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What happens to graduates of high school biotech programs?
Category: Science education
Some of them work for Bayer.
Posted by Sandra Porter at 2:09 PM • 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?
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August 27, 2007
August 25, 2007
Got DNA sequencing problems? Who ya gonna call?
Category: Biotechnology
Why the ABRF of course! I spend a fair amount time every summer giving workshops for college and high-school teachers on genomics and bioinformatics. One of the things that always surprises them, is the amount of lab work that's carried out by people working in shared, or core lab facilities. For example, if I was working at a research university...
Posted by Sandra Porter at 5:30 PM • 0 Comments •
August 24, 2007
Digital Biology Friday: A helpful hint
Category: Bioinformatics
I began this series last week with a question about a DNA sequence that was published and reported to be one the first beta-lactamases to be found in Streptococcus pneumoniae. Mike has a great post about one of problems with this paper. I think the data themselves are awfully suspicious....
Posted by Sandra Porter at 6:44 PM • 4 Comments •
Godzilla, tuberculosis, and XDR-TB
Category: Science education
What's the connection?(image from Newton TAB blog) I have to admit, I don't know. But, I do know where you can find out. Dr. Gerard Cangelosi, from the Seattle Biomedical Research Institute, will be speaking about tuberculosis, godzilla, and XDR-TB, Monday night, 7 pm at the Pub at Ravenna Third Place as part of Science on Tap. tags: tuberculosis, informal...
Posted by Sandra Porter at 12:00 PM • 1 Comments •
August 23, 2007
Grants for kids to study beetles
Category: Science education
Charles Darwin was so fascinated by beetles he paid people to help him build his collection. The Coleopterists Society and the Smithsonian Institute want to help kids explore the wonders of beetles, too. They're providing grants for kids, in grades 7-12 to work on beetle biology. Applications are due by November 15, 2007....
Posted by Sandra Porter at 3:00 PM • 1 Comments •
August 22, 2007
Do biologists need to learn programming?
Category: Science education
I get asked this question often enough and now that's it's come up again, it seems that I might as well answer it once and for all and get it over with....
Posted by Sandra Porter at 9:16 AM • 11 Comments •
SciVee: more beta than YouTube?
Category: web resources
or maybe seminars on parade? They're calling them PubCasts, but I don't think I'll be watching them in a pub. Seriously, SciVee is kind of cute, and has lots of potential down the road, and even has a few unintentional moments of humor right now, but.......
Posted by Sandra Porter at 12:24 AM • 6 Comments •
August 21, 2007
Is phred dead? Let's see the data
Category: sequence analysis
Calling all bases, how many are correct?
Posted by Sandra Porter at 8:25 AM • 6 Comments •
August 20, 2007
Careers in biotechnology, part VI. More opinions on bioinformatics in a software company
Category: Bioinformatics
Second opinions on bioinformatics careers and programming.
Posted by Sandra Porter at 2:28 PM • 4 Comments •
August 17, 2007
Digital Biology Friday: You make the call!
Category: sequence analysis
Developing "biological intuition" through case studies
Posted by Sandra Porter at 1:53 PM • 0 Comments •
August 16, 2007
Steven Colbert becomes intimately acquainted with his own DNA!
Category: Humor
Thanks to Steven Colbert you can hear about DNA directly from Dr. Spencer Wells from the National Genographic Project. I read about this video in the GenomeWeb Daily Scan and had to check it out. Who would have thought scientists could be so funny?...
Posted by Sandra Porter at 11:00 PM • 0 Comments •
August 15, 2007
Will the real DNA sequence please stand up?
Category: sequence analysis
Sometimes asking a question can be a mistake. Especially when your question leads to more questions and having to question things that you didn't want to question, and pretty soon you begin to regret ever opening the file and looking at the data and asking the question in the first place. Sigh. Take a deep breath. Yesterday through a twist...
Posted by Sandra Porter at 7:50 PM • 8 Comments •
Jim Watson's genome on your computer, get it today!
Category: sequence analysis
Yes, you can! Really, I thought this was going to be more challenging, but the nice folks at the NCBI have made a special personal genomics FTP site. You can also get Craig Venter's genome, and maybe even do some comparative genomics and see if one has a few deletions. After all, don't you want you find out who's is...
Posted by Sandra Porter at 8:00 AM • 0 Comments •
August 14, 2007
What is the truth in DNA sequencing?
Category: sequence analysis
What do you do when base-callers disagree? Okay DNA sequencing community, I want your help with this one. One of these sequences was called by phred and the other by the ABI KB base calling program. Which one should I believe? tags: DNA sequencing, DNA , base-calling programs...
Posted by Sandra Porter at 1:16 PM • 10 Comments •
August 10, 2007
Digital Biology Friday: Romantic DNA
Category: molecular structures
Here's a lovely DNA structure from our friend, human immunodeficiency virus I. I especially like the way that two heart-like shapes appear in the structure. tags: DNA structure, DNA , molecular structure, biochemistry...
Posted by Sandra Porter at 2:36 PM • 2 Comments •
August 9, 2007
Understanding software engineers: a guide for biologists
Category: Humor
I found that one of the most challenging things in moving from an academic institution to a software company was getting used to the difference between software engineers and biologists. Now at last, we biologists can start to understand the mysterious ways of software engineers with this helpful reference from Silicon Glen. Although, maybe we biologists do have something in...
Posted by Sandra Porter at 8:45 AM • 0 Comments •
August 8, 2007
And we thought publishing was complicated in biology
Category: Humor
Biologist 1: How many physicists does it take to write a research paper?...
Posted by Sandra Porter at 6:34 PM • 8 Comments •
The X-ray method for pest control
Category: Biology (Macroscopic )
Some maggots have gotten good press lately because of their helpful ability to clean out wounds by consuming dead tissue. Screwworms however; also known as Cochliomyia hominivorax, will never be welcomed in an operating room or anywhere else. USDA Agricultural Research Service These are the creatures of nightmares. During part of their lives, they live and travel as flies, and...
Posted by Sandra Porter at 2:53 PM • 0 Comments •
August 6, 2007
Careers in biotechnology, part V. Bioinformatics in an academic lab
Category: Bioinformatics
Is an academics a dead-end if you're a programmer?
Posted by Sandra Porter at 8:44 AM • 11 Comments •
August 5, 2007
When your water starts tasting like dirt...
Category: Chemistry & Biochemistry
It could be geosmin....
Posted by Sandra Porter at 2:20 PM • 3 Comments •
August 3, 2007
Gene therapy with AAV: too risky for a cure?
Category: viruses
Many medical conditions today are treated but never cured. Imagine, a child with a genetic disease like juvenile diabetes or hemophilia. This child will be taking expensive medications for their entire lives. In the case of some diseases the cost of the medications might be more than child or their parents can ever hope to earn in their lifetimes, much...
Posted by Sandra Porter at 4:23 PM • 8 Comments •
Digital Biology Friday: the answer to last week's puzzle
Category: molecular structures
Last Friday, we had another in the series of weird DNA structures. (You can see the first here). I asked the audience to identify the unusual feature in this molecule. Here's the first picture: tags: DNA structure, DNA , molecular structure, biochemistry Here's the answer:...
Posted by Sandra Porter at 10:19 AM • 4 Comments •
August 2, 2007
Summer time and the mosquitoes are biting
Category: Microbiology
What do malaria, sleeping sickness, yellow fever, and dengue virus have in common? Sure, they're all tropical diseases, but there's something else. All of these diseases have some kind of insect vector. image from the Public Health Library tags: tropical disease, yellow fever, sleeping sickness, insect control, malaria...
Posted by Sandra Porter at 9:27 AM • 3 Comments •
August 1, 2007
On the consequences of spending too much thinking about pubs and not enough time inside of them
Category: Science culture
Drug Monkey has an interesting take on an article that I wrote the other day about publishing in biology....
Posted by Sandra Porter at 10:17 AM • 8 Comments •
