science & society
apalazzo | April 1, 2007A video of one of the most bizarre phenomena known to man. I believe that PZ Myers wrote his undergraduate thesis on this fascinating subject.
apalazzo | March 30, 2007There is a divide within the biological sciences, those that are concerned with proximal causes and those concerned with ultimate causes. For every question in biology there are two answers.
Ultimate causes have to do mostly with the "why?"s. Why was this structure selected for? But not always. What advantage did this gene give to the organism? Do synonymous mutations give a selection advantage?
Proximal causes have mostly "how" questions. How does this protein work? How does a cell cycle check point function? How does this synonymous mutation affect protein folding?
Another way of thinking…
apalazzo | March 20, 2007Yesterday we had a look at the science funding sutation south of the border, today we look up north.
In their new budget, the Tories have allotted some extra cash for graduate-student scholarships and university research. The increase will amount to an additional 40% for postsecondary education which now stands at $3.2-billion per year. This includes 1,000 new scholarships for masters and PhD students. Remember, up north all the schools are public and so their budget is set in part by the federal and provincial governments. So in all it sounds good ... right? From the Globe and Mail:
The…
apalazzo | March 19, 2007Click here to watch now. It's over.
To read Elias Zerhouni's statement click here.
A pretty good presentation. Zerhouni was joined by some department heads (including our own, Joan Brugge).
Some highlights:
-The approval rate of first time RO1s by first time investigators is down from 15% in the mid 90s to 5%.
-Students are not entering science as they see a lack of opportunity.
-Investigators are spending more and more time writing grants and less time performing research and mentoring.
-High risk, high impact science is suffering the most. When budgets get tight, risky projects don't make…
apalazzo | February 24, 2007Last week I attended a seminar by Dr. Yamada who is now president of the Bill and Melinda Bates Foundation.
Here's a couple of interesting points from his talk:
- The pharmaceutical industry has developed and patented almost 15,000 drugs, only 30 of which are directed towards diseases that exclusively afflict the third world. You might be thinking "well what do you expect, in a capitalist economy, drugs go to those who can pay for them." However things are changing. Several of the big pharmas are developing drugs and vaccines directed against Malaria, TB and other tropical diseases. But…
apalazzo | February 12, 2007198 years old today.
I would type something up, but after a frustratingly bad day, full of horrible microinjection needles and an hour of playing soccer with this out of shape body of mine, I feel selected against.
For a gadzillion links to various Darwin Day posts go checkout Coturnix' post.
apalazzo | February 12, 2007In biological labs, the term junk DNA is commonly used to describe portion of the genome which have no described function. When I first moved my blog to Scienceblogs, I wrote a little summary of a great theory advanced by William Martin and Eugene V. Koonin on the origin of the eukaryotic nucleus. (Basically the nucleus developed to separate RNA processing from RNA translation, due to the multiplication of introns which made the process of RNA processing that much more complicated.) Well the ID-ots jumped on my little blog entry and accused me of knowing nothing because I called introns "junk…
apalazzo | February 12, 2007In the 90s there was a severe brain drain out of Canada, I should know, I left Montreal in '97 to get a PhD at Columbia University. This trend was halted and even reversed in the earlier part of this decade.
But the stagnation in research funding that has plagued science in the US is being repeated north of the border. From the Globe & Mail:
Dr. Pack was recruited in 2005 from Harvard University [to the Montreal Neurological Institute], wooed with the new lab and state-of-the-art equipment (courtesy of the Canada Foundation for Innovation), a good salary (thanks to the Canada Research…
apalazzo | February 10, 2007First female president in Harvard's history.
Article here in today's NY Times.
My only complaint - she's not a scientist (she's a civil war historian). Here's something I hadn't heard:
Dr. Faust emerged in recent weeks as a finalist among the candidates being considered by the university's search committee, particularly after Thomas R. Cech, a biochemist who is the president of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and a Nobel Prize winner, took the unusual step of announcing publicly that he had withdrawn from the competition.
(Karl you went to lunch with the guy ... you didn't know this?)
apalazzo | January 28, 2007The article is here. A snippet:
For a six-month fee of $300,000 to $500,000, Dezenhall told the association's professional and scholarly publishing division, he could help -- in part by simplifying the industry's message to a few key phrases that even a busy senator could grasp.
Phrases like: "Public access equals government censorship," and "government [is] seeking to nationalize science and be a publisher."
The publishers liked what they heard. "Eric helped us see the issues in a few high-concept messages," one member summarized in an enthusiastic follow-up to the meeting.
In the article,…
apalazzo | January 19, 2007Spotted in the "Elle Beauty News" section:
(The only question left is ... telomerase????)
apalazzo | January 16, 2007Coturnix has announced that the Anthology of the Best Science Blogging, 2006 is now available. Click here to get the paper back and/or PDF file from lulu.com. For more details visit A Blog Around the Clock.
PS Two of my posts (combined into a super post) were selected for the publication: The Worst Parts of Scientific Life and The Best Parts of Scientific Life.
apalazzo | January 8, 2007From today's NY Times: Headhunters at Harvard May Put a Woman in Charge
(I know it's just wild speculation.) Here's an interesting bit:
There are suspicions, on the other hand, that the committee might be leaning toward the selection of a scientist to oversee the expansion of research in stem cells and other cutting-edge science on a new campus to be built in the Allston section of Boston.
That would be nice ...
apalazzo | January 4, 2007There is one particular comment written by BC with regards to a patent owned by Archemix that covers all RNA aptamers that I'd like to share with you:
My data point is talks with key a key scientific advisory board member of the company - they bought it from Gold's company, Gilead, IIRC (see wikipedia's aptamer page).
There are small companies such as Q-RNA that are based specifically on a single aptamer or class of aptamers (not clear to me from QRNA's site) and if they didn't get grandfather'ed then I'd say they're at the mercy of the patent holder.
I don't have the answer to the patent…
apalazzo | January 3, 2007First the Wakefield scandal on a bogus link between MMR vaccine and autism, then the Chang scandal where a program error led to several erroneous x-ray crystal structures and five retractions. The first one caused by greed, the second by sloppiness.
(I'm trying to start the year on a good note, but it's hard.)
PS I was chatting with BTM and some other local "structure people" about the Geoffrey Chang. Apparently he was a prodigy ... assistant prof at 28(?), won the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. That's the type of award that is presented to you at the White…
apalazzo | December 23, 2006Sorry this week has been hellish. I've had no time to blog (but I did see a great two-man performance of The Importance of Being Earnest at ART). Anyway, this week was filled with work. I've been microinjecting my brains out. And then whatever is left was fried on the microscope. During one of the sessions I was listening to NPR where they were discussing the bonus that Goldman Sachs gave to its CEO, Lloyd C. Blankfein, a record of $53.4 Million. Some one called to say:
What did he do to get that, cure AIDS?
And I was thinking to myself, the one who cures AIDS will probably be earning a…
apalazzo | December 6, 2006From today's Boston Globe:
Harvard has whittled down hundreds of nominees for its next president to a small list, including internal candidates and presidents of some of the nation's top universities, according to a source familiar with the process.
The source would not give a specific number, but said the university is considering a smaller group than the 30 names that the presidential search committee presented to Harvard's Board of Overseers on Sunday.
So who's on the list?
On the list of 30 candidates presented to the overseers were three Harvard leaders who worked for Summers: provost…