March 30, 2007
Category: Science & Society
There is a divide within the biological sciences, those that are concerned with proximal causes and those concerned with ultimate causes. For every question in biology there are two answers. Ultimate causes have to do mostly with the "why?"s. Why...
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 9:01 AM • 5 Comments •
March 29, 2007
Category: Pure Biology
Mitochondria. How do they shuttle proteins and what are they good for. (It's not just oxphos.)
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 8:45 AM • 0 Comments •
March 25, 2007
Category: Misc
Quebec's provincial elections are being held tomorrow. I won't be voting in this one - my green card application is still under review, and I can't cross the border until all my paperwork is settled. Since the thee main parties...
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 8:21 PM • 5 Comments •
Category: art, food, music, citylife and other mental stimuli
No video, just 44min of audio on Popper, one of the great philosophers of Science. (No I don't stricktly hold his views, but his ideas are very insightful.) It's interesting how Popper's ideas were shaped by the progression of physics...
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 5:59 PM • 0 Comments •
Category: Misc
Next week I'll be hosting the latest edition of Mendel's Garden, a blog carnival for genetics blogging. Despite the fact that I've been blogging for over two years and participating in many carnivals, this will be my first time as...
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 12:37 PM • 5 Comments •
March 23, 2007
Category: Lab Life
from a stairway at Harvard Medical School.
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 9:09 AM • 5 Comments •
March 21, 2007
Category: Pure Biology
Some weird feedback loops within mRNA biosynthesis.
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 9:30 AM • 4 Comments •
March 20, 2007
Category: Science & Society
A mixed bag for universities and science funding.
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 10:12 PM • 1 Comments •
March 19, 2007
Category: Science & Society
Click here to watch now. It's over. To read Elias Zerhouni's statement click here. A pretty good presentation. Zerhouni was joined by some department heads (including our own, Joan Brugge). Some highlights: -The approval rate of first time RO1s by...
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 2:14 PM • 0 Comments •
Category: Misc
From the Metropolitan Diaries section of today's NYTimes:...
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 9:41 AM • 5 Comments •
March 17, 2007
Category: Misc
I adjusted my blog roll for the first time in ~6months, I'll do some more tomorrow. If you want me to list you, let me know. Also I added some new entries to the Taxonomy of Sciences. Two new outside...
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 4:33 PM • 3 Comments •
March 16, 2007
Category: Map that Campus
A challenge! Can anyone beat Willie's posse to the correct answer? Here is this week's mystery campus:
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 9:02 AM • 11 Comments •
March 15, 2007
Category: Pure Biology
The question I asked, and the followup question I should have asked.
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 7:24 PM • 8 Comments •
Category: Lab Life
A massive post. Do you know your geeks? Also submissions requested.
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 9:39 AM • 11 Comments •
March 14, 2007
Category: Misc
I've been so busy. But I have 15 minutes to spare and so I'll attempt to give a quit session of Tid Bits (including a mention of The Daily Transcript in ... Nature!):...
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 7:50 PM • 0 Comments •
Category: Lab Life
Each lab is like a tribe, it has its own particular traditions and rituals. X is stored here, Y is stored there and Z is made up fresh. We share reagent A, we make our own reagent B, we buy...
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 9:16 AM • 3 Comments •
March 11, 2007
Category: art, food, music, citylife and other mental stimuli
How do you know what you see is real? A discussion between Natascha Sadr Haghighian & Evelyn Fox Keller.
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 11:45 AM • 2 Comments •
March 9, 2007
Category: Map that Campus
A special one this week.
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 8:50 AM • 6 Comments •
March 8, 2007
Category: Pure Biology
A new piRNA paper, a new inhibitor of translation and a little something on actin-membrane attachment.
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 11:53 AM • 6 Comments •
Category: Pure Biology
There's a new paper in Dev Cell with a nice reconstruction of a fission yeast cell (S. pombe) with all its microtubules. From the abstract: Here, we describe a large-scale, electron tomography investigation of S. pombe, including a 3D reconstruction...
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 9:15 AM • 0 Comments •
March 7, 2007
Category: Lab Life
Included in this issue of JoVE is a video entitled Studying aggression in Drosophila (fruit flies). In other words setting up fly fights. Now that is a neat assay.
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 6:31 PM • 0 Comments •
Category: Science & Society
From a license plate on Comm. Ave. near Kenmore square in Boston: DNARNA...
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 12:32 PM • 2 Comments •
March 6, 2007
Category: Pure Biology
Some background (and movies) on how actin polymers generate locomotion in cells.
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 4:35 PM • 5 Comments •
March 5, 2007
Category: Lab Life
A nice post at Sunil's blog on persuing your pet theory, but when does doggedness turn to dogma?
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 2:59 PM • 6 Comments •
March 3, 2007
Category: Misc
Through our newest blog Highly Allochthonus I've learned that there is a Postdoc Carnival. Check out what blogging postdocs have to complain about say at Post Doc Ergo Propter Doc. And I've discovered that The Daily Transcript has been reviewed...
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 6:39 PM • 10 Comments •
March 2, 2007
Category: Lab Life
After bitching about how postdocs (and grad students) are treated like slave labor I stumbled onto these videos over at Omni Brain: and...
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 11:38 AM • 4 Comments •
Category: Map that Campus
After a one month hiatus, it's back. I now present this week's mystery campus:
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 11:26 AM • 6 Comments •
March 1, 2007
Category: Lab Life
Too much emphasis in academia is placed on generating progress at all costs. What's the point of progress, if we can't enjoy our lives.
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Posted by Alex Palazzo at 7:51 PM • 12 Comments •