An Odyssey at the Interface – A Study in the Stream of Consciousness

Abstract

Experimental science should be experimental in every aspect of it, from the life and career path of the experimenter to how its results and thoughts are being written up. In this paper, the author experiments with the stream of consciousness style of writing. To conform to this literary style, the text follows a natural train of thought that abounds with analogies and associations and deliberate typographic and syntactic omissions at times. Paying an homage to Joyce’s Ulysses as the hallmark of the stream of consciousness writings, the author demonstrates empirically and through a bibliographic meta-analysis that a nanoparticle protected against biodegradation in lysosomal compartments of the cell, like Odysseus, takes significantly more time to return to its point of origin than to reach its intracellular destination. Thus, getting across the biological barrier and into the living system is less laborious and tardy than escaping from it. From here on, the corollaries of this finding relevant for the field of targeted drug delivery using nanoparticles are elaborated. This discussion is entwined with the storyline of the paper, which reflects Homer’s epic poem about Odysseus and his long journey home. This experiment in scientific writing is motivated by the hope that rejuvenation of the literary style of technical papers in natural sciences might revitalize the rusty creativity and ill social relations underlying them. By experimenting with literary novelties and eventually adopting them as a common practice, science would be brought closer to the world of arts, at the interface of which it could rediscover its renaissance identity and flourish anew.