apalazzo
Posts by this author
September 21, 2007
I'm off to NYC and then Italy for a whopping 3 weeks. I'll be visiting my mother's hometown, my father's father's hometown and other sites along the Apennines. I may post little items while I'm gone, but until I'm back some old entries will be appearing on The Daily Transcript.
Ciao.
September 20, 2007
One lobbyist's recommendations on how academic publishers should counter the open access movement. Do I need to write anything? Just read it here.
Also see
- Eric Dezenhall PR memo to publishers leaked (Coturnix)
- Publishers prepare for war over open access (Jim Giles, the New Scientist)
And…
September 20, 2007
Unfortunately I'll be out of town, but if anyone is in the Boston area, I encourage you to attend. All the info is in this email I just got from Corie:
You've seen the website, now meet the people who are on it (and who run it). Nature Network Boston (http://network.nature.com/boston) is hosting…
September 19, 2007
From today's email:
Dear Colleague:
NIH is inviting health professionals engaged in biomedical and behavioral research to apply online for a loan repayment award. The loan repayment programs (LRPs) are a vital component of our nation's efforts to recruit and retain highly qualified professionals to…
September 19, 2007
Well it would seem that in the past couple of years pop science has discovered RNA. Via Genomicron, I found this article in Scientific American from a few years back. Unfortunately all the lit on RNA in the popular press is a little overhyped and not very well understood.
Sure, there is probably a…
September 18, 2007
Over at The Scientist, they're asking
Tell us what your favorite life science blogs are and why by clicking the button and leaving a comment, and we will publish a list of the most popular choices across the different areas of life sciences. With your help we hope to provide a list of who is…
September 18, 2007
Let's face it, you are probably procrastinating right now.
I'll begin by stating that this post was inspired by Hsien-Hsien Lei's new facebook community.
Lets start off with a video on how to procrastinate:
One of the greatest effects of the Internet: procrastination. As we've advanced to web2.0,…
September 17, 2007
I've written much about the Nuclear Pore Complex (NPC). This large molecular gate controls the flow of molecules into and out of the nucleus. Recent work (see this post and this new paper) describes how filaments containing "FG repeats" form a matrix in the center of the pore that blocks the…
September 15, 2007
One of the most watched cell biology videos of all time. A neutrophil uses chemotaxis to chase a bacterium around a field of red blood cells. Notice how the neutrophil can suddenly change direction. This clip was shot over 50 years ago by David Rogers at Vanderbilt University.
September 13, 2007
Me: So how long has it been since you first submitted your paper to XXX?
Resident Genius Postdoc: Next week it'll be eight months.
Me: Wow, that's almost like pregnancy.
Resident Genius Postdoc: At least there's an end to pregnancy.
Me: Yeah, I guess you can always get a c-section.
Question: why…
September 12, 2007
(Disclaimer: this is not my field but the paper looked interesting so here goes ...)
Promoters, enhancers and other DNA regulatory elements that turn on or off gene transcription are important. We've known this for quite a while. Many would argue that metazoans all have the same major gene families…
September 12, 2007
PRISM (or the Partnership for Research Integrity in Science and Medicine) is a lobby against Open Access (OA) put together by the The Association of American Publishers (or AAP). Most Science Publishers are members of AAP, but since the unveiling of PRISM (and of their website) now many publishers…
September 11, 2007
I usually don't comment on sensational science news (unless it has to do with basic cell biology) but this is just really ... bad. According to several news we can now use radio waves to convert water into hydrogen, which of course can be burned back into water. What exactly are these reports…
September 8, 2007
This summer has been bad on the book-side. I've picked up so many books that looked promising yet in the end disappointed. Recently I just finished Culturing Life, How Cells Became Technologies by Hannah Landecker, a book dealing with the history of tissue culture. I was please that someone had…
September 7, 2007
This morning, baymate and I were debating when would be a suitable time for coffee when we heard a giggle from the next bay. Here's what our neighbor saw on her transformation plate:
And here's a blowup:
As another postdoc said, "you probably don't have to sequence those colonies. They'll have…
September 7, 2007
German Nihilist Postdoc: You know what we are?
Me: No, what?
GNP: Leibeigenschaft.
Me: What's that?
GNP: A serf, you know like in the middle ages.
Me: You mean XXX is our lord and we follow his commands?
GNP: Yup. Or a pawn, yes that is what we are.
Me: Yeah, I guess XXX is the king or queen and we…
September 5, 2007
At the end of September I'll be taking off for Italy to visit the land of my origins. At some point I'll be in Paris, visiting a good friend of mine and I'll be giving a talk at the Universite Pierre & Marie Curie entitled: The Signal Sequence Coding Region: promoting nuclear export of mRNA,…
September 5, 2007
Sorry for the lack of posts. I've been reconstructing the figures and the text of my manuscript and expect to resubmit the darn thing to PLoS Biology later this week. Until then here is an interesting paper that I've read recently:
Hitoshi Nakatogawa, Yoshinobu Ichimura, and Yoshinori Ohsumi
Atg8,…
August 31, 2007
I am sick and tired of quantitating my microinjection data. I've been doing this for two weeks and I'm going crazy. I've microinjected and quantified over 10,000 cells in this time period, all in the attempt to finish this damned paper. I've injected soo many cells that I've even accidentally…
August 29, 2007
A couple of weeks ago, Linda Wang from C&E News contacted me about my post on pipette tip usage methods (with a little side note on the Jesus Gel incident). Apparently the article came out August 20th and since then I've received emails containing people's pipette box artwork. If I get my act…
August 27, 2007
This was to be expected. Remember how Elsevier and American Chemical Society hired Eric Dezenhall? (click here for more) Well apparently under Dezenhall's direction these guys have formed Partnership for Research Integrity in Science & Medicine or PRISM, a lobby group against open access.
As I…
August 27, 2007
From the last week's issue of Nature, More biologists but tenure stays static. From the article:
The data, compiled by the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) (opa.faseb.org/pages/PolicyIssues/training_datappt.htm), are from many sources, including the US National…
August 25, 2007
I moved to the US.
To commemorate this event here's The Immigrant Song, as performed by the original mash-up group, Dread Zeppelin:
August 24, 2007
Nature Network Boston is having another pub night on Tuesday. From Corie:
It will be next Tuesday, August 28 at 6pm at the Middlesex Lounge in Cambridge (315 Mass Ave, near Central Square/MIT). Come out and meet other members of Boston's scientific community.
We're doing something a little…
August 22, 2007
that Sigma-Aldrich advertises on it.
(ht: baymate)
Rout 65 bus info (MBTA).
PS if anyone else sees this send me some photos.
August 22, 2007
7AM, up out of bed. I prepare breakfast, two slices of focaccia with salmon and olive spread with an espresso to wash it all down. I quickly flip through the paper. For once the NY Times Science section has an article on some basic molecular biology (it must have been the evolution angle). After…
August 19, 2007
For anyone that missed this show which aired this past Wednesday.
August 16, 2007
Sorry about the lack of posts. The lost week spent roaming around the California wilderness has really taken a toll. I have been microinjecting my brains out, but fortunately it looks like I'll be able to get the last piece of data that the reviewers asked for. In addition there has been much post-…
August 14, 2007
I just sent out this email:
Hello All,
We are soliciting speakers for the November and December meetings. If you are a postdoc or grad student, and would like to present your work in a 20-25 min talk, please let us know and we will add you to the roster.
The next meeting of the New England RNA Data…
August 12, 2007
Yesterday I surrendered to the gods of the electronic world as I finally got a cellphone (now people can reach me where ever I may be, yikes!) and I registered with facebook where I will forever be eating plums (don't ask, this has to do with last night and it's a long story.)
Well it could be…