May 31, 2006
Category: Ask a ScienceBlogger
This week: Since they're funded by taxpayer dollars (through the NIH, NSF, and so on), should scientists have to justify their research agendas to the public, rather than just grant-making bodies? Yes, yes, and yes. But if the public does...
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 9:50 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Pure Biology
The nuclear membrane separates the nuclear space from the cytoplasm. This barrier is comprised of two membranes (Inner and Outer Nuclear Membrane) that are continuous with the endoplasmic reticulum. To cross the double membrane, molecules traverse the nuclear pore complex...
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 9:10 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 30, 2006
Category: Lab Life
I haven't been blogging that much recently ... well to be honest I've had too much work to do. But as time goes on my ability to cope with the rich experience of daily lab life requires me to rant...
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 6:34 PM • 14 Comments • 2 TrackBacks
May 27, 2006
Category: Lab Life
Hi Folks, Sorry for the delay. It's been a busy week for me. Being swamped with work, the Daily Transcript was ignored. I've thought about it all this week ... life writing a blog and living the life of a...
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 11:15 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 23, 2006
Category: Pure Biology
Sorry, I haven't been writing much in the past few days. Here are some cool ER papers I've seen recently: Direct membrane protein-DNA interactions required early in nuclear envelope assembly Sebastian Ulbert, Melpomeni Platani, Stephanie Boue, and Iain W. Mattaj...
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 8:39 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 21, 2006
Category: Science & Society
I am back in Montreal for the weekend. Anyone who grows up in Canada is subjected to 3 things: 1- Hockey 2- Winter 3- CBC And a great show that I used to watch as a kid on CBC was...
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 8:16 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 19, 2006
Category: Ask a ScienceBlogger
This week's question: If you could shake the public and make them understand one scientific idea, what would it be? That's tough. Perhaps the meaning of the word HUBRIS? But that's not really "scientific". I guess the easy answer would...
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 6:22 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Lab Life
About two weeks ago I wrote an entry on what I hated about scientific journals. I intentionally did not include the issue of public access to publicly financed research, but it came up in the comment section. Interestingly Maxine, an...
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 10:56 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Lab Life
Good news from RPM: I just got word that the House of Representatives passed the FY2007 Budget Resolution which includes an amendment that ensures that all programs within the Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations bill will be...
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 8:59 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 18, 2006
Category: Ask a ScienceBlogger
While preparing for my talk, I guess I really missed the boat on this one. So the question was: Will the 'human' race be around in 100 years? Well if it isn't around, it's only 'cuz it went somewhere else....
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 8:05 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Pure Biology
Yesterday I gave a talk. Everything was fine although I thought I was a little wordy. So instead of writing something I'll throw you a few pictures. Here is a picture of a two cells that were microinjected with mRNA....
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 7:20 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 16, 2006
Category: Science & Society
From RamblingsThoughts of Prof Bil the Man: Protein Synthesis the film (it's a 37MB file off of a slow server, be prepared to wait). Some background on the film from Bil's blog entry: I gather that it was made in...
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 2:45 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 15, 2006
Category: Lab Life
You got a love blog entries that start like this ... "there are two types of scientists" Yes I know I do it too. But categorizing is what the human mind does best and so in this vein I'll present...
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 10:00 AM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 14, 2006
Category: Misc
I'm in the lab on a rainy Sunday. This week I was too busy to really blog. Fortunately other people had interesting stories ... Ed Brayton discusses an interesting (but flawed) OpEd in the Wall Street Journal on the misplaced...
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 1:40 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 12, 2006
Category: Lab Life
Well a good friend of mine is starting a virtual journal club, Science Sampler. We'll be 3 to 5 contributors and the entries will be about articles from the current scientific literature. From the website: We read them so you...
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 5:59 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 11, 2006
Category: Lab Life
I missed this. From the March edition of the Scientist. The top 10 in North America: 1. The J. David Gladstone Institutes, San Francisco 2. Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle 3. US Environment Protection Agency, Research Triangle Park, NC...
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 4:38 PM • 17 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category:
(from Daily Zeitgeist) There's a new Halliburton product for any CEO concerned about the upcoming apocalypse: SurvivaBall. What is this crazy Brave-New-World device? From Halliburton's web site:...
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 10:07 AM • 5 Comments • 1 TrackBacks
Category: Science & Society
Gubernatorial Candidate, Chris Gabrieli, who made a fortune in the biomedical industry, has made a new pledge to support Stem Cell Research in Massachusetts. From today's Boston Globe: Democratic candidate for governor Chris Gabrieli today will propose that the state...
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 9:35 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 10, 2006
Category: Lab Life
Blogs = web+log. I started writing one to force myself to write. Although each entry is stored out there in the either of the net, blogs tend to be transient creatures. But how about all those great entries those that...
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 7:48 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 9, 2006
Category: Education
Ah, back to work. One thing I miss about being at the microscope is listening to NPR. A couple of hours ago there was a good piece on Here & Now about the gap between rich universities and poor universities....
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 2:04 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 8, 2006
Category: Science & Society
A great review of Dan Gilbert's first Book: Stumbling On Happiness in the NY Times Book review. Gilbert is an influential researcher in happiness studies, an interdisciplinary field that has attracted psychologists, economists and other empirically minded researchers, not to...
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 12:02 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 7, 2006
Category: Ask a ScienceBlogger
The invention I would choose to uninvent? I spent the weekend asking some friends. Some answers were machine guns, the atomic bomb, spam, cars ... No if I were to choose an "invention" to eradicate it would be Le Corbusier's concept of a city.
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 1:56 PM • 11 Comments • 1 TrackBacks
May 6, 2006
Category:
Yes it's the speech that has gone around the world via email. Reality has a well-known liberal bias And did you see that Colbert thanked Bill Kristol for helping him write the address? I personally got 7 emails with links...
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 8:48 PM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Lab Life
OK now time for some real blogging (I.e. rant). Things I hate about journal publications. 1) Supplementary Data. You see a neat paper, you downloaded of the website and then as you go through the text you bump into "see...
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 8:22 AM • 15 Comments • 2 TrackBacks
May 5, 2006
Category: Misc
After coming back from a vacation, how many days does it take you before you can work? It seems like I can't even blog. So instead here are some photos from my last trip......
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 11:27 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 4, 2006
Category: Science & Society
From a peice in the latest issue of Nature: But this year, as three years of flat budgets begin to bite, Zerhouni's tenure at the NIH is being openly attacked by some scientists. The focus of their ire is his...
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 11:10 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 3, 2006
Category: Misc
I guess that's why I study it. I usually never take these dumb online quiz things but provoked by another science blogger's entry I did this one anyway ... and yes I'm the ER. You scored 46 Industriousness, 48 Centrality,...
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 3:24 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Misc
OK I'm back from the west coast where we visited friends, family and the desert. My laptop has been resurrected and NO MORE RERUNS, I promise. Also I've seen that trackback spam has evolved (well perhaps intelligently evolved is closer...
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 2:05 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 2, 2006
Category: Retrospective
(OK folks I'll be back this afternoon, this post is the last in serries of entries from my old blogs ... and this one is a hard core science entry from about 1 year ago ... enjoy) Late last week...
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 9:59 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 1, 2006
Category: Retrospective
(from my old blog) Two days ago I was talking to a rotation student in the lab about the Nobel laureate and Columbia Professor Richard Axel, then last night at another BBQ (this time at Ben's place), the biology of...
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 3:55 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks