Sandra Porter
sporte
Posts by this author
December 8, 2006
Laurie David claims that National Science Teachers' Association (the NSTA) is inconveniently hooked up with big oil because they won't spend the money to send out 50,000 copies of the "An Inconvenient Truth" DVD.
If I do the math and estimate that it costs $4 to mail each DVD, that includes…
December 7, 2006
Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor (dubbed the Tripoli six) may be executed soon by the Libyan government for the crime of deliberately infecting over 400 children with HIV. If they did infect the children, this would be a horrendous crime. If they did not infect the children, it's…
December 1, 2006
In which I present a quick guide for the omically challenged and a defense of 'arth and "ome."
Other SciBloggers have shared their thoughts on the use of ome here and here.
Sometimes I get frustrated too, with the way language is abused and tweaked by those around me. So many word pairs that once…
November 30, 2006
Some of my fellow bloggers and I have been following the fall out from an Op Ed piece in the Washington Post on the NSTA's refusal to mail 50,000 copies of the "An Inconvient Truth" DVD to it's members. You can read earlier posts: here, here, and here.
Today, the NSTA confirmed that they never…
November 30, 2006
The EMBL graduate students have organized an ingenious conference titled: Life Sciences - Shaping the Future. Learn about Omics and Systems Biology from speakers like Leroy Hood, Stuart Kim, and Ronald Krause (and more). Explore options for career development, and learn how you can join the Web…
November 29, 2006
What's the difference between a synthetic drug and an antibiotic?
Sometimes there's no difference at all.
Let's take a look at chloramphenicol and couple of pencillins.
Chloramphenicol kills many different kinds of bacteria by interfering with their ability to make new proteins. Here's a point…
November 28, 2006
One of my favorite books, "The Phantom Tollbooth," by Norton Juster, has a wonderful description of the penalties for making decisions without carefully evaluating the facts. Whenever the characters in the book arrive at a decision too quickly, they end up, literally, "jumping to Conclusions," an…
November 28, 2006
Antibiotics are molecules of biological warfare.
Produced by bacteria and some fungi, in response to extracellular signals, antibiotics represent a diverse group of compounds that inhibit bacterial growth at different points and different stages of the life cycle.
We will get around to antibiotic…
November 27, 2006
A few years ago, I heard an interesting thing from another mother when I picked my oldest daughter up from daycare. The other mother was suffering from a head cold and confessed to me her fear that she had become "antibiotic resistant."
I found this statement pretty funny at the time, especially…
November 22, 2006
If you're still awake tomorrow after the feast and managing to withstand the sopoforic effects of the tryptophan from the turkey and the carbohydrates from the potatoes and pie, you might want to consider doing a little science at home. Fellow SciBlings Tara Smith (here & here), Mike Dunford (…
November 22, 2006
Random remembrance #1. December 1st is world AIDS day. On December 1st, I will mourn for my former colleagues, students and acquaintances who've died from AIDS.
Random random reminder #2. Bloggers, Ron Hudson from the International Carnival of Pozivities will be putting together stories about…
November 14, 2006
A few weeks ago, I wrote about visiting the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit at the Pacific Science Center and learning how DNA analysis is being used to help put pieces of the scrolls together.
One of the mysteries that was discussed in the exhibit was the question of whether the members of the religous…
November 8, 2006
I touched a nerve in another post by mentioning molecular biology kits.
Let's face it. Cloning kits, sequencing kits, and their relatives are the laboratory equivalent of frozen cookie dough.
With frozen cookie dough, anyone can bake hot, steamy, chocolate chip cookies that taste great. You don…
November 7, 2006
This is worth taking a look. Go see the 2006 winners in the Nikon Small World Gallery.
There are lovely images of the nuclei in a mouse colon, cyanobacteria and a diatom, a fluorescent aquatic worm, a lovely picture of a transgenic tobacco species, a beautiful picture of a sea urchin embryo in…
November 7, 2006
BioMed Central has gone beyond conventional scientific publishing and started including movie supplements to scientific papers. I saw this one in my e-mail box and couldn't resist.
After all, if you don't have access to a microscope, equipped with a digital video camera, how are you supposed to…
November 6, 2006
How does biomedical research impact you? Have you (or has someone in your family) benefited from vaccinations, pharmaceutical drugs, medical devices, surgery, or transplants? How does biomedical research affect the health of your dog, cat, or other pet? How might biomedical research touch your life…
November 6, 2006
I wrote earlier about videos of lab protocols and the benefit these could bring to people who are trying to learn new techniques or perhaps troubleshoot their own. Unfortunately, I suspect that the people who would benefit the most from movies of others doing lab procedures correctly are those who…
November 4, 2006
You've probably heard about enterprising researchers attaching cameras to dolphins, dogs, and other animals, in order to learn how things look from the critter-point of view. Now, some enterprising lab rats have added a new twist to this technique.
It's lab cam!
From Attila Csordas , we have a…
November 2, 2006
I've written before about some of the explainable reasons why lab procedures don't work. I forgot to add that sometimes experiments don't work because of outside forces that have nothing to do with your technique, inability to do algebra, or poor experimental design.
Sometimes, the whole thing…
November 1, 2006
These are the real things that give nightmares to post-docs and graduate students.
One thing that you don't learn, until you either do a research project in a lab or you start graduate school, is that science isn't really the straightforward cut and dry: we do this step, then we do this step; sort…
October 26, 2006
Is your precious pup spending an unusual amount of time time hanging around by the pond? Is poochy looking a little green around the gills? Does fido seem a little feeble?
My friend you've got trouble. Trouble with a capital "T".
What's the canine equivalent to catnip?
Picture by asmuskoka…
October 18, 2006
Reposted from the original Digitalbio.
About a decade ago, I took a fascinating summer course at the UW on bioethics. We read about the Nuremburg trials and the Geneva conventions. We learned about horizon problems and eugenics. And we discussed lots of challenging scenarios with genetic testing…
October 16, 2006
I don't write about politics very often nor do I intend to do so in the future. But, time is running out for the Tripoli Six. Imprisoned in 1999, five nurses and one doctor were tortured until they confessed to a horrific crime; infecting over 400 children with the virus that causes AIDS. They…
October 15, 2006
Welcome to the October 15, 2006 edition of Mendel's Garden. Join me as we walk through the fields and admire the harvest.
Evolutionary genetics
As we stroll into the evolutionary biology plot, we notice a shape in the ground that looks suspiciously like a footprint. Who walked this path before…
October 13, 2006
Yikes, I've spilled some DHMO on my hands! What do I do now?
Do you know the truth about DHMO?
Look at this web site and tell me if you still want to go swimming.
October 13, 2006
In last week's episode, your assignment was to think of an interesting plant trait and find a description about a gene, related to that trait, by searching PubMed.
Since coming up with an interesting trait might be a challenge for some people, let's think about how to approach this step.
Picking…
October 11, 2006
When does a little artistic license go a little too far?
We don't always expect the truth in science journalism imagery. We've all seen the newspaper pictures of the famous scientist wearing a lab coat and gazing intently at a gel, looking through a microscope, or contemplating an agar plate…
October 11, 2006
No one in a life science-related industry or research lab, in Western Washington, is safe at this time of year.
Surely, you're joking!
No, seriously, there are teachers and science enthusiasts everywhere looking to sign you up! And don't call me "Shirley."
Sign me up?
That's right, it's time to…
October 10, 2006
Why is an eye, an eye and a nose, a nose? Why do different cells create different kinds of tissues when all the cells in a single organism start out with the same set of instructions (aka DNA)?
Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes is a learning activity that helps students discover, for themselves,…
October 9, 2006
Mendel's garden in Bruno, CZ, may be too far for physical travel, but you can still imagine what Mendel might have thought if he'd gotten a look at this version of his vision.
Maybe I'm taking alliteration a little too far, but that doesn't mean that you have to show any restraint. All you have…