On Wednesday July 27, Dr. Stuart Ravnik, Assistant Dean of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center's Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, gave a UBRP seminar entitled, "Why do Science?: Getting to that Eureka Moment!" Early on he asked the audience to count the number of F's in the following sentence, quickly:

FINISHED FILES ARE THE RESULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC EXPERIENCE COMBINED WITH THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS. (Answer at end of article.)

Even with many of UBRP's most scintillating intellects in attendance, almost everyone was fooled. This was Dr. Ravnik's demonstration of the difference between everyday thinking and the rigorously lucid thinking demanded of the research scientist.

For most of the talk, Dr. Ravnik held forth on the choice between graduate school and medical school. One apparently must make the choice with great care, as the wrong track can lead to some pretty dirty career blues, and trying to choose both may be fatuous. Although UT Southwestern has an MD/PhD program, Dr. Ravnik makes the claim that "MD/PhD” is a buzzword, and that one should seek it out after great soul-searching. Students often fail to realize that the life work of an MD/PhD will be heavily slanted toward research and not patient care. While providing many objective facts for UBRPers who may be on the fence, it became clear which side Dr. Ravnik falls on. He came maybe half a wisecrack short of a tongue-in-cheek declaration that scientists are the rock'n'roll super genius party gods of the modern world.

Afterwards, a small group of UBRPers took Dr. Ravnik to dinner at Feast (described by Tucson Weekly as "one of the most loveable restaurants in Tucson"). During the course of a sumptuous, well... feast; we also feasted on Dr. Ravnik’s knowledge. That is a great benefit of participation in UBRP social events -- free-for-all brain picking of researchers like Dr. Ravnik on subjects as diverse as MD/PhD programs, head transplants, and earrings shaped like sperm cells. (He's a gametogenesis guy, and sometimes declares it with fashion.) (Translation: for an Assistant Dean he has a world-class sense of humor.)

Answer: There are six F's in the sentence. If like most mere mortals you answered three (on a quick first count!), visit www-psychology.concordia.ca/fac/kli/PSYC352-Li/wk1-2/wk1intro.pdf for an explanation from the field of cognitive science.

S. Kent Kemmish, UBRPer in Dr. Danny Brower’s Laboratory, Molecular & Cellular Biology.