Science Process
Category archives for Science Process
The Power of Research (a game!)
Posted by Kevin Bonham on March 11, 2011 For those of you don’t already have some affliction (facebook, reddit etc) that sucks up all the time you should really be working, try: The Power of Research! I didn’t get very far, but only because I have real lab work to do. It seems silly to procrastinate by doing a virtual research project. It…
A week of brain biggering
Posted by Heather Olins on February 18, 2011 I got to spend last week in sunny California. I forgot how wonderful it is to sit and eat lunch outside! I was participating in a workshop held at the Department of Energy’s Joint Genome Institute (JGI). The workshop was entitled Microbial Genomics and Metagenomics. Basically I spent the week learning about different tools that…
And now to something I know nothing about: gender discrimination
Posted by Kevin Bonham on February 11, 2011 At the superbowl party at my house last weekend, most folks didn’t really have a stake in who won. But several friends were rooting for Pittsburg to loose, largely due to their quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger. In case you don’t pay attention to sports news (like me), Roethlisberger was twice accused of rape/sexual assault in the…
New Lab Resolutions
Posted by Kevin Bonham on February 10, 2011 My common New Year’s resolutions (get more exercise, keep my lab notebook up to date, etc) rarely make it off the starting block. In this I am hardly unique, and there are very good reasons why, so I usually also try to make one major, sort of intangible resolution. This year for instance (largely because…
Geek Manifesto – go help
Posted by Kevin Bonham on January 23, 2011 Mark Henderson of The Times is embarking on (what I think is) a great project – highlighting the contribution that the science savvy can have and are having on public discourse. The intersection of science and politics is a growing interest of mine, though I don’t have nearly as much credibility as many others around…
Trial by Twitter
Posted by Kevin Bonham on January 20, 2011 The heavy hitters in the science publishing business are taking notice. This critical onslaught was striking — but not exceptional. Papers are increasingly being taken apart in blogs, on Twitter and on other social media within hours rather than years, and in public, rather than at small conferences or in private conversation. Like everything else…
The knock-out punch: Zinc Finger Nucleases
Posted by Kevin Bonham on January 2, 2011 Like so many things, the problem is best explained with an analogy. Imagine a car parked in a dark garage (if you’re a mechanic by hobby or trade, make it a computer). Someone hands you keys to the car, a flashlight and a piece of metal that she says belongs to a car similar to…
More on Arsenic Bugs – Nature responds to the blogosphere
Posted by Kevin Bonham on December 15, 2010 If you’ve had your head in the sand for the last 2 weeks, you might have missed the story about arsenic in bacteria and the resulting controversy. If you did go read Ed Yong first. In an editorial published today in Nature, the editors make a similar point to the one I made yesterday, namely…
Science in Government Policy
Posted by Kevin Bonham on December 13, 2010 In last week’s editorial in Science, Bruce Alberts starts with a point that I think few here would disagree with: decisions in government need to be data-driven, and based on the best science available. This point has been made before, and it’s certainly crucial, but the more crucial point is why the government currently doesn’t…
Biological manufacturing
Posted by Kevin Bonham on December 12, 2010 Sometimes, when I take a step back and look at the ways that we can manipulate life, I’m astounded. We can breed mice that lack any gene we want. We can also insert new genes, and have them only express in certain types of cells or only at certain times. This is routine. We can…
