terrasig
Posts by this author
October 31, 2008
Much hubbub is to be had today over the work of Dalhousie University mathematics professor, Dr Jason Brown, in solving the mystery of George Harrison's opening chord of The Beatles, "A Hard Day's Night," played on a Rickenbacker 360/12 guitar. The PDF of Prof Brown's report is available online.
As…
October 31, 2008
PalMD has a nice post up at denialism blog reviewing a recent NYT article on a foundation run by DKNY's Donna Karan donating $850,000 USD to Beth Israel Medical Center to study the combination of Eastern and Western healing methods. PalMD has the details but he then gets into an area about which I…
October 29, 2008
Fresh off the presses from the mothership.
October 28, 2008
I'm swamped again in meatspace but just had to leave a thank-you to all of my tag-ees for responding to my tag by Comrade PhysioProf to post six random things about oneself.
Among the things I'm trying to finish tonight is an interview from a student in Miss Baker's high school biology class in…
October 27, 2008
The blogger who I thought among all held the greatest disdain for any of these silly little narcissistic blogger games, Comrade PhysioProf, has tagged me with a meme.
1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people…
October 25, 2008
A reader sent the following to my blog e-mail address but under my meatspace name.
So much for pseudonymity.
Here's the version with my 'nym:
And am I the only one who wonders if Mrs Walsh is PhysioProf's mother?
October 24, 2008
When you read The Friday Fermentable posts I've written, you know that I am not a wine writer or connoisseur but rather a wine enthusiast. (The posts by my colleague Erleichda, however, are far more content-rich.)
My original post launching this feature details my wine philosophy, one that…
October 24, 2008
"Prescribing 'placebo treatments': results of national survey of US internists and rheumatologists," is the title of a newly-published article in the 23 October issue of BMJ (British Medical Journal). The full text article and PDF are available for free at the time of this posting.
In this study…
October 24, 2008
From this press release:
It is with deepest sadness that North Carolina Central University announces the passing of photojournalist Alex Rivera [Alexander M Rivera, Jr]. Rivera, a nationally renowned and prominent photojournalist, established the public relations office at North Carolina Central…
October 22, 2008
In today's laboratory, we will consider cases where bloggers have been involuntarily unmasked, usually with malicious intentions. This is a series of interactive posts which I hope will provide disucssion points for a session I will help to lead on blogger pseudonymity at the ScienceOnline'09…
October 20, 2008
To those not following our discussion, PalMD and I (and a couple of pseudonymous women bloggers) will be leading a discussion session on the needs and justification for anonymity or pseudonymity in blogging at the upcoming ScienceOnline'09 conference (16-18 Jan 2009 in RTP, NC, USA). I've also…
October 19, 2008
I've been a bit too quiet on my end during this third year of ScienceBlogs.com participation in the October Blogger Challenges for DonorsChoose.org. DonorsChoose.org was launched by Charles Best, a Bronx schoolteacher who recognized that public schools around the US were underfunded, particularly…
October 19, 2008
. . .wheeling a brand-new, factory-packaged office refrigerator down the street of a predominantly African American neighborhood past a parked police cruiser at daybreak on a cold Sunday and having the officer roll down the window and shake your hand while wishing you a good morning.
(Feel free to…
October 17, 2008
Scott Hensley, editor of the WSJ Health Blog, just reminded me that his colleague and blog lead writer, Jacob Goldstein, put together a neat slideshow on the fluorescent marine proteins for which this year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded. I've been a bit behind in my reading of other blogs…
October 17, 2008
If you're in Australia or North America, chances are your first experience with Shiraz was in the form widely-available from Rosemount Estates. Shiraz is derived from the same stock as Syrah that is grown in France's Rhone Valley. The Australian "father of viticulture," James Busby, brought Syrah…
October 17, 2008
Here.
PalMD, why don't we just put this up and say, "Discuss."
btw, I sort of like my new pseudonym.
October 16, 2008
Wow. Thank you, dear Terra Sig readers, for your thoughtful responses to our first query about the concept of blogger pseudonymity.
For background, I have threatened to reveal myself (in text, not photographically) and wished to use this opportunity to provide grist for a session led by me, PalMD…
October 16, 2008
We here at the Terra Sig World Headquarters have been inundated with traffic directed by search engines following our post the other day directing readers to the NPR story on Douglas Prasher. Prasher, as is now widely known, is the former Woods Hole science who cloned the cDNA for green…
October 14, 2008
At the upcoming ScienceOnline'09 conference (16-18 Jan 2009 in RTP, NC, USA), PalMD and I will be leading a discussion session on the needs and justification for anonymity or pseudonymity in blogging. Women bloggers have additional needs for blogging under a pseudonym and PalMD and I are currently…
October 13, 2008
Much hoo-hah in the local fishwrapper regarding the installation yesterday of Dr Holden Thorp as Chancellor of the state's flagship university, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (installation address here). Thorp has brought a large degree of enthusiasm and optimism to Chapel Hill…
October 12, 2008
When dialing up SiteMeter this morning over the first cup of coffee, I noted an unusually large number of hits coming from Fark.com to my post on a NEJM article detailing lead poisoning cases among marijuana users in Germany.
In that article, lead shavings were used to boost dime bags that were "a…
October 11, 2008
Nobel Prize month also means that Denver's 5280 magazine has announced the annual results of their top 270 medical professionals in 79 specialties. While the picture here is the cover of last year's issue featuring my dear colleague, Dr John J (Jay) Reusch, the good doctor was again named among…
October 11, 2008
. . .is not the name of my new punk rock band.
It is, however, the key text of lab results that came back this week in following up on the most highly-read post of my blogging career.
That is all.
October 10, 2008
Another Wine Experience- A romp thru northern Italy: the Piemonte
by Erleichda
Following a week of hiking around lakes Orta, Maggiore and Como, the eight of us piled into a rented van with all our luggage and headed for the Piedmont (or Piemonte) region, home of dolcetto, barbera, barbaresco and…
October 9, 2008
You probably thought this was going to be about Dr Robert Gallo.
Driving in to lab this morning I heard Dan Charles' story on NPR's Morning Edition about the unheralded scientist, Dr Douglas Prasher, who first cloned the green fluorescent protein gene from Aequorea victoria in 1992, as published in…
October 8, 2008
I am about to lead a discussion of science and medical blogs with a group of journalism students in a course entitled, Medical Journalism. While many of the students are specifically majoring in medical and science journalism in a master's program, some are undergraduates in general journalism and…
October 8, 2008
Nature's gift of green fluorescent protein (GFP) from the jellyfish, Aequorea victoria, has always been important to me, personally and professionally. In fact, PharmGirl, MD, and I would have never met if not for this wonder macromolecule nor then would PharmKid exist.
Well, it appears that GFP…
October 5, 2008
The 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been split between the discoverers of two viruses of major pathophysiological importance.
Half of the prize goes to German Dr prof Harald zur Hausen for his discovery of human papilloma virus as the cause of cervical cancer while the other half…
October 5, 2008
The author, human rights activist, folklorist, and environmentalist, Stetson Kennedy, is celebrating his 92nd birthday today in the company of friends and family near St. Augustine, Florida.
His website, StetsonKennedy.com, used to have a guestbook but the webmaster, his grandson Sean, took it…
October 5, 2008
We here at Terra Sig are peripheral to Teh Atheist Cabal at ScienceBlogs so I had to do a consortium-wide search to be sure no one like PZ, revere, or Laden wrote about this lawsuit filed by the Freedom From Religion Foundation.
The nation's largest group of atheists and agnostics is suing…