Is it just me or does one's affinity for science extend beyond the lab and office?  I realized the other day, as I was browsing the bookstore for a new fiction book to read on a long plane ride, that my love of all things nerdy has permeated into my entire life.  I don't know why it is, but I can't get enough.

I have mentioned before that of my favorite sitcoms is Big Bang Theory,and I am into [loosely] science-based programming like Mythbusters (controls? Who needs stinkin controls?), Mystery Diagnosis (I LOVE that show if I could just get past my hypochondria), House (I learned it is NEVER Lupus), E.R./Grey's Anatomy (where there is clearly a "sex appeal" screening before being hired as a physician), and Dr.G: Medical Examiner (which reminds us that "every body has a story.")

No, I am not so much a fan of science fiction (think space travel or robotics) but more medical thrillers and scientific experimentation gone awry (think Jurassic Park and The Hot Zone). Although I will confess to enjoying Star Wars sub-genre, much to the delight of LabDad.

I am not a big pleasure reader, I am more of TV girl, but the when I do pick up a book just for fun I always seem to gravitate towards this same genre.

I just finished reading Marker by Robin Cook, who along with the late Michael Crichton, are my absolute favorite authors. The plot of Marker revolves around a big bad insurance company secretly using microarray detection of SNPs in patient samples to evaluate disease susceptibility. In this case the HMO hires mentally unstable thugs to knock off relatively healthy patients who may require expensive insurance payouts down the line (a spoiler any scientist could infer just from reading the book jacket).  And although the explanations of the genetics are simplistic and the condemnation of managed care is overt, I still found it entertaining and enjoyable.

Besides, with a sequencing gel superimposed on the front cover, how could one resist?

I don't know if this preference says anything about me. It would seem that after running 10,000 PCR reactions and thinking about genotypes all day long, the last thing anyone would want to do is sit down and read a book about BRCA testing in a fictional character, or flip on the TV to watch a chemistry grad student act a fool on national TV, but I do.

And yes yes yes.. I have heard it before. That isn't really science. The doctors on Grey's are always breaking HIPAA,  the investigators on CSI are a joke to the profession, you can't clone dinosaurs out of a petrified mosquito and Jamie and Adam only really there to blow shit up.  But maybe that is why I enjoy it.  Because I can suspend reality long enough to sit back and play the 'what ifs.'   What if you could sequence your genome in 15 seconds (a la GATTACA) or what if doctors really used differential diagnosis sketched on a whiteboard to throw out random guesses about a course of treatment? WHAT IF? Wouldn't that be so much more fun than reality?

So I will continue to lose myself in the entertainment (albeit unrealistic) side of science.

I can't help it.