terrasig
Posts by this author
May 13, 2009
Ski Train? Wasn't that the title of a Cat Stevens song?
I was just getting around to putting up a science post when I just received a Tweet from my Rocky Mountain peeps at Denver's Westword magazine, the indy pub of the Queen City of the Plains. (Actually, this is kind of a science post because…
May 10, 2009
This is for all of my peeps in SW Florida and all who love folk music. I received a lovely e-mail last week from Robin Leach, wife of mandolin player Dan Leach (and mother of bassist Andy Leach), who came upon my posts about a very special musician. Dan played with a gentleman named Steve…
May 9, 2009
I'm having trouble writing today for various reasons. However, let me leave you with two signs I've encountered today. I like signs.
May 8, 2009
I was having a lovely conversation this week with scribbler50, our beloved blogging bartender at Behind The Stick. Describing him as "just" a blogger does not do him justice; scribbler50 is a writer. If you haven't been over to Brother Scribb's crib, do yourself a favor and read a few of his…
May 8, 2009
Each summer, the fair City of New York plays host to a cosmic convergence of bloggers within the ScienceBlogs.com corral. It's a great time to meet all the folks we know very well online, but perhaps not IRL. Moreover, we had a really nice reader meetup last year where - thank you very much - all…
May 7, 2009
The US National Cancer Institute (NCI) has long had programs to make available to researchers any variety of compounds, natural and synthetic. These offerings are administered by the Developmental Therapeutics Program (DTP) of the Division of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis (DCTD).
So, I was very…
May 6, 2009
The other day I wrote about a really nice post someone wrote about a cardiologist with whom I have had a relationship since postdoc years.
I also have several physician friends and colleagues IRL and on these interblogs who must constantly be questioned about their motives, their pharma connections…
May 5, 2009
I wanted to contribute to today's discussion of anti-vaccinationist, pseudoscience-pawning Jenny McCarthy being given not only an appearance on Oprah but, as reported by Orac, a deal with Oprah's production company for her own show.
The public attention that Jenny McCarthy's rants have gotten were…
May 5, 2009
Bear with me this morning because I am growing very weary of my physician colleagues enduring all sorts of haranguing for being hateful, pharma shills who only want to cut, burn, and poison.
I was extremely fortunate, personally and professionally, to train in two clinical units with strong basic…
May 4, 2009
My clinical counterpart, surgical oncologist Dr David Gorski, has an excellent post up today at Science-Based Medicine on the irresponsible and misleading information being provided at The Huffington Post during the current H5N1/2009 influenza ("swine flu") outbreak. "The Huffington Post's War on…
May 3, 2009
Many readers of Terra Sig and the larger ScienceBlogs community likely remember former neuroscience graduate student blogger, Shelley Batts. Shelley originally launched Retrospectacle and she and I (and ~25 others) joined Sb in June, 2006, second wave. When she put the hammer down to finish her…
May 3, 2009
If you follow me on Twitter (@abelpharmboy) or looked at this post Thursday, you'd know that I was going to a meetup of area Twitter users. I honestly had no idea what to expect and have to say that it was a rather enriching experience. It gave me a chance to press the flesh with a crowd very…
May 1, 2009
FDA and the New York Times are reporting today 23 cases of adverse reactions to various Hydroxycut weight loss supplements. (FDA Consumer PDF here).
Above and beyond whether the stuff actually helps with weight loss, it is clear that the products contain some compound(s) that cause idiosyncratic…
April 30, 2009
I only signed up for Twitter (@abelpharmboy) on 21 January but have found it incredibly valuable for staying up to speed on blogs, MSM articles, local and national news, and science and medicine stories. I've already accumulated 284 "followers" which is about half of our daily blog visitors. I'd…
April 29, 2009
Word around town and just tweeted by local hero, Ayse, is that the great Ernie Barnes passed away yesterday at the age of 70.
From the biography at Mr Barnes' website:
Born Ernest Barnes, Jr. on July 15, 1938 to Ernest Sr. and Fannie Mae Geer Barnes during the Jim Crow era in Durham, North Carolina…
April 29, 2009
Regular commenter and friend of Terra Sig, leigh (the path forward), let us know overnight that Florida State Veterinarian Dr Thomas J Holt officially confirmed that selenium overdose killed 21 Venezuelian polo horses in Wellington, Florida, on 19 April.
An attempt by an Ocala, Florida, compounding…
April 28, 2009
Several of my blogging colleagues have been discussing over the last few days whether there is value in cultivating fellow scientists as readers of science blogs. While some find this a waste of time, others recognize that blogs provide a useful, real-time platform for disseminating information…
April 28, 2009
UPDATE (Wed 29 April): As friends and family of the Urbanos and Kanes have been arriving here via web searches, I wanted to provide a compendium of individual obituaries and plans for visitation and funeral.
Visitation for all will be at Thiele-Reid Family Funeral Home, 585 Belgrove Drive, Kearny…
April 27, 2009
I just learned of this great post from Southern Fried Science via a tweet from Southern Fried Scientist that was retweeted from Rick MacPherson (Malaria, Bedbugs, Sea Lice, and Sunsets). I mention this because my RSS reader is so full of unread posts that Twitter is serving me far better these…
April 25, 2009
I'm not one for gratuitous, traffic-enhancing YouTube posts but my contemporaries (80s college folks), and especially indie rock musicians, need to catch these two videos (below) from British guitarist, Daniel Earwicker. Daniel performs his own music as Primrose League (MySpace page here) but I…
April 24, 2009
Last weekend, 21 Venezuelan polo horses collapsed and died at the US Open championship match at the International Polo Club Palm Beach in Wellington, Florida (AP, CNN). The deaths have now been associated with injection of a veterinary mineral supplement produced by a compounding pharmacy in Ocala…
April 21, 2009
Never pass up an opportunity to get face-to-face time with grants officials from any research funding agency. This from the Department of Defense for those of you in Denver tomorrow:
To all individuals attending the 100th Annual Meeting of the AACR in Denver, Colorado:
The Department of Defense's…
April 20, 2009
While I was all caught up today with thinking about the 95th anniversary of the Ludlow Massacre and the 10th anniversary of the Columbine High School shootings, I was reminded of some lighthearted goings-on in Colorado today that take away some of the gloom on this Monday. (The Ludlow post is…
April 20, 2009
I never will forget the look on the faces
Of the men and women that awful day,
When we stood around to preach their funerals,
And lay the corpses of the dead away.
We told the Colorado Governor to call the President,
Tell him to call off his National Guard,
But the National Guard belonged to the…
April 17, 2009
Our dear colleague, Erleichda, is back with another wine dinner experience. For those new to the blog, Erleichda is my slightly-senior colleague from whom I have learned a great deal about life and science. Recently retired from the discovery and development of life-saving anticancer drugs, he…
April 15, 2009
Serendipity. Me and Tancredo, of all people.
Start here: The press has been buzzing today about former Colorado congressman and US presidential candidate, Tom Tancredo, having to cut a speech short yesterday at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill due to protesters on his stance toward…
April 14, 2009
Well, it's that time of year for public radio stations in the United States: the biannual fund drive to support operations and programming. Many public radio stations are run by or associated with universities, thereby giving provide course and internship opportunities to students in print and…
April 13, 2009
An interesting question arose the other day when we discussed the Key West acupuncturist who was diverting prescription drugs for personal use as well as in her practice. While we are not certain that the defendant put the cited muscle relaxants and anxiolytics in remedies doled out at her…
April 10, 2009
This week's Seder supper with the Zivkovic family and local friends gave me the opportunity to investigate several Kosher wines from Israel. My local wine merchant, Wine Authorities, has been carrying several Israeli wines for over a year but I've only tasted one and have unfortunately lost my…
April 10, 2009
Congratulations are going out today to Duke women's basketball guard and Coloradan, Abby Waner, on her no. 21 selection in yesterday's WNBA draft. A solid competitor, leader, and scholar, Waner was the 2nd pick by the New York Liberty. A Highlands Ranch (CO) ThunderRidge High School standout and…