terrasig

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April 7, 2010
I'm delighted to see those $32/article access fees going to good use: Nature is accepting nominations to recognize two outstanding research mentors in Canada with cash prizes. Since they were launched in 2005, Nature's awards for mentoring in science have rewarded outstanding research mentors in…
March 31, 2010
Who knew? As I am stuttering through recovery from LungMutiny2010, I am paying more attention to my diet. So, as I try to go out for my 10 min walk everyday, I still drink some sports drink - usually Gatorade made from the massive vat of powder you can buy here at Costco. We tend to get plenty of…
March 30, 2010
From the "unsubstantiated evidence" files, I wanted to share with you a quick light that popped on in my head while reading a much-discussed article from last weekend's New York Times magazine. In it, former House & Garden magazine editor Dominique Browning vividly shares her experiences…
March 28, 2010
Something about Sunday mornings leads me to really enjoy listening to folk and other acoustic music. These guys ended up being electric, though. The Byrds were a Los Angeles-based group that grew out of the folk music scene in 1964. The original line-up was Jim McGuinn, David Crosby, Chris Hillman…
March 25, 2010
Have you ever taken one of the now-over-the-counter heartburn relief remedies like Tagamet, Zantac, or Pepcid? How about the beta-blocker atenolol (Tenormin) or metoprolol (Lopressor) for antihypertensive therapy, or the original less-selective beta-blocker propranolol (Inderal) for migraines,…
March 23, 2010
Just a quick note to readers to let you know that I have not forgotten you. I am finally back to work after LungMutiny2010 and must tend to many issues that have accumulated in my absence. I should have some new and interesting topics for you later this week. In the meantime, feel free to note in…
March 16, 2010
This post is the third in a series on the origin and history of HeLa S3 cells. The first post details how I came about to ask this question when launching my independent research laboratory. The second post details the life and careers of the legendary physician-scientist pioneer, Dr. Florence…
March 11, 2010
This is a repost of my reflections on my father who passed away 13 years today. It took me 12 years to write the following eulogy and remembrance. While quite personal, I posted it here last year because I felt that my experiences were quite universal, shared by the families of the ten or twenty…
March 10, 2010
Writer Amy Wallace just tweeted and posted to her blog the fabulous news that a pending libel case against her and physician Paul Offit has been dismissed. Amy Wallace was the author of the centerpiece article in a Wired magazine feature on how antivaccination activists create fear and confusion by…
March 8, 2010
Last week, the New York Times college admissions and aid blog, The Choice, solicited readers for questions on US historically-black colleges and universities (HBCUs). These 105 HBCUs, primarily in the southern US, were defined by the Higher Education Act of 1965 as institutions of higher learning…
March 7, 2010
This post is the second in a series on the origin and history of HeLa S3 cells. The first post can be found here. In this post, we discuss the life and careers (yes, careers) of the remarkable physician-scientist, Florence Rena Sabin. "Too bad you're not a boy, you would have made a good doctor."…
March 6, 2010
I want to get this quick shout-out for local hero, blogger, musician, and all around too-cool Princess Ojiaku before her band, Pink Flag, plays tonight at 10 pm in Durham, NC, at The Broad Street Cafe. From their website, "They're a regular three girl rhumba dancing on the common ground of a love…
March 6, 2010
When I first started my independent academic laboratory in 1992, it was in a brand new facility across the parking lot from a then 40-year-old building named in honor of the woman to the right. I took on a big teaching load from day one and while I had some cash left from the $50,000 start-up…
March 5, 2010
While I'm hammering out The-Post-That-Will-Never-Finish related to National Women's History Month (U.S.), let me draw your attention to the homepage of NobelPrize.org. The entire frontpage is devoted to interviews and stories from women Nobelists spanning from 1903 to present. The idea of an…
March 4, 2010
Looking all shiny and spiffy today are our colleagues over at the blogging network hosted by Nature. After some downtime to install a new blogging platform, Movable Type 4, Nature Network blogs are back with a much more pleasing aesthetic and a more user-friendly interface. For those readers who…
March 2, 2010
The NCAA basketball season traditionally brings to the Piedmont region of North Carolina the Tobacco Road battles between the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University, the private school in Durham about 12 miles to the northwest (actually 10.79 miles from the Dean Dome to…
March 2, 2010
Great news came across my RSS reader the other day that author and journalist, Chris Mooney, was among twelve journalists selected by the John Templeton Foundation for an intensive two-month fellowship on the relationship between science and religion. The Templeton-Cambridge Journalism Fellowships…
February 28, 2010
A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about being stricken with pneumonia and my reflections on what it must be like for people who live continually with chronic illnesses. I was surprised by the response from many readers, quite a few of whom I've never seen comment here, who voiced understanding and…
February 26, 2010
While some readers are likely to be growing weary of the Amy Bishop case, this topic has generated two (1, 2) of the longest and still-active comment threads this blog has seen since my most highly-read personal post. So, I was going to limit any further posts here to topics that haven't been…
February 25, 2010
A year ago we wrote about a death of a San Jose teenager from poisoning by hydrogen sulfide gas, or H2S. At the time, I had hypothesized that the death might have been from an attempt at synthesizing methamphetamine gone awry. But while one can mistakenly generate hydrogen sulfide gas from…
February 23, 2010
As I wrote on Twitter yesterday, I am sending hugs, salutes, and immense respect to Dr. Chris Gunter and her colleagues at HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology in Huntsville, Alabama. Gunter, a self-described "recovering Nature editor" who serves as Director of Research Affairs at HudsonAlpha,…
February 22, 2010
A very nice surprise greeted me this morning on the local page of my AP News iPhone app: an interview in the News & Observer with Dr. Misha Angrist of the Duke Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy by freelance journalist, T. DeLene Beeland (also on Twitter @tdelene). Angrist is perhaps…
February 21, 2010
The Australian psychiatrist, musician, amateur astronomer, daddy, and blogger Tsuken just sent out word that his custom electric guitar has arrived from New Zealand luthier, Adrian Hamilton, at Ash Custom Works in Auckland. At his blog, Music, Medicine, and the Mind, our giddy colleague writes: Oh…
February 21, 2010
Younger readers and readers outside the southern United States may not completely grasp my preoccupation with the Jim Crow segregation era "sit-ins" over the last several months. These non-violent acts of civil disobedience in the 1950s and 60s challenged the "separate, but equal" provisions for…
February 20, 2010
Among the many things that LungMutiny2010 has taken from me is the chance to take advantage of all the rich cultural offerings in the North Carolina Research Triangle area during Black History Month. Regular readers will remember that I wrote a few months ago about the segregation era sit-ins,…
February 19, 2010
Just a quick post on an article that caught my eye: Jazz Pharmaceuticals of Palo Alto, CA, has announced that the US FDA has accepted their new drug application (NDA) filing for JZP-6, or sodium oxybate, for the treatment of pain and fatigue associated with fibromyalgia. The NDA was based on…
February 19, 2010
In our last post, we discussed a recent USPTO ruling that rejected a claim of the Pfizer patent on the erectile dysfunction drug, sildenafil (Viagra®), to a novel oral treatment for the disorder. The patent appeals panel ruled that the existence of horny goat weed, a traditional Chinese medicine…
February 18, 2010
Reuters and Bloomberg reported earlier this week on an ongoing patent battle (read: pissing match) between Pfizer and Eli Lilly & Co. relating to their erectile dysfunction drugs Viagra and Cialis, respectively. A US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) appeals committee has ruled that an…
February 17, 2010
Following this weekend's loss of musician Doug Fieger, I'm going through some YouTube vids and found two of my favorites from the less-appreciated 2nd album by The Knack, "But the Little Girls Understand." "I Want Ya" was the second cut - just a bunch of simple chords but Bruce Gary's drumming is…
February 17, 2010
What's wrong with this picture?: You're looking at a screenshot of a map detailing the origins of each of the last 500 visits to Terra Sigillata. I took this shot at about 2 pm local time in Durban, South Africa, home to cognitive science blogger Michael Meadon at Ionian Enchantment. Michael is a…