Ruhlman Conference

Participating in the Ruhlman conference was a fun experience and a good end to the year. Like others have mentioned, it was a better environment to give presentations than at the museum because we had a longer time with the audience to get involved in the properties of our neurotransmitters and also to get into the art. Our presentation remained mostly the same, except this time we also included a ‘bad comedy sketch.’

1. A.     Hello everybody, this is our friend Serge
2. B.    Serge is a moody guy.  Sometimes he wakes up happy (slap an upside down clay smile on him) and sometimes he wakes up sad (flip the clay smile)
3. C.     (now hold him at a tilt)   “some people say he is a bit imbalanced”
4. D.    (now pull marbles out of his head) “and some people say he lost his marbles.
5. E.     Does anyone here know what’s wrong with our friend Serge?  Is he imbalanced? Has he lost his marbles. (hold out some molecules)
6. F.     Well Serge problem is that he has no surge.  That is spelled S.U.R.G. E.
7. G.    He has no surge of serotonin, he lacks serotonin
8. H.    Serotonin is one of the bodies neurochemicals (C10 H12 N2 O) Hey, were’s the oxygen? (presenters look in their pockets and all around)
9. I.       When doing its job serotonin is responsible for (serotonin plays an important role in sleep, mood, appetite, temperature regulation, and pain perception)
10. J.       Let’s go a little deeper into Serge’s brain.  When Serge’s big brown eyes sees a group of people like you he feels happy because Serotonin is being released from the end of some of his brain nerve cells and tickling other cells to respond.  Boy that sounded really unscientific let’s try again.  (now say something really technical like and not in plain in English ) (at the terminal ending of cells, serotonin is released by dendrites into the synapse which is the junction between two nerve cells, it then attaches to receptors and is transported into the receiving cell)  (just wanted to use some science lingo)
11. K.     Because Serge has no surge he is not himself.  His friends have noticed unusual behavior  (fell in love too fast and other stuff)
12. L.      Serge’s problem might fix itself when winter is over and if he exercises as these things boost our serotonin levels.
13. M. He tried eating turkey because serotonin comes from 5ht (turkey is loaded with this).  His speech got a little garbled but that was it.
14. N.   So Surge went to the doctor and he gave her a prescription medicine

Called “S” erotonin “U”ptake “R” eceptor inhibitor (couldn’t find anything for the “GE”) which boosted his serotonin levels.  At the same time he got a 4.0 average at MIT, got a new girlfriend, won the lottery, and published his articles in a great journal.

Now Surge is one happy guy and loving guy.  No one can say he has a heart of stone.

Here is a bad joke  (serge did not want ecstasy because he was afraid of getting busted)