Boy Band sings about automated pipetting [the video]
This is silly is so many ways. Hat tip to the filter....Posted on July 2, 2008 3:11 PM • 1 Comments •
The World's Fair
All manner of human creativity on display
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David Ng is Director of the Advanced Molecular Biology Laboratory at the University of British Columbia - this is a just a fancier way of calling himself a science teacher.
Benjamin Cohen is an Asst. Professor of Science, Tech., and Society at the University of Virginia. He studies the place of S & T in environmental history, policy, and ethics. He also writes other stuff.
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Recent Posts
- Eight Ways to Kill Someone By Using an iPod Nano...
- The iPhone: A User's Guide
- Happy 500 (or so) days for the Science Scouts - a little get together this coming Friday for all you Vancouverites reading Scienceblogs.
- The iPod Zepto: Inconceivably Small
- 3 Song Mix #5
- WALL-E: a great movie, but oh the irony of a movie about a lot of garbage creating a lot of garbage...
- Ignorance is This, or: A Science Writer's Apology
- Love is a Mixed Tape
- My water consumption versus someone in India...
- Write a little something sciency - win a dinosaur book!
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- Till on My water consumption versus someone in India...
- Kevin C. on The iPod Zepto: Inconceivably Small
- CLM on WALL-E: a great movie, but oh the irony of a movie about a lot of garbage creating a lot of garbage...
- Jonathan Badger on Darwin and Creationism Podcasts: on scientific method; the Cold War; and Jews, Catholics, Muslims
- Pete Murphy on My water consumption versus someone in India...
- travc on Ignorance is This, or: A Science Writer's Apology
- Christie on Ignorance is This, or: A Science Writer's Apology
- Lassi Hippeläinen on My water consumption versus someone in India...
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Nature, as in parts, bits, molecular and stuff:
The Uncombable Hair Syndrome
Occasionally, I talk about this when I'm giving a talk on science literacy, and most often, I'll present the following statement asking if it's true or false: There is a human disease characterized by uncontrollably messy hair. It is...Posted on June 26, 2008 9:58 AM • 15 Comments •
Science and Pinatas: A more natural combination than you would think...
So it would seem my last post on pinatas needs to be corrected on two fronts. Firstly, my piece at McSweeney's and its marriage of science and pinatas is not such a unique concept, and secondly, after doing a bit...Posted on June 6, 2008 12:05 PM • 0 Comments •
One More Thing You Shouldn't Inhale: The Past and Future (But No Present) of Carbon Nanotubes and Asbestos
Blah NANO blah blah blah ASBESTOS blah PATHOGEN blah blahPosted on June 3, 2008 8:00 AM • 4 Comments •
GMO?
The opener for my lecture last week. Note that I got the biggest laughs with Grimace (Grimace is always good for a laugh), and with the Olympic mascots (a Vancouver thing). Know any others? (click on the movie). (Click on...Posted on March 5, 2008 11:15 AM • 1 Comments •
Things that are different: Life and Science in the city of Harbin
(I didn't actually see this sign, which I got via Shelley, but I put it up because my talk later today will actually break rule number 3.) Well, I've been in China for the better part of three days...Posted on September 27, 2007 2:09 AM • 0 Comments •
Looking for an excuse to come to Vancouver? Take my workshop!
Posted on September 20, 2007 11:03 AM • 1 Comments •
Things that are maybe useful? (a.k.a. molecular biology reagents that can survive difficult transit conditions)
So, previously, I pointed out some of the difficulties involved in getting reagents and other scientific things to a place like Nigeria. Anyway, I thought a post like this might therefore be useful for the odd reader out there who...Posted on July 17, 2007 4:58 PM • 4 Comments •
Hot dog science.
Today sees the reprinting of a classic textbook piece at the Science Creative Quarterly. It's actually a rebuttal written by a friend to an earlier piece, but basically does an awesome job discussing the various characteristics of fat (particularly...Posted on July 4, 2007 11:26 AM • 0 Comments •
RNA: the new Paris Hilton.
Well, who would have thought? RNA makes the cover of the Economist. Mind you, I don't think its importance is that surprising to folks already in the field, since RNA has always garnered a certain amount of respect as a...Posted on June 26, 2007 11:27 AM • 2 Comments •
Pokemon again. Medical in nature this time.
I've talk about Pokemon before (in the context of biodiversity), but here's an interesting bit about how it sideline hundreds of kids, who happened to have watched an episode where the aggressive animation manage to mess with heads. Here's how...Posted on April 4, 2007 12:17 PM • 3 Comments •
Fun you can have with your three year old and protein crystallography/NMR coordinate data.
So basically, I've been hearing stuff about some new game show that pits adults against the sort of knowledge that a child in Grade 5 should know. It sounds like a pretty interesting concept, and has gotten me thinking about...Posted on February 27, 2007 2:33 PM • 1 Comments •
The science of why drummers like Stewart Copeland are so good at polyrhythmic beats.
So: The Police is starting their tour in Vancouver on May 28th and May 30th, and even though I'm more or less still a fan of Sting, I've just got to say that watching Stewart Copeland play those polyrhythmic drum...Posted on February 22, 2007 2:59 PM • 13 Comments •
Things I'd like to understand: Grey's Anatomy and that Radiohead video edition.
So did anyone else see that Grey's Anatomy episode last night? You know, the one with the patient on chemotherapy, that had some sort of herbal supplement earlier in the day, and whammo, that strange mixture somehow led to (as...Posted on February 2, 2007 3:34 PM • 8 Comments •
Presumably the first ever "rant" on Microglia.
Do I detect a tone of bitterness here? But, please, please - wouldn't it be great if textbooks were written like this?...Posted on January 24, 2007 12:19 PM • 0 Comments •
About them snowflakes (or now you too can practically barf out snowflake trivia)
So like Vancouver had a major dump of snow last week, which is just not west coast at all. Predictably, all hell broke loose, and UBC even experienced a campus wide power outage at one point. Anyway, whilst looking for...Posted on December 5, 2006 2:33 PM • 0 Comments •
Wine Science: extreme edition
At the beginning of this past week, I did a post on some of the science behind the aroma of coffee, so I thought it would be fitting to talk a bit about wine as well. Not because I'm...Posted on October 27, 2006 11:51 AM • 0 Comments •
Whoa! Too much coffee dude. Maybe just limit yourself to the aroma... (the chemistry of coffee aroma)
So I see Ben has put up a post on the various reviews out there on Dawkins' book, and I noted one comment saying: This is utterly ridiculous. The distilled argument here is that the discussion of religion and...Posted on October 24, 2006 3:34 PM • 9 Comments •
Hot Damn! It's the Duckbill Platypus Genome Project!
Well, didn't know about this, but quite interesting nevertheless. That's right folks - the Duckbill is getting the royal genomic treatment. Looks like the sequencing has been done (6X coverage), and now they're looking to piece those contigs together. (link)...Posted on October 17, 2006 6:01 PM • 5 Comments •
Kittens, Aww, Wook at the Cute Wittle Kittens
"You're not just buying a cat; it's a medical device that replaces shots and pills..."Posted on October 9, 2006 3:50 PM • 1 Comments •
Lunch with a paleontologist. Molecular Biology and a T. Rex
Yesterday, I had the opportunity to have lunch with Jack Horner, a noted paleontologist, best known academically as the discoverer of the Maiasaura, a duck-billed dinosaur that proved that dinosaurs had parental instincts; and also an expert in the arena...Posted on October 3, 2006 8:24 AM • 2 Comments •
O.K. not the answer to the Puzzle Fantastica puzzle, but the answer to the "This is soooo fricking cool" query.
I felt bad not putting up the answer to the Puzzle Fantastica in the previous post, so to compensate, I'm prepared to give out the answer to a previous question I had concerning a mysterious looking contraption. In fact, here...Posted on August 17, 2006 12:52 PM • 1 Comments •
Nude hairless mouse with a human ear on its back
I gave a talk to some folks at UBC's School of Music this past weekend, on biology, genetics and the odd reference to music. One of things I mentioned (with an auditary theme) was the interesting case of the use...Posted on August 7, 2006 8:29 AM • 0 Comments •
Bringing you up to speed in the world of genetics
I've been so busy writing about children's books, putting up silly lists, and presenting puzzles that I feel the need to write about one of the things I'm most comfortable with - that is, genetics:...Posted on July 22, 2006 12:17 PM • 0 Comments •
Words for SNOT, a.k.a. genomic DNA
As eluded to earlier, the concept of snot holds a special place in my teaching armada. As well, it appears that scienceblogs has reached their 1,000,000th comment. Obviously, this is due to the hard work of our unpaid interns, which...Posted on July 11, 2006 12:38 PM • 1 Comments •
Dolly is 10 years old? Actually Dolly is dead.
(RE: The new "Ask a Scienceblogger") If asked whether I think cloning has developed the way I thought it would, I think I'd have have a couple comments on that. First, I would say that yes I am surprised in...Posted on July 7, 2006 8:35 AM • 0 Comments •
This is soooo fricking cool...
...but I can't talk about it (yet). Bonus points if you can figure out what it is....Posted on July 5, 2006 5:53 PM • 13 Comments •
You're More Hardwired than you Think: A List of Traits Affected by your Genetics - Part I
In one of my talks, I sometimes put up an ad which suggests that one day, there will be the astrological-type divination of fate via genetics - instead of a horoscope, a geneticscope if you will. The ad reads: But...Posted on June 20, 2006 8:14 AM • 1 Comments •
