apalazzo
Posts by this author
July 14, 2006
After the World Cup I've been racing through a month of neglected work (thus no time to blog). Big stories in Cell Biology: actin gets arginylated (spell?), mRNA targetted to the ER gets degraded in times of stress, and the major paradigm shift in the Golgi (the biggest two papers this year, IMHO…
July 12, 2006
This will be my last entry on this topic (i.e. the World Cup) ... c'est fini après ça. Here is Zidane's interview:
For all those of you that don't understand le français, I'll translate a couple of things ...
He was first asked if there was bad blood between the two teams, any insults being…
July 11, 2006
I've been subcloning today and my brain feels like mush. (All you non-biologists have no fear, subcloning = cutting and pasting DNA). Then I get an email from an old friend ... "look at this natural hallucinogen video" ... yeah whatever, you stare at the moving pattern and then turn away and ...…
July 10, 2006
I just got home from work, sat down in front of my laptop, and read this article from the Guardian. At the risk of turning my blog into a football/soccer gossip column, here's the article:
An Italian lip-reader last night claimed to have deciphered the words Marco Materazzi said to Zinedine Zidane…
July 10, 2006
Wow, the events of yesterday are still bouncing around in my brain. Lots of dodos are blaming Zidane for the loss. Give me a fxxking break. Zidane was sent off with 10min to go and no gas left. If it was anyone's fault, blame Trezeguet who missed his penalty kick. To me the key moment was a couple…
July 9, 2006
How can I say this? I'm happy for Gli Azzurri, but life isn't perfect.
The day started off superbly. Having won a bet on the Italy-German semifinal, we had an incredible brunch on Veit's roof deck in Beacon Hill. (Thanks Veit, we need to have more bets!) On the menu: smoke salmon, croissants, eggs…
July 8, 2006
This is so funny. A series of photos of the winning goal in the France-Brazil game. Poor Roberto Carlos, I guess that's why he retired.
BTW - Germany-Portugal is shaping up to be a good game. It's 2-0 right now, but it would be 4-0 if not for the Portuguese goalie, Ricardo.
Update: Schweinsteiger,…
July 8, 2006
Yes, it's true, Kyle MacDonald of my hometown (Montreal) has successfully achieved his dream: trade one red paperclip for a house.
Incredible.
July 8, 2006
This world cup has been marked by beautiful games and people accusing refs of making bad calls. David Hirshey in today's NY Times OpEd section:
Several months before the 1999 Women's World Cup, I accompanied the United States national team to Brazil for a series of exhibition matches. One afternoon…
July 7, 2006
From Wednesday's Boston Globe - (I know it's a wee bit late): Setbacks for medical research (OpEd).
For the first time in three decades, federal funding for the National Institutes of Health was cut this year. The reduction, which followed two years of level funding, not only imperils the…
July 7, 2006
OK here is the satelite photo:
Click here for a larger image.
Here is the hint:
Cells Divide, but sometimes they Can't
What is the mystery campus? And what in the world does the hint mean?
(BTW last week's hint is still up for grabs ... there are plenty of clues in the comments.)
July 7, 2006
It's Mitosis, with a nifty soundtrack. Enjoy!
Previously:
More Biology Rap
Protein Synthesis Rap
July 6, 2006
I had read a couple of reviews about all the recent ruckus in this field. I was going to write something ... but I only have so many hours in a day. Now the newest paper has now surfaced. Pure Pedantry has the details. And so I guess I'll end up writing about it anyway.
So how did this all start?…
July 6, 2006
No soccer today. So instead of spending time watching others run around, go read the two papers, published in last week's Nature on Golgi maturation.
Proteins that need to traverse, or be embedded, within membranes are synthesized on the surface of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). At the ER…
July 5, 2006
This up at Nature: The 50 most popular science blogs.
No surprise, Pharyngula and Panda's Thumb head the list (based on technorati's rankings).
Big surprise: The Daily Transcript is tied for #38.
To read more, check out what PZ Myers had to say.
(OK I promise that I'll write a REAL science entry…
July 5, 2006
Well it was an incredible game. Both teams played impressively well. Italy had the advantage in the first half, Germany had the advantage in the second half. Overtime varied between end to end play, and exhausted players walking around. As the final whistle approached, Italy kept on substituting in…
July 4, 2006
Here I am, with my affiliations to Italy, the land of my origins, in a "German" lab. Many bets are on the line. So can Gli Azzurri make it? Although history may predict that the home team has an advantage, Germany has never defeated Italy in either the Euro Cup or the World Cup. There has always…
July 4, 2006
Yesterday, while driving up to Ipswich to spend the day at Crane beach and watch the see the annual July 3rd Fireworks, a group of us gabbed about the transient nature of being an academic.
Living from place to place, moving until you are in your late 30s, an academic is expected to travel and…
July 2, 2006
Why did France beat Brazil? Because they have the greatest living soccer player.
... and then the winning goal (note how at the beginning of the play, Zidane flips the ball over Ronaldo's head):
Incredible, one of the best games of this World Cup.
July 1, 2006
Direct a change at one site.
Point to the little man in your head.
Get your blood sugar running.
These are a few Canadian scientific discoveries. Who, who and who are these famous Canuks?
Some Canadian Science Links:
Science Canada
David Suzuki Foundation
Discovery.ca
June 30, 2006
Well you guys have been pretty good at guessing the mystery campus. But in addition I'd like you to tell me the answer to the riddle/hint. (Last week no one really explained what the first part of the riddle meant - even after Bil posted an additional hint in the comment section.)
So here is this…
June 30, 2006
Every thought about how variable the expression of a particular gene is across an entire cell population?
That's what the Weissman lab described in a manuscript in a recent issue of Nature. Anytime you want to take on such a project - take my advice, you turn to yeast. The yeast field has created…
June 29, 2006
First there was the Protein Synthesis Rap, now this ode to the animal kingdom. Enjoy.
June 28, 2006
Here's a tale from the lab.
Today we had an interesting discussion. It started off with PBS and ended up on the topic of understanding the principles behind much of the protocols used in a lab.
It all started when a rotation student asked if there was a lab stock of PBS (phosphate buffered saline…
June 27, 2006
I've got lab meeting in 5 mins. Here's some stuff I've read in the blog-o-sphere recently.
From Coturnix, DarkSide interviews Sean Carrol on DailyKos about the Big Bang, Dark Matter, Dark Energy and String Theory.
Next up ... Ode to the ... pocket protector? From M. William Lensch's blog:
The…
June 26, 2006
... Italy last minute penalty. Goal.
So was that "foul" worthy of a penalty shot? Was this a second game ruined by a bad ref? You tell me.
All I know is that this victory for Gli Azzurri, left a bad taste in my mouth.
June 26, 2006
Just read this Abstract from PLoS:
Mammalian genes are highly heterogeneous with respect to their nucleotide composition, but the functional consequences of this heterogeneity are not clear. In the previous studies, weak positive or negative correlations have been found between the silent-site…
June 24, 2006
If you played for Brazil, what would your name be?
Go to BrazilName to find out.
June 24, 2006
Call it part II of an ongoing miniseries. Or, if you prefer, one of many entries on happiness.
Lets think about technology for a moment. Here I am typing on this laptop. Ideas flow (misspelled and grammatically incorrect) from my brain to my fingers to the keyboard ... over a wireless network ...…
June 23, 2006
Time for another Map that Campus.
I provide the aerial photo and a hint, you tell me the mystery Campus.
The first two mystery Campus were solved rather rapidly (and I suspect that this one will be as well). So here goes:
Click here for a larger image.
Alpha, beta
Yea, yea, yea
But a cannon
They…