Science for a Brave New World
Is there a certain suite of legislation that needs to be passed now in order to provide a greater assurance of scientific good in the near future?Posted on May 14, 2008 7:20 PM • 1 Comments •
The Scientific Activist
Reporting from the Crossroads of Science and Politics
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An Oxford graduate student by day and a scientific activist by night, Nick Anthis isn't letting his Ph.D. research in protein structure get in the way of defending scientific and social progress.
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Recent Posts
- Science for a Brave New World
- John Edwards Endorses Barack Obama
- Video Primer on Animal Research
- US to Consider No Longer Calling Mandela, ANC "Terrorists"
- McCain's Own Agents of Intolerance
- More Political Interference at the EPA
- The Gas Tax Suspension: Political Pandering of the Worst Kind
- Pervasive Political Interference at the EPA
- China Behaving Badly
- Senate Passes Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act
Recent Comments
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- Mary on Science for a Brave New World
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- Ski on John Edwards Endorses Barack Obama
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- Tom Holder on Video Primer on Animal Research
- Asia on Video Primer on Animal Research
- James on Video Primer on Animal Research
- brian t on US to Consider No Longer Calling Mandela, ANC "Terrorists"
Most Popular Posts
- Why Are Veins Blue? (17 Apr 08)
- Metric System (Apparently) a Plot by Liberal Communist Anti-American Immigrants (13 Oct 07)
- Bush Administration Muzzled Surgeon General (11 Jul 07)
- A Sun Ray a Day.... (19 Jun 07)
- Study Finds Alcohol and Tobacco More Harmful than Marijuana, LSD, or Ecstasy (23 Mar 07)
- A Shocking Decrease in Funding of NIH Grants (12 Sep 06)
- Psychedelic Psilocybin Psychology (14 Jul 06)
- Cloning - Who Cares? (10 Jul 06)
- An Inconvenient AP Story for Republicans (28 Jun 06)
- Organic People Chemistry (16 Jun 06)
- Oxford Scientists Bite Back at Animal Rights Activists (26 Feb 06)
- NASA Science Censor Resigns (08 Feb 06)
- George Deutsch Did Not Graduate From Texas A&M University (06 Feb 06)
- Caught in the Line of Fire: Animal Rights Activists Take Over Oxford (15 Jan 06)
Useful Resources
News for a Scientific Activist
- Global Warming: Refreshing change - Seattle Post Intelligencer
- The politics and science of obesity - Los Angeles Times
- Inhofe Says Listing of Polar Bear Based on Politics, Not Science - Trading Markets (press release)
- Beyond the Bush formula - Seattle Times
- Fifth Science Centre World Congress in Toronto - Just One Month Away! - Canada NewsWire (press release)
- Science, religion not in conflict, bishops say in stem-cell document - Catholic News Service
- Bush returns to Mideast, seeking peace - Chicago Tribune
- Violence flares as Bush marks Israel's anniversary - Christian Science Monitor
- US House passes subsidy-heavy farm bill - Economic Times
- Science Teachers’ Pay Doesn’t Add Up - Education Week News
Recommended Reading
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Other Information
basic science:
Do You Want to Be Able to Crap Gold?
That might not be possible, but ingesting isotopically-enriched food would make your waste even more valuable.Posted on April 25, 2008 7:37 AM • 1 Comments •
Why Are Veins Blue?
Here's a hint: blood isn't blue. Ever.Posted on April 17, 2008 7:30 AM • 28 Comments •
An Integrin Is Identified as a Co-Receptor for HIV
Scientists identify the alpha-4 beta-7 integrin as a co-receptor for HIV, offering a potential new drug target.Posted on February 11, 2008 8:23 PM • 3 Comments •
Integrin Phosphorylation as an Off Switch for Integrin Activation
A tiny modification can make a big difference in proteins involved in cell adhesion and migration.Posted on December 31, 2007 3:30 PM • 0 Comments •
Stem Cells from Down Under
Awkward? Probably. But, menstrual blood stem cells show some early promise.Posted on November 29, 2007 7:45 AM • 3 Comments •
Embryonic Stem Cell Debate Over; Thousands of Researchers Now Jobless
The media mangles otherwise interesting and significant stem cell findings.Posted on November 21, 2007 7:54 PM • 22 Comments •
2007 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine: Knockout Mice
Awarded for the knockout mouse to Mario R. Capecchi, Martin J. Evans, and Oliver SmithiesPosted on October 8, 2007 9:21 AM • 2 Comments •
Ask a ScienceBlogger: A Sun Ray a Day....
Although extended unprotected exposure to the sun damages your skin and eyes, a small daily dose is important for maintaining general health and wellbeingPosted on June 19, 2007 1:41 PM • 10 Comments •
More Trouble for the Schatten Lab, but One Potential Success
The U.S. Office of Research Integrity announced this week that it has found a former postdoc in Gerald Schatten's lab, Park Jong Hyuk, guilty of research misconduct for falsifying images in a manuscript on deriving embryonic stem cells from cloned...Posted on January 12, 2007 7:43 AM • 0 Comments •
My Second Scientific Paper: Matrix Protease Activity in Tumor Cell Invasion
The second paper from my undergraduate work at Texas A&M University was recently published in Molecular Cancer. The abstract can be found here, and the pdf of the full paper here. Molecular Cancer is an open access journal, so a...Posted on December 19, 2006 7:39 AM • 3 Comments •
More on Edible Cotton Seeds
Last month, I wrote a post about a research group at Texas A&M University that reported genetically engineering "edible cotton seeds" by using RNAi technology to stably and specifically knock out production of the gossypol toxin in the seeds of...Posted on December 18, 2006 7:39 AM • 3 Comments •
Congratulations to Daniel Rhoads
Via A Blog Around the Clock comes news that Daniel Rhoads, who writes the informative blog Migrations (and formerly A Concerned Scientist), has successfully defended his dissertation. So, after a few minor revisions, it looks like it won't be too...Posted on December 3, 2006 2:57 PM • 2 Comments •
They Probably Won't Taste as Good as Cotton Candy...
But, a recent report in PNAS demonstrates that edible cotton seeds could be a real possibility, thanks to new transgenic crop biotechnology.Posted on November 29, 2006 7:39 AM • 1 Comments •
The Return of "Ethically Sound" Stem Cells
The "ethically sound" stem cell paper resurfaces this week, as it appears in the print version of the current issue of Nature.Posted on November 22, 2006 6:37 PM • 10 Comments •
NMR Blogs
A list of blogs covering NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance)Posted on November 17, 2006 5:27 PM • 3 Comments •
Social Insects: More KGB than Brady Bunch
Social controls play a surprisingly large role in encouraging altruism in insect colonies, according to a paper in last week's issue of Nature.Posted on November 16, 2006 7:43 AM • 5 Comments •
The Structure of the Living Cell
Oxford's Iain Campbell discusses the past and future of structural biology.Posted on October 17, 2006 10:20 AM • 4 Comments •
My First Scientific Paper: The Stabilization of Blood Vessels by Protease Inhibitors
My first appearance in the peer-reviewed scientific literature provides an opportunity to learn a little bit about blood vessel development.Posted on October 16, 2006 10:20 AM • 7 Comments •
2006 Nobel Prize in Chemistry: Eukaryotic Transcription
The 2006 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to Roger Kornberg for his work on elucidating the molecular basis of transcription in eukaryotes.Posted on October 4, 2006 8:23 AM • 2 Comments •
2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine: RNA Interference
The 2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was announced this morning, with one half going to Andrew Fire and the other half to Craig Mello, both for the discovery of RNA interference (RNAi). The discovery of RNAi added a...Posted on October 2, 2006 9:38 AM • 0 Comments •
Where Do Babies Come From? Find the Answer and More in Coming to Life
Nobel Laureate Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard's Coming to Life: How Genes Drive Development is an understated primer that lays out the current state of the art of developmental biology, shocking the reader with just how much we know about how each one of us came to take our unique but fundamentally similar shapes.Posted on August 21, 2006 7:45 AM • 7 Comments •
Setting the Record Straight on Global Warming
An April 2006 paper in Nature narrowed down the range of possible scenarios for how global warming may play out as carbon dioxide levels continue to rise. Although much of the press coverage treated it as a blow to global warming science, it was in reality quite the opposite.Posted on August 10, 2006 7:55 AM • 0 Comments •
A Hot Topic
Global warming is certainly a "hot topic", and this post decribes some global warming research findings from January 2006: one that revises estimates of the expected increase in sea level due to global warming and another that demonstrates how certain important marine ecosystems could be vulnerable to changes in ocean currents due to global warming.Posted on August 9, 2006 7:55 AM • 0 Comments •
Amphibian Disease Heats Up
What do global warming and epidemic diseases have in common? Apparently they have a lot, at least when it comes to amphibians.Posted on August 8, 2006 7:55 AM • 0 Comments •
Sixth Annual CCPN Meeting in Ambleside, UK
On the weekend of July 28th-30th, about 150 NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) scientists from the UK and Europe (and a few from the US) gathered in Ambleside for the Sixth Annual Collaborative Computing Project for NMR (CCPN) Meeting. The topic...Posted on August 7, 2006 7:55 AM • 1 Comments •
Fantastical Fridays: Genetic Engineering's Next Challenge - The Smiley Face
Genetic engineering holds a great deal of promise, but it can only be used on things that are "alive". Still, scientists have found other ways to make the stuff of genes, DNA, come alive in more artistic ways.Posted on July 28, 2006 7:45 AM • 0 Comments •
Fantastical Fridays: Psychedelic Psilocybin Psychology
Now here's an experiment I would have liked to take part in. Researchers from Johns Hopkins systematically test the psychological effects of the hallucinogenic drug psilocybin, and the results are pretty positive. Not only that, but a significant number of participants rate the experience as the single most meaningful one of their lives!Posted on July 14, 2006 7:45 AM • 8 Comments •
Celebrating Nikola Tesla
Since my Ph.D. research is on protein NMR, I would be remiss if, as we celebrate his 150th birthday, I didn't mention Tesla's connection to my field--particularly since the unit for the strength of a magnetic field bears his name!Posted on July 10, 2006 7:56 PM • 2 Comments •
Ask a ScienceBlogger: Cloning - Who Cares?
In 2006, cloning for cloning's sake isn't where it's at. Instead, the future of cloning lies in its applications to biomedical research. Today, that means, among other things, the prospect of using cloning to generate unique lines of embryonic stem cells.Posted on July 10, 2006 7:45 AM • 6 Comments •
Fantastical Fridays: Partisan Neurons
Now I have an excuse for my behavior the next time I get into a bitter political debate: I can't help being defensive--it's hardwired into me! Those are the findings, at least, of a study led by psychologist Drew Westen.Posted on July 7, 2006 7:55 AM • 2 Comments •
Fantastical Fridays: NMR Goes Natural, Baby!
In NMR, bigger really is better, at least when it comes to magnetic field strength, and the entire field has in some ways become one big manhood size-measuring contest. One group, though, reported earlier this year in Nature Physics that sometimes it may be better to just go natural. Forget about all of the high-tech magnets--just use the big one right under your feet!Posted on June 30, 2006 7:59 AM • 11 Comments •
Fantastical Fridays: Funny (and Suggestive) Molecules
Last week's Fantastical Fridays was a big hit, so we'll keep the momentum going with more chemistry this week. Instead of anthropomorphic molecules, though, this one is all about chemicals with downright ridiculous names. If you still have any doubts...Posted on June 23, 2006 7:59 AM • 5 Comments •
Fantastical Fridays: Organic People Chemistry
Lurking beneath the surface here at ScienceBlogs is a force that compels people to do extremely gimmicky things on Fridays. Since I know that I'm no better than anyone else, I've decided to join in on the fun. Therefore, I...Posted on June 16, 2006 8:55 AM • 9 Comments •
Ask a ScienceBlogger: Alternative Careers
Each week, Seed magazine poses a question to all of its ScienceBloggers. This week's question, from reader Jake Bryan, is: Assuming that time and money were not obstacles, what area of scientific research, outside of your own discipline, would you...Posted on June 11, 2006 8:39 PM • 0 Comments •
Nobel Laureate Robert Huber to Give Talk at Oxford
This is a plug for an event that the Oxford University Biochemical Society is putting together. This Monday, June 12th, at 4:00 pm the Oxford University Biochemical Society will be hosting a talk by Nobel Laureate Robert Huber in the...Posted on June 10, 2006 10:04 PM • 2 Comments •
