apalazzo
Posts by this author
July 28, 2008
As a scientist, I traffic in data, ideas, models and theories.
I spend a lot of time thinking about how the whole process works. And many scientists and science philosophers have thought about this as well. One inescapable fact: humans tend to duck, deny and fool themselves into believing certain…
July 27, 2008
Now that I have a good chunk of time where I'm not scheduled to run off to some distant land for vacation or to give some talk, I have decided to work extra hard. Right now I'm incubating my samples. This post is the result of me killing that time.
I want to bring up an article that appeared n…
July 23, 2008
I have a favour to ask of all of you. Go and fill in SciLink's Tree of Science (you'll have to sign up to SciLink first). Why? Well it is very interesting to see how different scientists are connected. And on top of that we can settle a longstanding dispute - what is the appropriate Erdos Number…
July 23, 2008
If you are a postdoc or a junior faculty in the biomedical sciences, you have probably seen this infamous cartoon by Dent:
Yesterday I was talking with my good pal Dan and we were discussing a few other great pieces by Dent. After that conversation, I did what anyone else would do, I Googled the…
July 22, 2008
We were planning to head to Europe so when I discovered that the cheapest tickets were being offered by Icelandair, I jumped on it. Why? I have always wanted to visit this mystic land and Icelandair lets you have a free stopover for up to a week. I highly recommend that you do this once - Iceland…
July 18, 2008
I've sign into yet another sciency LinkedIn type site. This time it's Epernicus. I've had a good look at the site, it's about on par with SciLink with some exceptions.
1) The scientific genealogy application on SciLink is much better then that on the Epernicus site. Why? You can extensively modify…
July 17, 2008
A friend of mine just sent this to me (for the record, he's a structure biologist, i.e. he studies the structure of proteins and other biological molecules):
My kid had a screen session with a school administrator for his kindergarten today. Following are some answers he came up with:
Teacher: "…
July 16, 2008
Inspired by a conversation with Awesome Mike.
Your science career, what type of video game is it? At times it might resemble a labyrinth full of demons that you must slay. (Or maybe it's like Grand Theft Auto? Well since I've never played that game nor Halo, I'll stick to the metaphorical game…
July 14, 2008
After Paris we flew to Munich on Airberlin (20 Euros per ticket, 50 Euros after taxes and airport fees.) There we met up with some former colleagues (Julia and Michael) and a current member of the Rapoport Lab (Briana) who will be leaving us soon to start her own lab in the MCB department at…
July 13, 2008
We then arrived in Paris on June 21st. If spending the summer solstice in the city of lights means nothing to you then you've never heard of Fete de la Musique, a one day outdoor party. The streets were filled with Parisians taking in the food, the sights and the sounds generated from live…
July 9, 2008
From Normandy we headed to the Breton coast. But first we passed through Mont Saint Michel, a large rock that sits in the crux of a large bay that divides Normandy from Brittany.
Mont Saint Michel is sometimes described as a tidal Island although it is in fact connected to the mainland by a man…
July 7, 2008
In the next couple of posts I'll quickly recap some parts of my trip. (Hey it's my freakin' blog and I get to post on whatever subject I want!)
The story begins when we landed at Charles de Gaul Airport. From there we met up with old friends and drove off to Caens, Normandy, birthplace of Guillaume…
July 5, 2008
Sorry about the incredibly long delay in posts. I've been away. Specifically Brittany, Paris, Bavaria, and Iceland to experience the white nights.
Now I'm back and I'm not travelling for awhile. I'll post pictures as soon as I can.
June 13, 2008
The trip to Toronto was great. I met a lot of great people there and I think that I made a good impression on the members of the Biochemistry Department at the U of T.
Since this was my first real job interview, I didn't know exactly what to expect. In the end I decided to "let myself go" and enjoy…
June 12, 2008
Yesterday I had a great time visiting the biochemistry department at the University of Toronto. I met up with Lary Moran of Sandwalk who gave me a tour of the place. (We also got caught up in a huge discussion that culminated in a bet ... I will disclose the details at a future date.)
Later that…
June 8, 2008
Well I won't be doing much blogging in the coming weeks. Last Wednesday I found out that I will be giving a talk this Thursday at the University of Toronto. This news came to me while I was smack-dab in the middle of one of these huge experiments. Of course the experiment failed (but I did learn…
June 6, 2008
The first one since April.
Here it is:
hint: Blogs are hot.
So if you know the identity of the mystery campus please leave a comment. If you're at this campus, maybe I'll see you next week!
June 5, 2008
From Andre at biocurious:
Janet Iwasa has had an unusual scientific career. After finishing her PhD with Dyche Mullins at UCSF she started a postdoc in Jack Szostak's lab at Harvard but not to do bench work or even simulations like her postdoc colleagues. Instead, Janet is a full time animator and…
June 4, 2008
With the sequencing of the human genome, the public at large has been told that biologists now have a full picture of how life works. This is far from the truth. In this series of posts I'll try to outline what we don't know - in other words gaps in our knowledge.
Today we'll look at how proteins…
June 2, 2008
I must say that the animators omitted many details, such as the RNA polymerase's c-terminal repeats, splicing, the assembly of an RNP, the workings of the nuclear pore complex, and the assembly of a translation initiation complex ... but WOW! We need more of these videos!
June 1, 2008
I heard about the report on the the latest Science Mag Podcast.
Some general notes:
-NIH budget will see a 0% increase
-NSF budget will see a 15% increase
-There is a significant increase in funding to the Department of Energy (up 21%)
-Support of research (basic and applied) would fall 0.3%.…
May 29, 2008
OK this is an attempt to revive the blog. This entry is inspired by a talk given about a month ago by my mentor, Tom Rapoport. I hope that it will be the first of a series of posts where I ramble on about what we don't know. In each post I'll discuss a topic that remains mysterious. I'll try to…
May 28, 2008
No I'm not dead. I have been performing some tricky bucket biochemistry, traveling to Montreal every second weekend, taking care of the upcoming season of NERD talks, dealing with job applications, supervising a rotation student and will soon be supervising an undergrad. How do young PIs have time…
May 20, 2008
I've been receiving requests from the newest networking program. I've given up fighting and just joined in.
So what's special about this new networking site? Well, in contrast to LinkedIn there are special features that are more applicable to academics in general. For example you can add papers…
May 19, 2008
I heard Sachs being interviewed in the latest Nature Podcast.
Oliver Morton: I think one of the striking things, Jeff that you say very early on in [your new book, 'Commonwealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet'] is that the great crisis point is that we have a unified global economy and a divided…
May 19, 2008
This weekend I was back up in Montreal for my brother's wedding. It was actually held in St Antoine sur-le-Richelieu, a little picturesque town east of the city. This hamlet was also the site of a famous battle between the Brits and the local heroes, Les Patriotes.
Inspired by the American…
May 12, 2008
Or is it the age of Malthus?
To think that our natural resources can last forever is one of our society's greatest myths. As the world population rises and the standard of living in the developing world increases, the capability to cloth, feed and provide energy through non-renewable resources will…