apalazzo
Posts by this author
December 15, 2009
Two great interviews with Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer, two philosophers of science.
CBC Ideas - Interview with Simon Schaffer on Leviathan and the Air Pump
CBC Ideas - Interview with Steven Shapin on how science and truth are derived from social interactions within the scientific community…
December 13, 2009
There's a battle going on out there. A battle for trust. Do you get the H1N1 vaccine? Is global warming true? Will you go to hell? Is the free market the best way to run an economy?
How to answer these questions? The conventional wisdom is that all members of our society should get informed. Many…
December 4, 2009
I'm siting at my breakfast table when I read this in the NY Times science section:
Dissection Begins on Famous Brain
The man who could not remember has left scientists a gift that will provide insights for generations to come: his brain, now being dissected and digitally mapped in exquisite detail…
December 3, 2009
The graph is from Are there too many PhDs? at Mendeley Blog
In the U.S., we are constantly hearing about how the country is falling behind in science. We need more scientists to fill all of those jobs we want to create. And the cure to that is to fund more PhD programs! Yet, when you ask graduate…
November 30, 2009
Last week was demo week here at the Palazzo lab. Both Zeiss and Nikon dropped off their latest equipment and we had the chance to image some RNA. In addition we finally completed some badly needed lab renovations and as a result had an operation tissue culture area. I went ahead and transfected…
November 24, 2009
This week we have a special edition of Map that Campus.
A few weeks ago I I wrote about my new voyage on the HMS Palazzo Lab. Well the resident of this campus had some advice on this topic:
In a moral point of view, the effect ought to be, to teach him good-humoured patience, freedom from…
November 19, 2009
After a frantic couple of weeks, the lab seems to be finally coming together. This afternoon I sat down and started to peruse the past few issues of Cell Science, Nature, JCB, PLoS etc. and a few of the blogs that I like to check out.
And then I read this strange article in the latest issue of…
November 19, 2009
From Study Finds Science Pipeline Strong, But Losing Top Students, Science 30 October 2009: Vol. 326. no. 5953, p. 654
A new study finds little evidence for leaks in the U.S. pipeline for producing native-born scientists except for a steep drop in the percentage of the highest performing students…
November 19, 2009
Like Nikon, microscopes manufacturer Olympus has a yearly microscopy photo competition, this years winners are up.
First place: Dr. Jan Michels
Christian-Albrechts-University, Institute of Zoology
Kiel, Germany
Specimen: Daphnia atkinsoni (Water Flea)
Technique: Confocal laser scanning microscopy…
November 10, 2009
When I was a postdoc at Harvard Medical School, I was a founding member of the New England RNA Data Club. We organized a monthly meeting, where RNA researchers from around the New England Area would get together and present data. Over three years, we were lucky enough to hear exciting talks and…
November 10, 2009
Seminar Series of the CIHR Training Grant in Protein Folding
Dr. Alexander Palazzo
Department of Biochemistry
University of Toronto
Specialized Nuclear Export of mRNA Encoding Secreted and Mitochondrial Proteins
Thursday, November 12, 2008 - 12:15pm
Medical Sciences Building, Rm. 4279
University…
November 1, 2009
The value of having large public award ceremonies for scientists, is that it gives their work some exposure to the public.
Take for instance Shinya Yamanaka. His discovery of iPS cells in 2006 was one of the most important discoveries this past decade. It not only taught us how to generate stem…
October 30, 2009
It's that time again. Here's this week's mystery campus:
And the hint: Where cellular alchemy began.
If you know the answer, or just want to take a cheap shot at Willie the Wildcat and his posse, leave it in the comment section.
October 28, 2009
Well this week the University of Toronto hosts the 50th anniversary of the Gairdner Foundation.
If the Nobels are the Oscars of science, and the Lasker Awards the Golden Globes, this event is akin to the 50th anniversary of some big Hollywood studio. There are talks by many of today's hottest…
October 27, 2009
Today I used a pipette for the first time in three and a half months.
What a strange feeling it is to work in one's own lab.
While I've been submitting papers and grants, my technician has been busy preparing solutions, ordering equipment and even performing a few "experiments" (if you can call…
October 21, 2009
Go and check 'em out.
4th place - James E. Hayden, Anglerfish ovary (4X)
For more visit http://www.nikonsmallworld.com/
This year's event even got covered in the New York Times.
And if you want to enter into next year's competition the deadline for entries: April 30, 2010. Get clicking.
October 19, 2009
This weekend, I had the opportunity to sit down with a friend, a cancer surgeon who works at a major teaching hospital in the US. He, his wife and two kids were up visiting us for the weekend.
Over coffee, I was asking him about the state of cancer therapeutics. Although he himself does not…
October 18, 2009
Well this year was a big year again for RNA at the Nobels. Both prizes were essentially given to RNA dependent processes. In the case of Telomerase, an RNA molecule, Telomerase RNA (hTR or TERC), acts as the template strand to help Telomerase Reverse Transcriptase (TERT) elongate the end of the…
October 16, 2009
Last week was way too easy. Let's see how fast this one will go.
Here is this week's mystery campus:
The clue is:
Many "U"s into many "F"s!
If this means anything to you leave your answer in the comments section. After 24hrs I'll confirm any correct answers.
October 15, 2009
So more than a week has gone by and there has been little press about the science Nobels. And I must say that this year's Medicine and Chemistry prizes are some of the most important in quite a while. But even between the two, the Chemistry is especially important.
Why? I'm not sure. Maybe they…
October 12, 2009
Unraveling the ribosome is one of science's Holy Grails. Were God a molecule, he or she would be a ribosome, a veritable galaxy of atoms whose job is to translate genetic code into the stuff of life--protein.
- Brian Maffly, reporter for the Slt Lake Tribune in a recent article, Ramakrishnan:…
October 12, 2009
So we got back yesterday from our trip and we are in the post-traveling cleanup mode - Cleaning up the apartment, the fridge, and the email box. In fact I just received an email from one Coimbra student filled with photos from the past week.
Below the fold are some pictures of our trip + comments…
October 9, 2009
Well it has been a great week. Edgar Gomes, Phong Tran, Helder Maiato and I just finished teaching a week long Graduate Student Course at the University of Coimbra. Here's a photo of us with most of the class just after we finished dinner at a local joint.
Despite my wonderful week, I did miss out…
October 5, 2009
"for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase"
(from the Nobel website)
Congrats. This Nobel was one that many people expected. I don't have much time to blog about why telomerase and telomeres are so important, but I would hope that other science…
October 2, 2009
Welcome one and all to another edition of Map That Campus. Since I'm restarting this feature, I though that I would try something a little different.
Here is today's mystery campus:
(more below the fold)
Clues:
To figure out the answer, you'll first need to identify a famous Canadian.
Besides…
October 1, 2009
This is the fourth year that I update this list of potential winners. A warning, the list is highly biased towards basic biomedical research. In addition, some of the prizes may be more appropriate for the Chemistry prize.
We'll start with my favorite, Membrane Traffic. This finding is one of the…
September 27, 2009
I'm going to harp on a subject that really annoys me. The use of the word "fact" - this is a totally useless concept and is the source of a lot of confusion out in the general public and amongst science journalists.
Science does not build facts. It builds models, ideas concepts and theories - tools…
September 18, 2009
Hello everyone,
It's been quite a while since I've even looked at my blog. Much has happened since I last posted. I said goodbye to all my friends in Boston, moved back to my native country, started up a lab, hired my first employee, gone to a few scientific conferences, assigned projects to eager…
April 15, 2009
This is an attempt to get back into blog-writing mode. My time has become split in a thousand different ways. There are a multitude of items that need to be accomplished before I leave for Toronto.
Here's a few of them: I would like to wrap up three ongoing projects, or at least get most of the…