Social Networking
oracknows | August 1, 2012Dying of cancer can be a horrible way to go, but as a cancer specialist I sometimes forget that there are diseases that are equally, if not more, horrible. One that always comes to mind is amyotropic lateral sclerosis (ALS), more commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease. It is a motor neuron disease whose clinical course is characterized by progressive weakness, muscle atrophy and spasticity, with ultimate progression to respiratory muscles leading to difficulty breathing and speaking (dysarthria) and to the muscles controlling swallowing. The rate of clinical course is variable, often…
vlicata | December 21, 2010I've been strangely fascinated by the "arsenic-eating" and maybe "arsenic-utilizing' bacteria report from NASA researchers and the so-called "backlash" ("arsenic-gate") in the blogosphere. Many others have posted on this topic. What I've found most interesting is that there seem to be several parallel and barely intersecting universes: 1) the scientific literature, 2) the traditional media, and 3) the blogosphere.
Universe 1: Wolfe-Simon has published for several years about the potential for unique
arsenic metabolism (among other topics), and this is the next paper in her series of…
sciencepunk | May 24, 2010It's rare that I blog off topic - there's so much cool science in the world that I don't have much time for anything else. But my departure from Facebook has co-incided with something of a global trend, so I thought I may as well explore what people thought.
In case you've been wrapped in roofing felt for the last few weeks, here's the scoop. After a series of embarrassing security flaws and anger over the company's attitude toward privacy, Facebook users are leaving in droves. Or at least, that's the claim - the reality is that there's no viable alternative yet, although some bright…
gregladen | October 2, 2009I have mixed feelings about automatic updates of one or more social networking sites from another social networking site. Like when you twitter something and your Facebook status gets the same string of words, or visa versa. I know a few people who do this on a regular basis, and it seems to work very differently depending on what the person tends to write and how the connection between her or his social networking sites is set up.
As background to this discussion I should tell you how I interface with the various intertubual entities.
Posts on Greg Laden's Blog are automatically tweeted,…
cwilcox | August 22, 2009Sure, you know your face in a mirror. But what do you look like to the internet?
Let's be honest - you've probably Googled yourself to see what comes up. Who hasn't? Well, now MIT has come out with an online program called "Personas" which artistically "uses sophisticated natural language processing and the Internet to create a data portrait of one's aggregated online identity." Simply put, it shows you how the internet sees you.
The developers explain exactly what it does:
"Enter your name, and Personas scours the web for information and attempts to characterize the person - to fit them…
bcohen | April 1, 2009Add this to the list from my prior post: a Locavore app from Enjoymentland, available at the iTunes store. Local agricultural advocates are already using social networking and building virtual marketplaces and identifying market and farm sites nationwide. This feature extends the connection between on-line consumer practices and local food advocacy. Two of my students bought it and are giving it a test run. I'll try to get an update a few weeks into this Spring season.
According to the guy at Enjoymentland who made the app, the iPhone feature does this:
* Automatically detects which…
cwilcox | November 5, 2008We all love Facebook (or MySpace), but it's not exactly the most professional forum. Isn't there a better way for scientists to communicate their research and network?
The short answer is "Yes."
The long answer is "Yes, it's called ."
The brainchild of self-taught web guru and PhD student Brian Krueger, LabSpaces.Net is a social networking site dedicated to scientists. It's designed to "spread science news, maintain and create friendships, and harbor collaboration through the internet." The site is specially geared to serve researchers and labs as a community for communication in the…
sporte | August 5, 2008start all over again.
MDRNA Inc., a Puget Sound area company formerly known as Nastech, announced on Monday that they'd be laying off 23 people including their president and chief business officer. This might not sound like a lot, but according to Joseph Tartakoff, from the Seattle PI, this brings the total number of layoffs up to 145 since November.
These events present a challenge to those of us who teach in biotech programs or biotech-related fields. Nastech, the predecessor to MDRNA had been around for over 20 years. Who would expect a 20+ year company to shed three quarters of it's…
sporte | June 1, 2008This month's edition of Medicine 2.0 focuses on connections. You'll learn how new technologies are empowering patients by connecting them with their own health records, connecting patients and paramedics with doctors, and connecting doctors with each other.
Nothing connects like Web 2.0.
Let's hit the Midway!
Many submissions to this carnival certainly captured the carnival spirit. I had just become resigned to the notion of scouring the internet myself, looking for posts that would fit today's collection, when a couple of days ago, I was inundated with email submissions.
Great! I thought,…