What I do (Part 1)

A lot of times people ask me what I study/research/degree. This can briefly be summed as follow

X: So what is your Master degree on?

Me: Molecular Biology.

X: Oh. Sounds fancy/interesting.

*awkward pause, where you can tell they clearly have no idea what I do and don't know how to proceed*

Me: *in attempt to sound friendly* It's kinda like Biotech, but Biotech is more like the business aspect. This is the basic research part.

X: Oh.

Actually, I wasn't really telling the entire truth, kinda like watered-down and measured-in-PPM kind of truth. From Wikipedia:

Molecular biology is the branch of biology that deals with the molecular basis of biological activity ... Molecular biology chiefly concerns itself with understanding and the interactions between the various systems of a cell, including the interactions between the different types of DNA, RNA and protein biosynthesis as well as learning how these interactions are regulated."

It's kinda like saying I'm doing Biology. Or Physics (hah!). It's just a general term for a field of study. While I do quite a several aspects of research, my main interest and focus is on molecular phylogenetics.

For now though, let's focus on understanding the concept of phylogeny.  Rather than throw lines of jargons at you, I was pointed to this excellent and well-produced video, which I think does a great job of highlighting the wonder of nature, the concept of phylogeny and why we study it.

  

More to come..