apalazzo
Posts by this author
February 5, 2008
After arriving back home from the Keystone symposia, I jumped right into preparing for lab meeting where I'm presenting mostly new data. I haven't fully digested the conference, but I'll just leave you with a couple of remarks.
1) The miRNA field is a mess. It remains unclear whether all or any of…
January 28, 2008
Arrive to the conference early to take in a day of skiing before the conference.
+
90 minute delay in take off at Boston, with a mad dash to our connecting flight in Portland.
=
Luggage stuck in Portland = No ski equipment = No skiing = Working on the talk and the grant.
January 27, 2008
Well we are happy about last night.
This afternoon I'm taking off for northern Idaho. I'll somewhere in the mountains for about a week. Between the meeting, skiing and working on the grant I don't know how much blogging I'll be able to do. For the past two week's songs from Radiohead's new album…
January 26, 2008
At least I didn't support a warmonger
-Anonymous (you know who you are!)
January 26, 2008
I often read these guys - the lives they describe are something that any struggling young scientist trapped in the web of academia and the NIH can relate to. Since their move to Sb, they've even managed to post on grant writing. Go check 'em out.
January 25, 2008
Wake up, make breakfast. Espresso, two slices of bread from a French batard from Clear Flour Bread with some mouhamara spread from Arax. In the newspaper I read about the primaries, the financial crisis and nothing too important. I waste an hour with email, signing up to some HHMI online system,…
January 24, 2008
Unfortunately I'll be out of town, but I encourage anyone in the Boston area to go. Here's the latest from Corie:
Hi everyone,
The new year is well underway so it's time for another one of the famous Nature Network Boston pub nights!
(For those of you new to NNB (http://network.nature.com/boston),…
January 23, 2008
Hello world. It's been about a week now that I've given up bench work for the pen. Instead of commuting to the lab, I've been anchored to my chair writing this longish compilation of past results, inconsistencies in the literature, and my little addition to the confusion that exists in my field of…
January 20, 2008
And if you enjoyed that clip, here's another video of a crow performing an incredible act of intelligence:
January 19, 2008
Wow! I really need this! With this program you can store, search and organize all those PDFs.
From the website:
Do you have dozens of PDF files from your favorite scientific articles scattered on your harddrive? Do you also try to desperately organize them by renaming and archiving them in folders…
January 19, 2008
I read an interesting article in today's NY Times. Apparently, the inspector general's office of the Department of Health and Human Services released a report suggesting that the NIH should do a better job of monitoring potential conflicts of interest. From the NY Times article:
The health…
January 18, 2008
Baymate just freaked-out over that bio-rad PCR clip that's been making the rounds. If you really want to see it, look beneath the fold.
January 18, 2008
The first Map that Campus of 2008. My apologies to the NU posse who have been patiently waiting not to see their alma mater.
And so without wasting any more words, here is this week's mystery campus:
hint: It's definitely not on Mike Huckabee's campaign tour!
Leave your answer in the comments…
January 16, 2008
Well a study just came out that there are lots of little non-coding RNAs expressed in interesting patterns in the Brain. I've actaully heard about similar unpublished data from some other sources.
Does this mean that the genome is filled with functional ncRNA encoding genes? Hold your horses. As…
January 15, 2008
Read it here.
Fortunately, I was able to see him give a talk, just a month ago. Unfortunately he will not get a Nobel despite creating a whole field of research while going against the paradigms of the day.
Click here to watch an episode on Nova dedicated to his research.
Update: Orac has this nice…
January 15, 2008
Behind the scenes I've been ranting at my Scienceblog neighbours. Since I've been busy writing my k99 grant and have little energy to write about any of the new papers out there I'll repost some of my comments in modified form here.
Why are cell biology, molecular biology, biochemistry,…
January 12, 2008
What a beautiful day. We just got back from a walk in Mt Auburn Cemetery where we randomly came across Richard Buckminster Fuller's grave. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera. Fortunately we live in the time of the internet where information and photos can be acquired within seconds. (The photo…
January 10, 2008
Sometime last year Mitch Waldrop conducted extensive interviews with many who were experimenting between Science and the Web2.0. The result is this article that appeared yesterday on the SciAm website. In keeping with the spirit of Web2.0, you can add your comments or suggests edits to the article…
January 10, 2008
Forget about all the crazy conspiracy theories about why Hillary won (such as the Deibold theory, the white poor vs black candidate theory, the who is on top of the list theory, the Chris Matthews revulsion theory, the Hillary preconceived teary-eyed pro-sympathy theory) - the real issue is whether…
January 10, 2008
This looks great!
My only question is how much energy does it take to compress the air need for their 200km trip. That energy must come from somewhere (like a coal burning electricity plant). On the flip side, the cost can't be too high if 1.5 euros fills your tank. As a bonus I'm sure that some…
January 9, 2008
No I'm not going to write about the NH primary. I'll just say that I'm surprised that Hillary won, and I'm glad that the NH and Iowa votes canceled eachother out. In the end the Democratic nomination will be decided by the more populous states (as it should be).
Let's get on to more important…
January 7, 2008
What goes into a journal's impact factor? It turns out that this is a good question. These impact factors are calculated by Thomsom Scientific and attempt to quantify the import of any particular scientific journal.
But did anyone read this commentary in the December 17th issue of JCB? It's a…
January 6, 2008
Yes I'm over a week late - this occurred when I was taking a year-end blogging break. The new legislation, signed into law by GWB states that if your research is funded by the NIH, any manuscript you produce must be deposited in PubMed Central within 12 months of the publication date. From Open…
January 6, 2008
Wow! All my friends from the Dean campaign went up to NH today to work in the Obama camp. I on the other hand have stayed behind (I'll be leaving for the lab soon to inject some cells). And I'm vacillating between Obama and Edwards (but leaning towards Obama).
So forget about the Sunday morning…
January 5, 2008
For anyone who hasn't seen this yet - a Youtube clip (if a 52 minute video can be called a clip) of Radiohead performing the entire In Rainbows Album
January 4, 2008
(yes another polical entry - don't worry, I'll soon be back to posting about science)
Some notes on last night's caucus results:
- Obama was the only major candidate not tarnished by a vote for the war. People are rewarding candidates for their past stances and punishing others who took politically…
January 3, 2008
A link to Nature which has a summary of the primary candidates' stance on science issues. (HT: Mike)
Bora just announced the selections for Open Lab 2007, the best science blogging of the year (which I was a judge, although Bora may have forgotten ...)
The Edge asked its illustrious members, which…
January 3, 2008
Since I started blogging (over 3 years ago) I have been posting less and less on political matters, but I have a story to share with you on the Iowa caucuses. My wife and I, for reasons that I won't go into here, were big supporters of Dean in 2004. The night of the 2004 Iowa caucuses, Dean…
January 2, 2008
In this coming year I plan to
1) Publish another paper.
2) Spend less time on the blog (great start, eh?)
3) Go to more meetings (I'm already registered for the January Keystone meeting on "Translational Regulatory Mechanisms", and I will try hard to go to the 2008 RNA meeting in Berlin)
4) Apply…
December 30, 2007
I constructed one last year, so here is this year's compilation.