Scorp Express

Worldwide, many scientists, junior or senior, don’t fully understand the landscape of salaries and job satisfaction. They know the career-stage timeline well — graduate school to postdoc to academia or industry — but it is difficult to track contentment with one’s job by region or by job attributes such as health care, the degree of independence or mentoring potential.

This was a major aim of Nature’s first-ever salary and career survey. We looked at overall career satisfaction and the factors that contribute to it by career stage, gender and geographical region. More than 10,500 scientists responded to the survey from dozens of countries worldwide.

Published in Nature 465, 1104-1107 (23 June 2010) |

Molecular Psychiatry , (18 May 2010) | doi:10.1038/mp.2010.53

The notion that family support may buffer individuals under adversity from poor outcomes has been theorized to have important implications for mental and physical health, but little is known about the biological mechanisms that explain these links. We hypothesized that adults who grew up in low socioeconomic status (SES) households but who experienced high levels of maternal warmth would be protected from the pro-inflammatory states typically associated with low SES. A total of 53 healthy adults (aged 25–40 years) low in SES early in life were assessed on markers of immune activation and systemic inflammation. Genome-wide transcriptional profiling also was conducted. Low early-life SES individuals who had mothers, who expressed high warmth toward them, exhibited less Toll-like receptor-stimulated production of interleukin 6, and reduced bioinformatic indications of pro-inflammatory transcription factor activity (NF-κB) and immune activating transcription factor activity (AP-1) compared to those who were low in SES early in life but experienced low maternal warmth. To the extent that such effects are causal, they suggest the possibility that the detrimental immunologic effects of low early-life SES environments may be partly diminished through supportive family climates.

It was stunning.
Infant Tylonel has been the most trusted drug in our household. Even though FDA tried to reassure people by saying “the potential for serious health problems is remote”, no one can be sure at this moment and I couldn’t stop feeling angry.

Spent quite sometime to make minimal media for the organism I’m trying to culture–Shewanella ondenisis. The recipe was adopted from an article published in JB, for the exact same organism. Everything was fine until I added FeCl2. Well, to be fair, it’s FeCl2 and pH7.
I’ve tried multiple times, adding things in different order, etc. and it became clear to me that there’s some pretty strong oxidizing power in the water (when dissolving FeCl2 in water, within 10 min, I see orange pricipitates). I don’t think I can blame this all on O2 though, maybe HClO? tried boiling the water and didn’t seem to improve….

Many of my hubby’s friends from high school still live in his home town and have kids, and many kids were born the same year as Lele. So yesterday we finally managed to take Lele to his first playdate (and a reunion for the Dads). There were 5 kids, 4 boys and 1 girl, all between 14 to 20 months old. None of them really knows how to play with other little babies yet, grabbing each other’s toys or food was the most interaction they had. But they sort of enjoyed being together. Lele usually enjoys his meals, but yesterday he just couldn’t wait to finish his lunch and get out of the room to run with other kids, also he was too excited and didn’t take his nap until we got back home.
The good news is, the little girl seemed to like Lele, and they make a very cute couple =p.

Dad, what do I do? I have never talked to a girl!

How about we go get a drink after this? What do you say?

Dad, can I drive your car, please? I promise to be very careful!

“Strength does not come from winning
Your struggles develop your strength.
When you go through hardship
and decide not to surrender,
that is strength.”

My friend says I only update when I’m worried. I guess that’s very true lately. I’m so busy having fun with him when he is well =P. He loves playing hide and seek although he doesn’t quite master the concept of “hide” and keeps peeking. He also loves reading, or more accurately being read to. And he stays awake most of the time during the day, yea, he just started to combine his morning and afternoon naps into one early afternoon nap. This picture was taken when he still had the crack in his upper lip, so the smile is a little wierd and very cute (to me)

3 posts reporting sicknesses in a row, what kind of a lousy mom am I?

Soon after he survived Prevenar, a red area started to develop at a corner of his mouth. I left him on the 19th, it was a small red area , and 5 days later, it became a pretty bad ulcer. More than that, his gum looked very red, his breath smelled, and the coating of his tongue (the white stuff on one’s tongue) was unusually thick and yellowish. I don’t know how western medical theory would interpret these symptoms. But in the traditional Chinese medical  theories, all these symptoms suggested that the “balance” in his body was disturbed, and the element “fire” was taking over.  So I took the traditional measure—took off his extra clothes, made chrysanthemum tea, increase his water in-take, added more vegetable and fruit to his plate.

I really wish I have enough wisdom and courage to circumvent and deal with all these sicknesses. Lele is a wonderfully happy baby who almost never cries, so when he does cry, my heart gets ripped off.

020810, 10 am. Took the shot (Day 1)

Fever (>100F): 020810, 2 pm-020910, 1 pm. ( took 4 doses of Tylenol)

High temperature (98~100 F): 020910-021110, came in waves.

Irritability: accompanying the high temperature.

Interrupted sleep: 020810-021110

Poor appetite: 020910-021210

Vomiting: one incidence, 021010, after morning nap.

Diarrhea: 020910,  7 pm-0201410

         020910-021210, 7~8 waterish poop/24 h period

         021210-021410, ~3 very soft poop/ 24 h period

         021310 saw a tint of fresh blood in the stool, likely due to some anus injury caused by overly frequent bowl movement.

Mild hive (not sure whether this was related to the shot): 021510-021610, only on cheeks.

Lele’s mood had been ok the whole duration, except for the fever-baring moments. He was willing to play,  drink, and eat, although he ate very little. This was the only sign from which I got the confidence that he could survive this without medication.  I became anxious on the 10th and called Wyeth ( the producer of the vaccine), the local CDC, and went to the clinic where he was given the shot. None of them could tell me what’s going on. They all said that it was possible for the reaction to last for 3, 4 days and this may very well be it, but I should keep an close eye on him.  The only helpful thing was learnt from the doctor at the clinic, he said if it’s due to shot, then the reaction should decay monotonically. If any symptom came back after disappearance, then I should definitely take him to a doctor. Luckily, although very slowly, he seemed to be getting better. I also had my hubby consulted his friend who’s a pediatrician, he assured me that our boy should be fine.  

Finally, he made his first normal poop on the lunar new year’s day. I was more than happy.

I really am lucky that I did not mess up too bad this time.

We managed to get the majority of Lele’s immunization shots done before our relocation. That means there are a few shots left, and Prevnar was one of them. Prevnar is a “Pneumococcal 7-valent Conjugate Vaccine” by Wyeth which requires 4 shots for little babies. We got 3 done and one left. So you can imagine how excited I was when I learned that “沛儿“， a Pneumococcal 7-valent Conjugate Vaccine by Wyeth， is avaliable in China (although at a very high price).

So I called the local CDC to learn more about the vaccine, and searched on the internet at the same time. After I made sure that this indeed is a 7-valent Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine by Wyeth, and it’s the only vaccine against pneumococcal bacteria for babies under the age 2, I concluded that this must be the vaccine “Prevnar” we had. Totally overlooking that the English name for ”沛儿“ is PrevEnar, rather than Prevnar. Of course I checked the name, just did not notice the sneaky “E” at that time.

So my boy had the shot in the morning yesterday, and started to have fairly strong reactions, inculding a fever, irritability, decreased appetite, around noon, then diarrhea kicked in around 7 pm. Although this sounds like normal reactions, it is already of his personal record. I started to panic, searched for the vaccine again, and noticed the “E”. I was so devastated at that moment. Although a calm mind may be able to think that evenif it’s a different vaccine, it’s still a vaccine for babies of this age, there shouldn’t be any damage，all that I can think was “what have I . done to my baby!”.
After beating myself up and freaking out for a little while, it occcured to me that maybe I should check the content of these vaccines and see how different are they. To my joy, here’s what I found:

沛儿(Prevenar): 每0.5 ml剂量含各型多糖共16μg；其中6B型4μg，4、9V、14、18C、19F和23F型各2μg。
Prevnar:Each 0.5 mL dose is formulated to contain: 2 μg of each saccharide for serotypes 4, 9V, 14, 18C, 19F, and 23F, and 4 μg of serotype 6B per dose (16 μg total saccharide); approximately 20 μg of CRM197 carrier protein; and 0.125 mg of aluminum per 0.5 mL dose as aluminum phosphate adjuvant.
In clinical studies, the most frequently reported adverse events included injection site reactions, fever (38ºC/100.4ºF), irritability, drowsiness, restless sleep, decreased appetite, vomiting, diarrhea, and rash.

The former was from the intro page (could not open the detailed word file) and the latter from “Prescribing Information”. Hopefully that explains why more details were provided for Prevnar. According to some random report I found on the web, “Prevenar” seems to be the name used outside the U.S.. Cannot tell you how happy and grateful I was when I had these better reasons to believe that they are the same vaccine.

Maybe this sounds a little paranoid, but after this vaccine incidence, I will be much more careful when dealing with things like this. You can not be paranoid enough when it comes to child’s safty.