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Cephalopodia at the PTSA!
Category: Humor
Usually, I leave the cephalopod genre to PZ, but that was before I attended last night's PTSA meeting.
Posted by Sandra Porter at 8:20 AM • 1 Comments •
Discovering Biology in a Digital World
My thoughts on biology, teaching, life, and exploring the living world via the digital one. Only my opinions are represented by these postings, they do not represent the viewpoints of any funding agency or Geospiza, Inc.
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I am a microbiologist and molecular biologist turned tenured biotech faculty turned bioinformatics scientist turned entrepreneur. My passion is developing instructional materials for 21st century biology (Geospiza Education).
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- Workforce shortages in biotechnology, part I. Why is this a problem?
- Would your class like to clone and sequence plant genes?
- You tell 'em Arnold!
- The Genetic Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) is passed by the House
- The snake rescuer
- A molecule for May
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- Comparing mutant and wild type structures
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- Deepak on Workforce shortages in biotechnology, part I. Why is this a problem?
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September 28, 2006
September 27, 2006
It's not the subject, it's the teaching
Category: Science education
Students don't leave science because it's too hard, or too easy, students leave science because of the way that it's taught.
Posted by Sandra Porter at 1:16 PM • 6 Comments •
DNA and the Dead Sea Scrolls
Category: Bioinformatics
We went on an excursion last weekend to see the Dead Sea Scrolls at the Pacific Science Center. None of us could resist going downtown to look at written texts over 2000 years old. Uncovered in 1946, by a Bedouin shepherd, the scrolls have had an interesting history over the past 50 years, most of it out of the public...
Posted by Sandra Porter at 8:59 AM • 0 Comments •
September 26, 2006
White people are mutants
Category: Classic Digital Bio
Razib inspired me to share some of the story behind why white people are considered derivatives. Reposted from the Classic Digital Bio. No red herrings, here! Lamason et. al. found a single gene that controls human skin color while studying pigmentation in zebra fish (1)....
Posted by Sandra Porter at 8:58 AM • 3 Comments •
September 25, 2006
Bio::Blogs 4 is on the way
Category: Announcements
Like computers? Like biology? Want to find a way to combine the two worlds? Bio::Blogs, a carnival at the intersection of biology, computing, and math, will be hosted here October 1st. For those of you who are wondering what this all means, it means that on Sunday, I will post a collection of links to interesting stories that are somehow...
Posted by Sandra Porter at 12:59 PM • 0 Comments •
September 22, 2006
Seattle cabs are naturally gassed
Category: environmental education
As they say, there's nothing like travel to learn new and unexpected things. Especially from cab drivers. One of my ScienceBlog Sibs, Shelly, spends time talking with cabbies about earwax, but I seem to invite other kinds of lectures....
Posted by Sandra Porter at 9:53 PM • 4 Comments •
What is the direction of the rainbow?
Category: Digital Biology Fridays
and what is the volume of the sea? This sounds a bit like the beginning of a poem but it's really the answer to the question we posed last week on a Digital Biology Friday....
Posted by Sandra Porter at 2:50 PM • 1 Comments •
September 19, 2006
Every Structure has a Story
Category: Classic Digital Bio
Molecular structures are wonderful for science and enjoyable, in their own respect, as works of art. Here are some of my favorite DNA structures.
Posted by Sandra Porter at 1:55 PM • 1 Comments •
September 15, 2006
Digital Biology Friday: Rainbows, Models, and DNA
Category: Digital Biology Fridays
Today, we're going to look for rainbows in double-stranded DNA and see what they can tell us about DNA structure....
Posted by Sandra Porter at 2:18 PM • 0 Comments •
September 13, 2006
"I hear the cottonwoods whispering above.."
Category: Plant biology
Remember that scene in "The Wizard of Oz" when the trees get ticked off and start hurling apples at poor Dorothy? How do you think real plants defend themselves?
Posted by Sandra Porter at 3:13 PM • 5 Comments •
September 12, 2006
Confessions of an organic gardener, part I.
Category: Ask a Science Blogger
The Ask a Science Blogger question of the week asks if organic foods are really worth the hype. I'm afraid my answer can't fit into one blog post. Let me start by telling you about my garden. This year my garden has been a home to local wildlife, but during the years that I do garden, I have a semi-organic...
Posted by Sandra Porter at 7:30 AM • 4 Comments •
September 11, 2006
I want my plant TV!
Category: Classic Digital Bio
A long time ago, I saw a Star Trek episode where the crew encountered aliens who lived at a different frequency. I may have this backwards, but I think the aliens moved so quickly that no one knew they were there. And until problems struck, our heroes were happily oblivious to the existence of the others. The Plants In Motion...
Posted by Sandra Porter at 12:46 PM • 2 Comments •
September 9, 2006
TV for teachers
Category: Announcements
"And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard, And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall. " - BoB Dylan Tired of Simpson reruns and the exploits of Friends? [From the WSTA] NOVA is broadcasting an entire series of shows on hurricanes, Katrina, and what the experts predicted would happen should a hurricane ever...
Posted by Sandra Porter at 5:25 PM • 0 Comments •
September 8, 2006
Digital Biology Friday: Seeing in 3D with Cn3D
Category: Digital Biology Fridays
Why do I love Cn3D? Let me count the ways. What does Cn3D do? (Hint: say "Cn3D" out loud). Seriously, Cn3D is a program that draws lovely pictures of molecular structures by using experimental data from techniques like X-ray crystallography and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Surprisingly (to some), and in contrast to many bioinformatics programs, Cn3D is really easy and...
Posted by Sandra Porter at 11:38 AM • 0 Comments •
September 7, 2006
BLASTing through the kingdom of life
Category: Science education
No biology course is complete these days without learning how to do a BLAST search. Herein, I describe an assignment and an animated tutorial that teachers can readily adopt and use, and give teachers a hint for obtaining the password-protected answer key. Development of the tutorial and the activity were supported by funding from the National Science Foundation. This is...
Posted by Sandra Porter at 9:59 AM • 0 Comments •
September 6, 2006
Wear your passions on your sleeve
Category: molecular structures
How can you win a nerd contest if you don't dress the part? Last year, I started a shop at CafePress to help distribute lab materials and fund my adventures in science education. Part of the fun has been making molecular merchandise to help show everyone that molecular models are beautiful, in their own special way, and help people engage...
Posted by Sandra Porter at 1:30 PM • 0 Comments •
Don't mention the War!
Category: Announcements
Do you ever imagine the presidential advisors doing the Basil Fawlty silly walk, looking crazed and confused, and quoting John Cleese whenever there's been a bad day in the Middle East? I do. And this mental picture makes me think the title of Chris Mooney's book (The Republican War on Science) will surely keep it out of the top ten...
Posted by Sandra Porter at 11:33 AM • 0 Comments •
September 5, 2006
Dangerous chemistry: explosive experiments with junk food
Category: Chemistry & Biochemistry
Ole and Lena's hot dish on a stick probably is explosive if you like to ride on a tilt-a-whirl afterwards. But what do you do if you're far from St. Paul? Never fear. There is more to life than hot dish....
Posted by Sandra Porter at 11:00 AM • 0 Comments •
September 4, 2006
Enjoy summer while you can
Category: Announcements
or, better yet, enjoy the fine selection of summer carnivals....
Posted by Sandra Porter at 3:04 PM • 0 Comments •
September 1, 2006
Digital Biology Friday: The importance of being aerobic
Category: Digital Biology Fridays
If we compare sections 1, 2, and 3, we see that section 2 matches very well in a number of different samples, and that there are differences between the sequences in sections 1 and 3. We also learn something about the people who did the experiment....
Posted by Sandra Porter at 11:37 AM • 0 Comments •
