Ask A Science Blogger
sporte | July 8, 2006I mean phone call. Because, if I thought he remembered me, I would call and say "thank you."
Because of the time I spent in his lab, I know that cloning started long before Dolly. The first vertebrate animal was cloned over 50 years ago.
And it wasn't a sheep.
Raising Rana pipiens
Several years ago, I had the good fortune to work as a student intern for one of the kings of cloning, Robert McKinnell, now an emeritus professor in the Cell Biology and Genetics Department at the University of Minnesota. Reminiscing on history a bit, reminds me how grateful I am that he gave me the chance to…
jrosenhouse | June 23, 2006The latest Ask a Science Blogger Question is:
What makes a good science teacher?
My fellow SB'ers have already unloaded a wealth of good answers.
In one of his essays for Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine, Isaac Asimov relates the story of the famous chemist who was discussing the nature of fire with an audience of ten year olds. After the presentation the chemist was stopped cold when a student asked him, “Why are they called matches?” Asimov was especially amused by this anecdote, because on the very day the presentation took place his latest essay had hit the newsstands. He was…
sporte | June 22, 2006Science Blogs has asked: What makes a good science teacher?
Many of the science teachers that I've met can't really be described by the adjective "good." The better fitting words are: great, marvelous, inspiring, and fantastic.
But, SBer's want to know, "what makes them so great?" Right?
I've compiled a list of characteristics that I've seen all great science teachers share. And, since this group rarely gets sufficiently rewarded beyond seeing themselves in the annual edition of the Bio-Rad Explorer catalog, I'm even going to name names and give examples.
What characteristics do…
jrosenhouse | June 17, 2006Here's the latest question from HQ:
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?
Good question. I often wonder about it myself.
In my case, a big part of the answer is that I don't have a family. Another big part is that my day job, especially in the summer, doesn't have fixed hours. One of the nice things about academic life is that outside of your courses, office hours, and various service requirements to the department, there aren't many instances where you…
jrosenhouse | June 13, 2006The latest Ask a Science Blogger question is:
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 had to smile a bit when I saw this question. You see, one of the main reasons I went into mathematics was my distaste for actually doing scientific research. To me it seemed that mathematics had all the things I liked about science - the logic; the clear thinking; the steady, methodical progress; - without the things I didn't like. Specifically, the part where you slave away in a laboratory…
mixingmemory | June 9, 2006This week's (and my first) "Ask a Science Blogger" question comes from a Science Blogs reader named Jake Bryan (aka chezjake). He asks:
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?
The answer is all of them. I'm an information junky, so I'd love to study just about everything. Of course, my less-than-stellar math abilities would make theoretical physics pretty difficult, but a guy can dream, right? But if I'm going to give a real answer, the choice would have to boil down to either…
jrosenhouse | May 21, 2006Seed's ScienceBlogger Question of the week is the following:
If you could shake the public and make them understand one scientific idea, what would it be?
My knee-jerk response was pretty obvious: “Evolution!” Sadly, John Lynch got there first.
Then I figured since I was the only mathematician here, I'd go with “Math!” No dice. P. Z. Myers beat me to it.
Well,I'm sticking with math. But let's make it more concrete. I want people to understand that there is no law of averages. There are no laws of probability (at least not if you mean something like “Really improbable things don't…