evolgen | June 17, 2006I'm a big fan of Wikipedia. I was happy to report that the dynamic encyclopedia is just as good as Britannica. But there is a limit to what any encyclopedia can tell you. They are excellent places to go for a quick introduction to material that is otherwise unfamiliar to you. For example, if I want a review of cell cycle, I may check out the Wikipedia entry first as a quick refresher. But if I want to really know what's going on, I'll crack a textbook or read a review article from a serious scientific journal.
Wikipedia has its uses. One of them is not as a citable reference. I get extremely…
evolgen | June 17, 2006If you want to find an image on the internet, you can usually find a relevant picture using Google's Image Search. But the Google search matches text, not the image. Glyn Moody points us to a cool new plan which will allow you to search images on the web using images. This idea sounds awesome, and I wish them the best getting it off the ground.
This reminded me of something I've been hearing about for the past couple of years. Those of you with an ear to the ground in the Drosophila bioinformatics community (yeah, all five of you) are familiar with Sudhir Kumar's FlyExpress program. Kumar and…
evolgen | June 16, 2006They are asking another question of us. They have also changed their name -- just remember where you first saw that gimmick. Anyway, on to their question:
How is it that all the PIs (Tara, PZ, Orac et al.), various grad students, post-docs, etc. find time to fulfill their primary objectives (day jobs) and blog so prolifically?
Who says we fulfill our primary objectives? For that matter, who says we blog prolifically? This question is rife with unwarranted assumptions. It's not like I've got an impressive publication record. How do you know I'm not just a crappy scientist who doesn't do jack…
evolgen | June 16, 2006The ScienceBlogs Donors Choose program kicked off with a bang yesterday. Evolgen is attempting to raise a modest $500 dollars to fund in class projects for public school science classes. There are fourteen proposals to choose from in the evolgen challenge, which will run for the next two weeks. As an added incentive, if you forward your conformation email to sb.donorschoose.bonanza@gmail.com you will be entered into a contest to win some schwag (see here for a breakdown of the prizes).
Additionally, SEED has guaranteed to match whatever money we raise (up to $10,000). If you were apathetic…
evolgen | June 16, 2006Phylogeny Friday will take a hiatus for an undetermined length of time. Don't worry, it will be back. I just need to focus on other things besides digging through the literature for trees.
evolgen | June 15, 2006Dr. Reed Cartwright has successfully defended his doctoral dissertation. Reed's a Panda's Thumb contributor and theoretical population geneticist. We'll forgive him for the second point, seeing as how he did have my academic grandfather as an advisor. The Panda's Thumb was the great inspiration for me to start blogging. I found a link to the website from EvolDir, and the rest was history.
I'm a day late on this. Some of us are still working toward that elusive dissertation and fall behind on things like blog reading.
evolgen | June 15, 2006What is evolution? Razib started it. John Hawks joined in. I offered my opinion in the comments on GNXP. But I felt obliged to say more, here.
It seems like most of the readers in the ScienceBlogs universe don't understand the difference between evolution and natural selection. When Razib asked them to provide the thing they would want the public to understand about evolution (in ten words or less, mind you), most of them provided explanations of natural selection. Let me say it as clearly as I possibly can, evolution is more than natural selection.
I am not a neutralist. Check out the…
evolgen | June 15, 2006The ScienceBlogs bloggers, led by Janet, are trying to raise money to fund in class projects for math and science teachers. To donate to the evolgen pledge drive, click here and choose one of listed proposals to partially fund. I have also posted a link to the DonorsChoose website on my sidebar (on your left), and it will remain there until July 1, when we end our push for donations. More information can be found below.
The ScienceBlogs/DonorsChoose raise-money-to-help-science-classrooms-a-thon!
Those of us who blog here at ScienceBlogs think science is cool, important, and worth…
evolgen | June 15, 2006Andy Clark has written a review of comparative evolutionary genomics for Trends in Ecology and Evolution. His review deals with identifying functional regions of the genome and inference of both positively and negatively selected sequences.
Clark is one of the leaders in the field of evolutionary genetics (and now genomics), actively participating in the analysis of both the human and Drosophila genomes. He also brings a solid understanding of biology, as well as an appreciation of statistical rigor. You can sense his excitement about the union of molecular biology and evolution in the…
evolgen | June 14, 2006Another review of Michael Ashburner's book Won for All is available on PLoS Biology. PZ Myers also wrote a review of the book, and the two pieces complement each other nicely.
evolgen | June 14, 2006
Mendel's Garden is a brand spanking new carnival devoted to all things genetic (classical, molecular, evolutionary, etc). The deadline to submit an entry for the first ever edition is Thursday, June 15 at 11:59 central time. If you have recently posted something on your blog about any area of genetics, please consider submitting it to this carnival. We're trying to kick it off with a bang. Feel free to take the image on the right and post it on your blog/website.
evolgen | June 14, 2006Read this reply to Francis Collins on Pharyngula. Collins, one of the biggest movers and shakers behind the human genome project, is also Christian and very eager to tell the world about it. Now he's written a book about his faith. Doc Myers takes Collins to task for the shaky ground upon which his faith rests. I'll go after Collins's total disregard for science in defending his faith.
PZ links to an interview with Collins, in which the director of the US National Human Genome Research Institute's understanding of evolution is described as follows:
Among Collins's most controversial beliefs…
evolgen | June 13, 2006This one goes out to all the kids who don't drink. By kids, of course, I mean our wonderful readers -- spoken to in a condescending manner -- not minors. I would never encourage minors to drink. That's illegal, and everything that is illegal is bad. Real bad.
A paper in the pipeline at Cancer Letters reports that xanthohumol, a chemical found in Hops, possesses some anti-tumorigenic effects in prostate cells. Hops are one of the main ingredients in beer, so I will now be using the excuse that BEER CURES CANCER whenever I wake up in the morning with a nasty hangover. Take note beer drinkers,…
evolgen | June 12, 2006'Dem fools is asking us this:
"Assuming that time and money were not obstacles, what area of scientific research, outside of your own discipline, would you most like to explore? Why?"
I guess "novelist" isn't an acceptable answer as it's not an "area of scientific research". Well, that and I've never really wanted to write novels. But never really wanting to do work hasn't stopped me from putting in a little bit of effort to get this far. So, if I wasn't wasting my time doing what I'm doing, what would I be doing?
I'm not going to stray too far from my discipline. I took classes in chemistry…
evolgen | June 11, 2006
There's a new blog carnival on the block, and it goes by the name Mendel's Garden. As you can tell from the name, it's all about genetics. If you have a recent genetics post that you would like to contribute to the first rendition, submit it by Thursday, June 15. Thanks to Paul Decelles at the The force that through... for coming up with this.
evolgen | June 11, 2006Janet has tagged us with an irrational meme. Below the fold are 3.14159265 things about me.
3 reasons you blog about science:
To practice writing.
To organize my thoughts and force myself to follow the current literature.
There are worse ways for me to waste my time.
Point at which you would stop blogging:
When it becomes detrimental to my academic career.
1 thing you frequently blog besides science:
Man things: sports, beer, and sex.
4 words that describe your blogging style:
Ill-informed.
Obnoxious.
Immature.
Distracted.
1 aspect of blogging you find difficult:
Reading the articles and…
evolgen | June 11, 2006As I write this, Mexico is about to kick off against Iran in Nuremberg. Yeah, that Nuremberg. And that Iran. Oh, the sweet, sweet irony coincidence.
evolgen | June 9, 2006OMG, check out the new evolgen banner! You gots to see this. I'm totally ragging on the Discovery Channel advertisement (that's 'advert' for you on the other side of the pond). Me so funny. Me go, haha! Laugh. It'll only be up while the Disco Channel KRAKATOA ad (ie, advert) is running. Have a good weekend. Say hello to the newbies.
evolgen | June 9, 2006The Nature Newsblog is reporting that mathematicians have shown that scoring begets more scoring in soccer football association football. I don't have access to the Nature News article, but it appears that World Cup goals cannot be modeled as Poisson random variables.
Wondering why I called it association football? Do you know where the term 'soccer' comes from? Read on below the fold.
I had no idea why Americans play 'soccer' and Brits play 'football' until a few months ago when a football loving Englishman clarified it all for me. Depending on where you live, 'football' can mean very…