evolgen
Posts by this author
August 15, 2006
Here are three interesting items that I don't plan on blogging, but are worth linking to:
Here is a news release on indel variation in humans. SNPs are so 20th century. Deletions, duplications, and insertions are the molecular polymorphisms of the future.
Speaking of deletions and duplications,…
August 15, 2006
Given the expected frequency of a certain outcome of a replicate in an experiment, we can estimate the expected variance around that mean (either by deriving it or performing simulations). I have heard that laboratory experiments tend to have greater variances than expected due to conditions not…
August 15, 2006
Check out this nice primer of population genetics by Anya Plutynski and Warren Ewens from the Philosophy of Science Encyclopedia. A lot of it deals with classical population genetics (Wright, Fisher, et al), and I especially like their description of Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium:
Weinberg and Hardy…
August 15, 2006
The NYTimes has published an essay by Lawrence Krauss on the Kansas School Board elections, the anti-science religious right, and religious faith. Krauss argues that scientific ignorance is not the same thing as religious belief. There are some fundamentalists whose faith prevent them from…
August 15, 2006
Creationists devote most of their energy towards undermining science education. Whatever their flavor, they are not scientists and they don't do science. Creationists evolved into intelligent designers after Edwards v. Aguillard. Kitzmiller v. Dover was a huge blow to the intelligent design…
August 14, 2006
Razib wants us to come up with 10 assertions of 10 words or less which we believe that the public should know about evolutionary science. He also wants us to come up with our list before looking at his list, which means we're left to figure out what the hell he means without seeing any examples. My…
August 14, 2006
...like who? I'm really late on this, but Dan has asked us to name some rock-star scientists. He suggested Nobel Laureate David Baltimore. Baltimore isn't a rock-star because of his guitar chops or his rotating drum kit. If you want one of those, you can have Dexter Holland. Baltimore is a science…
August 14, 2006
I can't speak for each and every one of the other biologist types in the house here at ScienceBlogs, but one comment on Chad's post on highfalutin particle physicists struck a chord with me. It all starts with this quote getting back at people who think their research is the be all and end all of…
August 13, 2006
I tend to avoid writing about creationists (despite what Orac believes) because I find them quite boring. Sure, they can be amusing (scoring high on the unintentional comedy scale), but I'm not a huge fan of willfull ignorance, deception, and attacks on eduction. I'd rather waste my time writing…
August 13, 2006
Seed's going buck-nutty for the 25th anniversary of the AIDS epidemic, including a new blog covering the 16th International AIDS Conference. This week's Ask A Science Blogger also deals with the disease:
To what extent do you worry about AIDS, either with respect to yourself, your children, or the…
August 12, 2006
Anyone know what happened to Mendel's Garden #4? It was supposed to be posted at The Inoculated Mind on August 6. Today is August 12. The last post on The Inoculated Mind is dated July 24. Wussup?
August 12, 2006
Yeah, I know it's been over a week since my last post. I don't need you to remind me. I've been busy reading really bad writing grading lab reports. I can't write for shit, so if I think your writing sucks, you've gotta be a really bad writer, and you need to learn how to write . . . really kick…
August 4, 2006
I'm going to agree with Tara, Evil Monkey, Steinn v2.0, and Chad on this week's Ask a Science Blogger:
What movie do you think does something admirable (though not necessarily accurate) regarding science? Bonus points for answering whether the chosen movie is any good generally.
The answer: Real…
August 3, 2006
I am housed in a biology department. Wow, that came out a lot more impersonal than I intended. Let me try that again: My advisor's appointment is to the Biology Department at my university (not much better...eh). Being in a biology department means the faculty interests are very diverse (compared…
August 1, 2006
According to this press release, cancer cells can be kept from dividing by preventing them from making cell walls. Cell walls? Yeah, cell walls. Like plants or bacteria. Last time I checked, animal cells ain't got no walls. Ordinarily, I'd attribute this to a stoopid reported getting the…
July 31, 2006
This week's Ask A Science Blogger deals with global warming and wine production:
I heard that within 15 years, global warming will have made Napa County too hot to grow good wine grapes. Is that true? What other changes are we going to see during our lifetimes because of global warming?...
I am…
July 31, 2006
A few weeks ago I introduced y'all to Genoinformatics, the hot new abbreviation for Genome Informatics (some sort of derivative of Bioinformatics). I pointed out that I have quite a few international collaborators in this research area, including people in Italy (Geno Informatico), Germany (Jan…
July 31, 2006
I have mentioned before that at one point in my life I wanted to study conservation genetics. This field can be thought of a subdiscipline of molecular ecology -- wherein researchers use molecular markers to test hypotheses regarding demography in their population of interest. Jacob at Salamander…
July 27, 2006
I'm in the process of exhuming myself from under a mountain of work, that's why the posting's been ultra-light. My last link to cool pictures of bugs went over well, so I'm giving you a few more pictures. These come from a friend's website -- be sure to check out the bee and its hitchhiker.
July 23, 2006
Check out these pictures of tiny little critters up close. Wow! Thanks to Neil for pointing this out.
July 23, 2006
Have you ever wondered what's happened to the line between church and state? Are you curious as to whether the line has been blurred or erased altogether? Clay at DeadlyHippos investigates the issue by visiting a megachurch in Tennessee. The church is run by Maury Davis, a man convicted of first…
July 22, 2006
I just realized that the (relatively) recent ScienceBlogs addition Dynamics of Cats is authored by a faculty member from my university. It only took me two months after he came on board to notice Steinn Sigurðsson's academic affiliation. The two of us, along with Monsieur Bérubé, are representing…
July 21, 2006
Or maybe his copy editor reads this blog. Either way, there are changes afoot at the NY Times.
Three days ago I ragged on NY Times science reporter Nicholas Wade for using the word 'decode' when describing genome sequencing. In his latest article he has improved. Last time he wrote about cheap…
July 21, 2006
The third edition of Mendel's Garden -- the genetics blog carnival -- has been posted at Viva la Evolucion. Nothing like a blog with a Spanish language flavor hosted by an Irish website. Check out los artÃculos de genética.
July 20, 2006
If you could have practiced science in any time and any place throughout history, which would it be, and why?
That's what they are asking us this week. And, once again, I'm going to skirt the question. You see, it depends on whether the future counts as a "place throughout history." Currently, the…
July 20, 2006
The National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI, sorry no clever acronym) has announced the next primate genome to be sequenced: the white cheeked gibbon (pictured right). This genome is of particular interest due to the large amount of segmental duplications, which are of both medical and…
July 20, 2006
A few months ago I promised that I would publish some original research on this blog. I managed to churn out some background, but I still haven't gotten around to presenting any results. Even though I wasn't able to get my original research out, it doesn't mean that no one is publishing research on…
July 19, 2006
The 58th edition of Tangled Bank has been posted at Salto sobrius. Go read some stuff people have written about science.
July 18, 2006
The NY Times has chimed in on cheap DNA sequencing with this article from Nicholas Wade. Wade's article deals with medical applications of affordable whole genome sequencing technologies (with the goal being the $1000 genome). The article, however, is cringe-inducing because Wade has decided that '…
July 18, 2006
Jacob at Salamander Candy has written the post that I have been meaning to write. With so much freely available sequence data in GenBank and loads of free software with which to analyze it, we should encourage the general public to start looking for 'interesting things' (building phylogenies,…