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evolgen | April 24, 2006Bora has been pushing the idea of publishing original research (hypotheses, data, etc) on science blogs. As a responsible researcher, I would need to obtain permission from any collaborators (including my advisor) before published anything we have been working on together. But what about small side projects or minor findings that I don't expect to publish elsewhere? As it turns out, such a project has been laying dormant since I first started working on it at a class project a few years ago. I will reveal more information about this project in subsequent posts, but suffice it to say this…
evolgen | April 23, 2006Otherwise known as a choloroplast:
The Chloroplast You scored 46 Industriousness, 54 Centrality, and 23 Causticity!
You're the Chloroplast!
Most of the Earth's energy comes from the chloroplast's ability to capture the energy of the sun and fix cabon dioxide for conversion to starch. Like the mitochondria, they have their own DNA and live somewhat independantly from the rest of the cell.
In terms of real life, you have it all! You're the person everyone wants or wants to be. Just watch out for being overconfident, as you may end up alone.
My test tracked 3 variables…
evolgen | April 15, 2006I can't draw very well. That's actually an overstatement. I'm a shitty drawer. To say I ain't no Carl Buell would be an insult to Carl Buell and his artistic brethren. I'm worse than the dude who draws toothpaste for dinner. I wouldn't know art if jumped up and bit me in the face. Find out why I bring this up after the jump.
Here is an example of my artistic 'talent'. It's a classic stick figure in the third grade style. I really capture the expression of joy in the character's face. What's the reason for posting this picture? Let's ask a different question: What's in a name? I think…
evolgen | April 14, 2006After a short, and dirty, run, the evolgen Double Entendre Friday has shuffled off its mortal coil. I just can't keep it up week after week (double entendre not intended). Of course, if I do come across something particular distasteful with a dash of sexual innuendo I'll include it in the list of double entendres. But there is no way I could continue this as an every Friday tradition.
As in network TV, whenever one series gets cancelled another steps in to take its place. At the old evolgen we had the Friday Random Ten. That was replaced by Double Entendre Fridays for the past month.…
evolgen | April 13, 2006I tend to blog in spurts. When I have nothing interesting to say (or lack the motivation to put together one of the 'BIG POSTS' I have waiting in the queue) I don't try to fill my blog with, well, filler posts. That's just the way I am. Inspiration tends to come in one big surge, at which point I'll write a bunch of entries in a matter of days. That's why this blog has laid dormant for nearly a week while the rest of the ScienceBlogs army trudges onward.
Despite what I said above, I felt a bit of an obligation to post something, regardless of how filler-esque it seems. So, I give you a…
evolgen | April 4, 2006Seed is sponsoring their first ever writing contest. The topic:
Amidst emerging competitive threats from abroad (China and India in particular) and heated debates over intelligent design, stem cells and climate change: What is the future of science in America? What should the US do to preserve and build upon its role as a leader in scientific innovation?
The top three essays will win cash prizes and be published by Seed.
evolgen | April 1, 2006I read blogs and news via their site feeds using Bloglines (a web based newsreader). This has gone without a hitch for the year or so I've been using the service, but I have been thinking of switching to program that actually runs on my computer. Today, Bloglines stopped updating my feeds, inspiring me to search for an alternative newsreader. I downloaded a couple of free programs (Awasu and Vox Lite), but neither of them seem to be able to handle Atom feeds (which means that I can't read many Blogspot blogs). Does anyone know of a free newsreader that can handle Atom?
evolgen | March 27, 2006Alright, already! I took the quiz. 12.5% is like the equivalent of one leg, right? That's not too bad.
12.5 %
My weblog owns 12.5 % of me.Does your weblog own you?
evolgen | March 22, 2006Given my lack of any substantial entries recently, I'd say that I am not. But, if you are, go ahead and add this logo to your blog. Click on the image to find out what it entails.
(Via Notes from the Biomass.)
evolgen | March 9, 2006Today marks the birthday of our venerable godfather (er, atheist-father?) here at ScienceBlogs, PZ Myers. I am honored and grateful that I have been invited to PZ Myers's . . . birthday . . . on the day of PZ Myers's birthday. And I hope that his first post be a cephalopod post. In appreciation of the blogfather, Grrlscientist is staging a surprise party -- a blogasm of posts -- for Doc Myers. My contribution can be found below the fold. I'm hoping that a list of all of the birthday posts will be compiled at Living the Scientific Life.
Shhh! Quick, hide behind that tree, the Lamarckian…
evolgen | March 9, 2006Orac has been reporting on the arson at the Holocaust History Project. He's asking as many people as possible to spread the news and draw attention to the Holocaust History Project as a way of getting back at the people who were trying to silence the Holocaust History Project.
On a more personal note, my grandparents were nearly Holocaust survivors (or victims). They lived in Poland, and had the 'good fortune' to be sent to a Soviet prison in Siberia rather than a Nazi concentration camp. Had events been slightly different, I may not be here.
evolgen | March 4, 2006All of the ScienceBloggers are taking the quiz to determine which science fiction spaceship on which they belong. The quiz has 48 questions, so I'm not taking it on principle. Also, I don't particularly like sci-fi (or SF, or whatever the hell it goes by these days) . . . and I haven't heard of most of these movies or shows that the ships are from. If it were up to me, I'd be on board the Millennium Falcon if it were captained by Chris Walken with Jack Lemmon riding shotgun.
evolgen | March 3, 2006Today, I will begin a new tradition at evolgen. There are a lot of topics and terms in the biological sciences that sound like something else; many of these fall into the category of double entendre. I'm quite immature, so that kinda stuff really amuses me. Every Friday I'll try to come up with another double entendre for your enjoyment. Reader submissions would be greatly appreciated.
For today's evolgen Double Entendre Friday, I give you the cleavage furrow. Yes, cleavage, as in these things. During mitosis, after all the genetic material is sorted out, the cell splits all of its…
evolgen | March 2, 2006Dudes, here's some stuff around the blogosphere that has caught my eye:
Robert Skipper, a philosopher of biology, knows a whole lot about the history of population genetics. Is he the next Will Provine?
Another philosopher, John Wilkins joins the fight against taxomonic bias.
Razib wants you to bust a rhyme.
evolgen | March 2, 2006Another molecular biologist has joined the ScienceBlogs army. Go over an say hello to Alex Palazzo at The Daily Transcript. He'll drop some central dogma on you.
evolgen | February 26, 2006The Frink Tank has jumped the shark and joined the ScienceBlogs evil empire. If you like your science with a dash of humor (and dick jokes) check them out.
Another blog, Stoat, has come on board. This one's new to me, but it looks like it deals with climate sciences (and no dick jokes).
evolgen | February 26, 2006When ScienceBlogs first started out, it was sending out some bad cookies. If you're having trouble commenting on evolgen, delete all of your ScienceBlogs cookies so that you can get the new ones.
evolgen | February 24, 2006My apologies for the utter lack of posting over the past week. I've got stuff sitting around waiting to be written about, and I just haven't been writing. I'm not going to make excuses; I just haven't been managing my time well. While you wait for me to post again (soon, I promise), I give you this article on "intelligently designing" promiscuous enzymes to perform specific functions. Here's a quote from the write up:
According to the theory of divergent molecular evolution, primordial enzymes and other proteins started out as "promiscuous" so that primitive organisms would be better able…
evolgen | February 14, 2006Stew from Flags and Lollipops has begun a new life science blog aggregator, postgenomic. Here is how he describes it:
Postgenomic aggregates posts from life science blogs and then does useful and interesting things with that data.
For example, it allows you to get an instant picture of what news stories are being heavily linked to by researchers in the medical sciences, or which papers are being cited or reviewed most often, or which buzzwords are being used the most frequently.
It's sort of like a hot papers meeting with the entire biomed blogging community.
Sort of.
He asks that you add…