Science Education
clock | February 13, 2007If you are going to be in Chicago in early May, consider attending (or at least donating towards) the Seventh Dinner With a Dinosaur, an annual event organized by Project Exploration - a worthy investment in science education for inner-city kids.
tsmith | February 12, 2007In honor of Darwin Day, Evil Monkey brings news of an essay contest being sponsored by the Alliance for Science:
2007 National High School Essay Contest
Why would I want my doctor to have studied evolution? If you are a high school student in the United States, we want to hear your answer to that question. Send us an essay of not more than 1,000 words by March 31st.
There are cash prizes and more for winners; the details can be found here.
sporte | February 9, 2007I found it in the MeSH database.
Really!
Looking for a quick answer? Don't ask a scientist
It doesn't take long to realize that scientists can spend countless hours debating the meaning of words. Our very own ScienceBlogs is a great example, just look at the many ways we can define (and debate) the meaning of a small, four-letter word like "gene". We also like to qualify our answers with a thousand conditions "usually, it's like this, but...."
This habit can be very frustrating if all you want is a quick concise answer.
On your marks, define that term!
So, many people turn to Google and…
evolgen | February 8, 2007I have previously mentioned, in passing, a pet peeve of mine: when people conflate ecology with environmentalism (see here and here for examples). It's an odd pet peeve for an admitted non-ecologist, but it falls under the umbrella of distinguishing science from technology which is at the heart of the real pet peeve. It just happens that the ecology/environmentalism issue pops up more often than other science/technology issues in my daily life (I don't deal with stem researchers or people cloning whole organism).
Before I get too far ahead of myself, allow me to define what I mean by science…
clock | February 8, 2007
The penultimate installment of lecture notes in the BIO101 series. Help me make it better - point out errors of fact and suggest improvements:
It is impossible to cover all organ systems in detail over the course of just two lectures. Thus, we will stick only to the basics. Still, I want to emphasize how much organ systems work together, in concert, to maintain the homeostasis (and rheostasis) of the body. I'd also like to emphasize how fuzzy are the boundaries between organ systems - many organs are, both anatomically and functionally, simultaneously parts of two or more organ systems…
clock | February 7, 2007Two years (January 28, 2005) have passed, but I am still not sure what the correct answer to this question is:
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( Image: Sexism and Creationism , thanks All-Knowing Orac)
Previously, I have made a comparison between the challenges facing the reality-based community in politics and the challenges facing the reality-based community in science (some of it perhaps related to the underlying idea of the image above). Not everyone appeared to have liked it, as this guy who is "a mathematician, a libertarian, and a science-fiction fan" wrote this in response. I…
sporte | February 5, 2007How to win the X PRIZE in genomics
In October, 2006, the X PRIZE foundation announced that second X prize would focus on genomics. The first team to successfully sequence 100 human genomes in 10 days will win $10 million dollars.
And I would venture to guess, that the winning team would also win in the IP (intellectual property) game and the genetic testing market since they will gain an unprecedented look at genetic variation.
But when is done really done?
The first trick is defining what it means to be done. My husband says that "a sequencing project is done when the people who are…
clock | February 4, 2007I don't know how many of you check out the constantly growing list of links to posts that cover Basic Terms And Concepts in Science, but you should. Our Seed Overlords are cooperating and will soon set up a place where all those posts will be re-posted, commented upon, edited, etc. - a one-stop shopping for all basic stuff useful, for instance, in teaching at all levels from Kindergarden to Postdoc!
Until then, here is my unofficial list - not the one compiled by Wilkins - that also includes some of my own posts, as well as some of the other people's posts that I found useful in teaching…
sporte | February 3, 2007`When I make a word do a lot of work like that,' said Humpty Dumpty, `I always pay it extra.'
-Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
In biology, we often ask our words do a lot of work.
In what other field would we write direction like this
"Transfer 10 lambda of lambda phage DNA into a cuvette and determine the lambda max."
clock | February 3, 2007...I am doing this, and probably enjoying it just as much as every time before...
clock | February 2, 2007John Wilkins is updating, daily, the list of blog posts on Basic Terms And Concepts in science and math from archaeology to physics to philosophy of science. Keep checking it out until we have a permanent repository for this.
sporte | February 2, 2007Vizzini: He didn't fall? Inconceivable!
Inigio: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
- William Goldman, The Princess Bride
Excuse me while I temporarily interrupt the genome sequencing series to define a word.
Artifacts in the classroom
It's disorienting. You learn a word in certain context. You're sure of it's meaning and then you end up in a situation where people use the word in a completely unexpected way and no one else seems bothered by this!
I had this happen once with the word "artifact." I had organized a conference and some workshop…
clock | February 2, 2007I guess I will bug you about this for the next ten days - my personal pet cause if you want. No takers yet....
Here is the e-mail newsletter about it I got today:
Dear All,
Beagle Project updates:
⢠We are now a UK registered company and have applied for charitable
status; now that we officially exist and are accountable we have
started fundraising,
we have paypal donate buttons on the
Homepage and weblog page:
www.thebeagleproject.com
www.thebeagleproject.com/beagleblog.html
we're asking individuals for a Darwin (£10) or a Jackson ($20 - he was
US President at the time of the voyage.…
sporte | February 1, 2007To the ancient Greeks, a chimera was a kind of monster, with the body of a goat, the tail of a dragon, and a lion's head. To geneticists, a chimera can be an animal that's derived from two embryos, such as a transgenic mouse. Or if the organism is a plant, it can be a plant with a graft. We have a chimeric cherry tree in our back yard with branches from Rainier cherries, Bing cherries, and Van cherries. And you should see the chimeras that hang out at evolgen.
Naturally, the DNA cloning and sequencing world has it's chimeras, too. There are two main kinds that I know. Sometimes chimeras…
clock | February 1, 2007I first saw about this on Pharyngula the other day and I think it is a majestic idea! A group of Brits are trying to build a replica of HMS "Beagle" and, on the Darwin Bicentennial in 2009, sail around the world following the exact path Charles Darwin made on his historic voyage. Have scientists, journalists and, yes, bloggers, on board who will do research, take pictures and videos, and write their ship-logs for everyone to read (if a ship-log is on a blog, is it called shlog?). Stop at every port and promote evolution!
Most definitely take your time to check out their website and blog…
clock | February 1, 2007Next in the series of BIO101 lecture notes. Chime in to correct errors and make it better (reposted from June 11, 2006):
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Anatomy is the subdiscipline of biology that studies the structure of the body. It describes (and labels in Latin) the morphology of the body: shape, size, color and position of various body parts, with particular attention to the internal organs, as visible by the naked eye. Histology is a subset of anatomy that describes what can be seen only under the misroscope: how cells are organized into tissues and tissues…
sporte | January 31, 2007The general steps in genome sequencing were presented in the earlier installments ( there are links at the bottom of the page), but it's worth repeating them again since each of the earlier steps has a bearing on the outcome of those that come later.
These are:
Break the genome into lots of small pieces at random positions.
Determine the sequence of each small piece of DNA.
Use an assembly program to figure out which pieces fit together.
That first step, making a collection of DNA fragments (a library), with breakpoints at random positions is of critical importance to the success of later…
tsmith | January 31, 2007I suppose everyone has someone who they consider an embarrassment to their alma mater. I can probably think of a dozen just off the top of my head regarding my undergraduate institution (including a number of politicians who shall remain nameless). However, one who really sticks in my craw is the infamous Jonathan Wells of the Discovery Institute, who also happens to be a Yale alum (Divinity school--small comfort that it wasn't Yale College, at least).
So, Wells has been back polluting Yale lately, via the Opinion pages of the student newspaper, the Yale Daily News. Predictably, Wells…
clock | January 30, 2007I am so glad to see that conversations started face-to-face at the Science Blogging Conference are now continuing online (see the bottom of the ever-growing linkfests here and here). While some are between science bloggers, as expected, others are between people who have never heard of each other before and who came from very different angles and with different interests. The cross-fertilization we hoped for is happening (and if you had such an experience, let us know)!
See, for instance, what a casual chat over lunch at the Conference did to David Warlick - made him think about education…