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Lab Girl_Hope Jahren

by Iamhere 2018. 3. 11.

Lab Girl -Hope Jahren


유시민 작가가 알쓸신잡에서 소개해서 읽게 된 Lab Girl은 최근에 읽었던 책들 중에서 제일 가슴에 와 닿았다. 구구절절이 좋은 구절들이 너무 많아서 나중에 다시 보려고 접어둔 페이지가 너무 많을 정도로.


작가의 과학과 연구에 대한 사랑, 연구 동료와의 끈끈한 동료애, 여성 과학자로서 엄마로서 결코 쉽지는 않지만 반짝이는 즐거움을 찾는 인생 여정은 요즘 학계에 지친 나에게 많은 위로가 되었다. 특히나 작가의 인생 여정을 그의 전문분야인 식물과 나무에 빗대어서 이야기가 얽히는 구성이 참으로 좋았다. 


아래는 정말로 좋았던 몇가지 구절들:



A true scientist doesn't perform prescribed experiments; she develops her own and thus generates wholly new knowledge. This transition between doing what you're told and telling yourself what to do generally occurs midway through a dissertation. In many ways, it is the most difficult and terrifying thing that a student can do, and being unable or unwilling to do it is much of what weeds people out of Ph.D. programs. -p. 66



Why are they together, the tree and the fungus? We don't know. The fungus could certainly live very well alone almost anywhere, but it chooses to entwine itself with the tree over an easier and more independent life. It has adapted to seek the rush of pure sweetness that comes directly from a plant root, such a strange and concentrated compound, unlike anything to be found elsewhere in the forest. And perhaps the fungus can somehow sense that when it is part of a symbiosis, it is also not alone. - p. 105



Go back the next day, and the next, and so on. Keep talking about it; keep sharing its unfolding story. Once people begin to roll their eyes and gently tell you that you're crazy, laugh with gratification. When you're a scientist, it means that you're doing it right. - p. 282