As a general rule I don’t blog about work, but in this case I’ll make an exception. (My Mom hates the word “sucks”, but I’ve made an exception and used that in this post as well.) Today at work a manager sent out an email to let us know that some of our products really suck. And I couldn’t be more proud! You see, the email included a link to the case study, Using Graphical System Design to Help Premature Infants Learn to Oral Feed. I know a lot of you don’t really understand what I do and what type of products I work on since we don’t make things that you would end up using. The way I usually explain it is that I help make tools that other scientists and engineers use to make things. In this case, they are making a system that helps premature babies learn to suck, or “oral feed” for you technical folk. It is examples like this that make me believe that it is possible for me to do more for others by creating tools than it would be possible for me to do directly.

As an additional note for you physics buffs, our technology is also used in the largest machine in the world, the Large Hadron Collider. Some fear that will suck a little too much by creating earth swallowing black holes.