apalazzo
Posts by this author
January 3, 2007
Yestetrday we recieved an email asking us to vote on the new coffee bar at the NRB (NRB = New Research Building = No rich person has yet donated money to Harvard Medical School for this structure)
NAMING THE COFFEE BAR AT NRB
(Vote for your favorite name)
*Atoms
*Carbon
*Javium
*Particles
*Aliquots…
January 3, 2007
In this day, some biologist have to move beyond the simplistic view that the cell is a bag of M&Ms. What do I mean by that? It's the idea that enzymes and organelles are free floating entities within the cell.
On the other hand, don't tell me that the cytoskeleton provides a static skeleton…
January 2, 2007
... don't bet on it!
I read far too many papers where the author claims that their favorite protein "localizes to the leading edge in migrating cells". Then they show a pretty picture like this one:
The problem is that the cell thickens right at the leading edge. So if your protein is freely…
December 31, 2006
(This is back dated as I would like to start the new year on a brighter note.)
After a long day of skiing in the green hills of Vermont, my brother , cousin and I decided to go for a swim followed by a dip into the jacuzzi at the back of the hotel. I haven't seen my cousin in 4 years. He was living…
December 29, 2006
Let's end this year with a bang!
Here is this week's mystery campus:
hint: It's getting cold.
As usual, leave your answers in the comment section.
(although I screwed up last time, don't worry, Willie is warm!)
December 28, 2006
(I wish)
I though I could spend a day or too relaxing ... but it seems like I can't do it. Today was spent cleaning the apartment in preparation for a family visit down from Montreal.
We're actually meeting up with my parents, brother, aunt and cousins in Burlington Vermont for some skiing (thank…
December 27, 2006
2006 was (again) year of the RNA.
Two nobels. The RNA world expanded with the discovery of Piwi RNA. RNAi as a transmittable trait? (Lamarck is vindicated!) We also found out that much of the conserved parts of our genome do not encode protein. Now how many of these bits are regulatory elements…
December 24, 2006
Check this out:
First-in-Human Experience of an Antidote-Controlled Anticoagulant Using RNA Aptamer Technology
From the paper:
A translatable platform for developing an optimal parenteral anticoagulant should consider several prerequisite properties: easy delivery, rapid onset of action, and…
December 23, 2006
Sorry this week has been hellish. I've had no time to blog (but I did see a great two-man performance of The Importance of Being Earnest at ART). Anyway, this week was filled with work. I've been microinjecting my brains out. And then whatever is left was fried on the microscope. During one of the…
December 23, 2006
Earlier this week you probably read the whole saga of how researchers tracked down some individuals who could not sense pain. They then identified the gene responsible as SCN9A, a voltage-gated sodium channel and that was published in Nature. But in Science there was another report of a gene,…
December 20, 2006
Chris Phoenix asked me to comment on his entry: Studying Molecular Biology. As someone who is constantly playing around with cells I'll add this advice to how biological systems differ from watches and the Antikythera Mechanism, biological systems are composed of adaptable platforms such as the…
December 19, 2006
Last week was too stressful - although by Friday afternoon I had put together the pieces of the puzzle and it all makes sense (I'd tell you more about it, potentially I've stumbled upon a really cool little "cellular circuit", but I'd rather publish it first. Mother Nature has so many neat tricks…
December 15, 2006
Here's one for you:
Last week's hint was fatal, this week's hint: deadly particle.
Leave your answers in the comment section, or if you don't want to ruin it for others, email me and I'll post all your answers over the weekend.
(And no, the forest on the left is not home to Willie the Wildcat.)
December 14, 2006
From Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go:
"When I watched you dancing that day, I saw something else. I saw a new world coming rapidly. More scientific, efficient, yes. More cures for old sicknesses. Very good. But a harsh, cruel world. And I saw a little girl, her eyes tightly closed, holding to her…
December 13, 2006
Here's a happiness scale for you (based loosely on this book). The listed numbers act as a point of reference:
10- Incredible result that explains all the data amassed by a field and resolves various conflicts between different models.
9.5- Fantastic result, all your pet theories are proven.
9-…
December 13, 2006
Time for a therapy session.
Man I hate this. My cortisol levels must be through the roof. I tested my clones and got weird results. I was racking my brain all weekend trying to figure out why. Then yesterday I tested a positive control, and got negative results. I feel like I'm trapped in the…
December 12, 2006
Apparently weak and strong signal sequences are differentially targeted to the ER acording to a new paper in Cell.
(For more on how proteins are inserted into the ER click here.)
Preprolactin has a strong signal sequence and is inserted into the translocon even when the unfolded protein response…
December 9, 2006
It's been a while since I did this. Baltimore on Dawkins. Three kingdoms? Skeptical publishing. Libertarians & adolescents? Kant vs. Archimedes. Yes they're all below the fold.
David Baltimore reviews Dawkins' The God Delusion. [HT: MM, FCD]
Larry Moran is writing a whole series of posts on…
December 8, 2006
Yesterday Melissa Moore gave a talk at the School of Public Health here at Harvard Med School. She had lots of data - on nonsense mediated decay (how cells degrade mRNA transcripts with premature stop codons that arise through various mechanisms) and on nonfunctional ribosome decay (NRD). Here is…
December 8, 2006
It's that time again.
Here is this week's mystery campus:
hint: fatal element.
As usual, leave your answers in the comment section.
December 7, 2006
... is with me.
Two constructs to make.
Two colonies I had.
Each trial a single clone.
I cut them, they cut just the way I hoped.
Each clone was sequenced.
The sequence told me that I have what I need.
Although my hopes were low, I did succeed.
And now the clones are sent into the fire ...
Will…
December 6, 2006
As a grad student at Columbia, I once saw a talk by Joachim Frank at Rockefeller. Siting in the audience, I was wowed as Frank described the cryo-EM structure of the ribosome in many different conformations, each representing one step of the polypeptide chain elongation cycle. Compiling them…
December 6, 2006
From today's Boston Globe:
Harvard has whittled down hundreds of nominees for its next president to a small list, including internal candidates and presidents of some of the nation's top universities, according to a source familiar with the process.
The source would not give a specific number, but…
December 4, 2006
The H-index was the brainchild of Jorge Hirsch. It's a method to quantify a researchers impact. (To read more on this, check this entry of mine: What's your h-index.)
I was just alerted that Michael Schwartzbach has written a program that can calculate your very own h-index quickly over the web by…
December 4, 2006
Over this past summer I saw Dirk Görlich give a talk about how the multitude of FG repeats found within the nuclear pore complex (NPC), form a gel like matrix. This "elastic hydrogel" acts as the major barrier within the NPC. Although the gel can prevent the passage of most large molecules (>…
December 3, 2006
... came Stephane Dion to take the leadership of the Liberal Party in Canada.
Dion's platform ... (from the CBC)
"We cannot afford to miss out on the next industrial revolution: the sustainable economy," Dion said when he announced his bid April 7.
"For that reason, we must weave together…
December 1, 2006
Earlier today I gave our weekly journal club. As usual there is some large scheme/model/godzilla image associated with the intro/summary. Here's mine ... mRNA nuclear export in yeast:
Highlighted are 3 major systems. Many proteins are listed, many more are not.
Nucleoplasm is on the bottom,…
December 1, 2006
Here is an easy one.
hint: Motor Wars.
We'll try something different this week. Now considering the readership of this blog I'm sure that many of you know this place very well. So if you know what it is, leave a clue, hint, or embarrassing incident that occurred there (in the comment section of…