.

There was another set of data (well, two actually) that I collected from the same terminals. This is a basic count of whether the terminals in question made a synapse (or not), and whether they contained any dense-cored vesicles (a structure that is associated with neuropeptide co-transmission). We then compared the rates of these occurrences between regions. It looks like the regions differ there too.

So, I have plenty to report in my first major (i.e. first author) paper.

After all that, I came home to my D, who was in the process of making dinner for us (double yay!). He has a job interview on Tuesday, and I know he's talked to a couple of other recruiters in the area. He's also been working on updating a couple of his revenue-generating websites, to increase the revenue part.

I kept company & washed dishes, then we had a nice hot dinner, & both settled down to do a bit of work. But I think it may be time for a popcorn break :)

Hope you all have a good night, and stay plenty warm. I will be encouraging the cats to sleep on my feet this evening.