Category: Meetings
Over the last two years, I've noticed that most of the meetings I've attended have had far too many 'grand old man' talks. These are talks where the speaker gives a broad overview of either the field or the speaker's work, with very little or no detail paid to detail.
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Posted by Mike at 10:26 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: WhatEVAH!
Let no one say that the Mad Biologist doesn't address the pressing issues of the day. While at the Human Microbiome Meeting, I'm staying in a hotel. Like other hotels I've stayed in for various meetings, my bed is covered with pillows. Not only were there four humongous pillows that I could use, but there were also two large 'decorative pillows' that I wouldn't ever sleep on (if nothing else, their fabric would be uncomfortable and probably leave impressions in my face). To top this off, there is a humongous cylindrical pillow that is as long as the bed is wide (it's a king size bed). These cylindrical pillows seem to be all the rage during the last few years.
So why do they have these pillows? I can't sleep on them, although in some hotel rooms I use them to block out the light from the hallway if its bright. I just end up throwing them on the floor (hell, four big fluffy pillows is too many).
Now I will go outside and yell at clouds.
Posted by Mike at 10:07 AM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Microbiology • Microbiome
One of the common sayings in microbiology that drives me up a wall is the notion that 99% of all bacteria can't be grown in the lab. This false statement stems from the observation that if you take any sample (soil, water, clinical samples) and look under a microscope we see many more bacterial cells that contain DNA than we can grow. The problem is that, if you look at the paper that claimed this, they attempted to grow bacteria on a single, rich medium.
One weekend, when I was a post-doc, I did a very simple comparison. I took standard rich lab medium ('nutrient agar' which is basically one of those high protein nutrient bars minus the artificial flavorings. That's why I don't eat them. Seriously, if you dilute one bar in a liter of water, you basically have nutrient agar). Anyway, the other medium was a home-brew very-low nutrient agar that had one-thousandth of the ingredients in the standar nutrient agar. I also used extremely high-grade agar (electrophoresis grade) to solidify the medium (standard agars actually contain a fair amount of nutrients). I did this because we know that many bacteria can't grow in environments with a lot of carbon or protein sources--they basically end up choking on their own excreta. I also added cycloheximide to kill off fungi, as well as catalase to protect the bacteria from their own metabolisms.
After 72 hours, my special plates had 20-40 times as many bacteria as the standard plates. So I've never bought into the 99% percent.
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Posted by Mike at 10:02 AM • 14 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Funding • NASA
Every so often, we hear or read someone who asks, "If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we do X?" But it's not so clear that we could still do it if we wanted to:
The Apollo and Gemini programs aren't truly lost. There are still one or two Saturn V rockets lying around, and there are plenty of parts from the spacecraft capsules still available. But just because modern scientists have the parts doesn't mean they have the knowledge to understand how or why they worked the way they did. In fact, very few schematics or records from the original programs are still around. This lack of record keeping is a byproduct of the frenetic pace at which the American space program progressed. Because NASA was in a space race with the USSR, the planning, design, and building process of the Apollo and Gemini programs was always rushed. Not only that, but in most cases private contractors were brought in to work on every individual part of the spacecraft. Once the programs ended, these engineers--along with all their records--moved on. None of this would be a problem, but now that NASA is planning a return trip to the moon, a lot of the information about how the engineers of the 1960s made the voyages work is invaluable. Amazingly, the records remain so disorganized and incomplete that NASA has resorted to reverse engineering existing spacecraft parts that they have lying around in junkyards as a way of understanding just how the Gemini and Apollo programs managed to work so well.
Last I heard, we're not planning on returning to the moon, but this is institutional memory we shouldn't lose. The Agonist puts this in perspective:
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Posted by Mike at 11:54 AM • 11 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Funding • NIH • Stem Cells
There's something that has puzzled me about the recent stem cell decision that led to an injunction that prevents the NIH from spending any funds on research involving human embryonic stem cells. I've read the decision (pdf), and it appears to be incredibly broad and damaging to NIH funding in general.
I could understand an injunction based on a finding that the policy violated federal law: I think that's stupid, but I get it. What I don't understand is the finding that NIH policy causes harm to the plaintiffs (the researchers who brought the suit):
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Posted by Mike at 10:06 AM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Mad rantings about politics, evolution, and microbiology. Comment policy: say what you want, but back it up with an email address. I don't like anonymous trolls.
