The weekly lab meeting

Today was the weekly lab meeting for the Kahmann lab. Much longer than our lab meetings but good they present raw data - Westerns, microscope photos, alignments or whatever are thrown into the middle of the table for everyone to see and discuss. Consequently, there are some long discussions. I am surprised they use just one reference gene for their qRT-PCR. I am now realising what a tremendous resource we have with all our RNAseq data to inform our research.

Yesterday Christine and I made a day visit to Kassel which is a big city about one hour by train north of Marburg. Given I had a Bioprotection Centre report to finish before we left we didn't arrive there till lunch time then spent the afternoon walking around the splendid gardens of Wilhelmshöhe park, one of the biggest public parks in Europe. This park has UNESCO heritage status because of a major statue of Hercules mounted on a massive octagonal stone structure which is also the source of this amazing waterway that leads down the hill through a series of ponds, waterfalls and aqueducts. It was constructed in the 17th century by Landgrave Karl of Hesse-Kassel. 400,000 litres of water are released down this waterway every Wednesday, Sunday and public holiday. It takes over an hour for the water to reach the pond directly in front of the magnificent Schloss Wilhelmshöhe.