So apparently EVERYONE knows that 293T cells are human embryonic kidney cells. Man, am I behind the eight ball!! I was informed of this earlier this morning as I listened to Dan give a practice talk for a colloquium this afternoon. At least I got all my stupid questions out in private. It's OK, I know, there is no such thing as a stupid question, just stupid people who ask questions.
Poor Dan. He came to my office yesterday after giving a practice talk to his lab members, who oversaturated him with comments and 'improvement suggestions.' I'm sure he'll do fine, but you just have to get through that 24 hours of purgatory before the talk where you go through stages of coping, including denial, wailing and gnashing of teeth, meek submission, mad productivity (usually lasts about 2 minutes max), whimpering in front of the 'puter, PROCRASTINATION, almost submitting to the thought of reading more in Harry Potter, feeling guilty for even thinking about submitting to the thought of reading more in Harry Potter, exhaustion around 1 am, decision to go to bed, finding out that although you were almost asleep in front of the 'puter, now that you're in bed you can't close your eyes and you have little macrophages and mousies floating around in your mind, panic as you see the spouse sleeping peacefully next to you ("what??? I need sleep too!!!"), 3 hours of sleeping, and somehow procrastination takes over again, when you realize that the talk is at 4 pm--so much time left to work on it, no problem!!
Anyway, I'm sure he'll be fine, and if not, I'm supposed to stand up too quickly and faint in the middle of an abysmal part of his talk. Then he has an excuse to be rattled the rest of the talk.