Vanity
evolgen | November 29, 2006A couple of years ago, one of the rear tail lights went out on my car. I'm kinda handy with tools, so I figured it would be an easy fix. I poked around in the trunk area with my screw driver, removing every screw within spitting distance of the lamp. I tugged on the lamp in every possible direction, but the sucker wouldn't budge. Just because I could sequence DNA or parse a genome into the interesting bits and discard the boring stuff, didn't mean I could perform simple maintenance on my car. I admitted defeat and had the lamp fixed the next time I brought my car in for an inspection.
Why did…
evolgen | November 28, 2006Everyone's jumping on this meme, but I'm not gonna do it. Ooops . . . Looks like I just did it. Anyway, blogging's been light recently. Hopefully I can get my act together and have some posts up later this week. And by "get my act together" I mean procrastinate from doing real work by writing blog posts.
They're also all doing this meme. Turns out, I'm a "SoCal surfer". Makes sense -- I grew up a few blocks from the ocean. Of course, it could be worse. I could have grown up in Huntington Beach. Then I'd really sound like Spicoli.
What American accent do you have?Your Result: The West
Your…
evolgen | November 21, 2006Two years ago today (November 21, 2004 at 11:23 AM) I launched evolgen in its original incarnation. The first post, entitled "First Post", celebrated the occasion:
This is the first post to the evolgen blog. Not much to say other than there is more to come (hopefully).
The first evolutionary genetics post didn't happen until January 9, 2005. For two months evolgen existed in name only, plus four posts on topics ranging from restless legs syndrome to dinosaurs. I eventually got my act together, increased my posting frequency, submitted posts to blog carnivals (mostly Tangled Bank), and left…
evolgen | November 7, 2006
This morning, I walked into my local polling place, signed in, and voted. There were fewer than ten items on the ballot, and it only took a few minutes. I had to wait a moment for one of the booths to open up, but there was no one in line ahead of me. If people aren't voting at 8am before work, when are they voting?
I got to use one of those new fangled touch screen voting machines. It wasn't Diebold, but I still felt a bit uncomfortable when I cast my ballot to dumprick. Was my vote actually going for the other guy or was the dog fucker stealing it somehow? Was a being paranoid?
As I was…
evolgen | October 20, 2006I haven't touched an Ask A ScienceBlogger for a couple of months. This week, the powers that be are asking us:
What's the best science TV show of all time?
The first show that came to mind was Mr. Wizard. As young tyke in the 1980s, I watched a lot of Nickelodeon. Nick was a staple of my early TV viewing, with classics like Mr. Wizard, along with You Can't Do That On Television and Double Dare. Mr. Wizard was great for the science, but it was also fun to laugh at the dorky looking kids on the show. And I secretly longed to be one of those kids. Only not as dorky, but on the show none the…
evolgen | October 16, 2006
Kevin's got us doing another nerd test. According to this test, I'm pretty smart. I'm not sure how this result relates to my nerdiness, geekiness, or dorkiness. I can tell you this: it won't be keeping me from biting the heads off of chickens!
evolgen | September 28, 2006There is a general disconnect between the people I know from blogging and the people I know in real life. I've only met a couple of my fellow SciBlings (ScienceBlogs siblings): John Lynch, Mad Mike, and Carl. I have only once had a real world friend or colleague overtly mention to me in real life that they read or know of my blog. That's probably to be expected given that I blog pseudo-pseudonymously (quite an appropriate title given my study species).
But there are people in the bloggy world who have figured out who I am in the real world. I don't mind, I just ask that they not broadcast it…
evolgen | September 24, 2006I'm so vain I think I every single song is about me.
Dave wants us to "make a music mix that is a reflection of your informative years." I have no idea what he means by informative years, so I'm going to give you a list of a dozen or so songs (Dave's suggested amount) that I like, each by a different band. The order makes sense to me, but it probably won't make sense to you.
Faith No More - Falling to PiecesFaith No More's The Real Thing was the first album I ever bought with my own money. I would listen to the album over and over, singing along to the lyrics in the liner notes. Once I…
evolgen | September 23, 2006I saw him again at the supermarket today. This is the second time I've seen him at the supermarket -- and third time overall. But this is the first time I was stealth, without any identification of my alma mater.
In case you're late to the game, this guy is an emeritus professor at my current university, and he also graduated from my alma mater. I've run into him twice around town, both times I had something that gave away my former school (either a hat or a license plate holder). Like the last time I saw him in the supermarket, we were both in the produce section. However, today I was…
evolgen | September 22, 2006
My previous claims of geekiness were in jest. And if that wasn't clear to you, do you understand anything? Anyway, I defined nerds as book smart, dweebs as socially awkward, and dorks as nerdy dweebs (or dweeby nerds). Geeks to me are sideshow acts (freaks) that bite the heads off of live chickens. Some people consider them nerds with a specialized type of knowledge.
Which brings us to this quiz that assesses your nerdiness, geekiness, and dorkiness (as defined below). Razib started it, and my results are below. I am pure nerd (book smart), with traces of geekiness and dorkiness. By the way…
evolgen | September 20, 2006Over a year and half ago (~1 eon in internet time) I wrote this blog entry in which I turned around the title of Dobzhansky's famous essay "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution". I didn't think I was being all that clever when I came up with the following:
NOTHING IN EVOLUTION MAKES SENSE EXCEPT IN THE LIGHT OF GENETICS
I pointed out that evolution requires heritable variation first and foremost, hence genetics lies at the center of all of evolution. I then took the opportunity to explain why Hardy and Weinberg's derivation that random mating does not change allele…
evolgen | September 19, 2006So I'm back doing lab work again. That means I'm stumbling across weird stuff that Dylan might get a kick out of. Before I could start isolating any DNA, I had to make sure all my reagents and buffer solutions were ready to go. I was digging through our chemicals cabinet when I found this buffer:
In case you can't read the label (the camera wouldn't focus on the text) it says "Buffer". For those of you not in the know, that isn't very informative. The rest of the label doesn't provide much more information. It tells you into which solvent it should be dissolved and store at room temperature…
evolgen | September 18, 2006After spending the last couple of years in front of a computer or in the fly room, I finally returned to the wet lab last week. The occasion: DNA isolation. Now, this isn't any ole' DNA isolation protocol. That would be too easy. Instead, I need some high molecular weight DNA, which means it takes a few days from start to finish with lots of centrifugation throughout.
Because I need lots of high quality DNA, I need a fair bit of tissue. This wouldn't be much of a problem if I were working with an organism with a substantial body mass. Alas, I work with Drosophila, and they're tiny. That means…
evolgen | September 15, 2006I've told you before that I once dreamt of becoming a conservation geneticist. I major turning point for me occurred after I had completed rotations during my first year of grad school. I had to decide between two different labs: in one I would use molecular markers to study the demography of a species of tree and in the other I would study the evolution of Drosophila genomes. I chose the Drosophila lab (for reasons I won't get into here or now), and the rest was history.
It turns out I could have been a coauthor on a Science paper if I had chosen the tree lab. My potential advisor in that…
evolgen | September 10, 2006Janet's little nerd meme is hot shit at ScienceBlogs. Everyone's bragging about their nerd score. Well, everyone but those of us that are that the bottom of the nerd totem-pole (like me).
All this nerd talk has gotten all the science dorks up in a tizzy -- so much so that they're getting sloppy with their diction. The real nerds in the hizzy know that nerdiness is not synonymous with geekiness. In our little back-channel for ScienceBlogs bloggers, Janet promised us a geeky limerick. Here's what she delivered. Hardly geeky. Definitely nerdy and dorky. But not geeky. This is a geeky limerick…
evolgen | September 9, 2006As I was rollin' down the street this morning (with my alma mater proudly displayed on my license plate holder) on the way to the ole' grocery store, an older couple pulled up alongside of me at a stop light. The husband was driving, and he busted out the "Pardon me, do you have any Grey Poupon" window roll down. His wife was sitting in the passenger seat with a map spread out in front of her. I assumed the husband would be asking me for directions.
Flashback: A few months ago I was in the supermarket, sporting my alma mater on my hat. While in the produce section, an older gentleman walked…
evolgen | September 7, 2006
Janet has a declared a nerd-off, and all the ScienceBlogs bloggers are bragging about their nerdiness. They're showing off scores on nerd quizzes. As you can see I'm not so nerdy (compared to the other bloggers here). My standing as a "Low-Rank Nerd" might qualify me for excommunication from the ScienceBlogs society. I'm a remedial programmer. I have a mediocre understanding of the periodic table. I was never into Star Trek, reading books, or playing Dungeons and Dragons. I like sports.
While I may not be a nerd, I do have a surprise for you below the fold.
I am (or rather was) a geek. You…
evolgen | September 1, 2006I'm slowly turning into a cyclist. I currently own three bikes, but that number may change when I buy the fixed gear I've been longing for. I bought a mountain bike a couple of years ago for commuting to and from campus. It's a little over a mile from my front door to my building, but I lost the patience required to walk that distance and driving was out of the question. I was now riding a bike regularly for the first time since the eighth grade. Last summer I picked up a used Cannondale CAD3 road bike from a guy who had only ridden it indoors on a trainer. The bike was in near mint condition…
evolgen | August 18, 2006Janet tagged everyone with the Random Quotes meme.
The rules: "Go here and look through random quotes until you find 5 that you think reflect who you are or what you believe."
I've added a comment for each of my selections, but that's not required.
It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.H. L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)
[Couldn't resist a quote on evolution and a quote by Mencken.]
Only some people get what they want. Those are the people who show up to get it.
Dianne Houston, Take The Lead, 2006
[I've got a saying: "90% of life is showing up. The rest…
evolgen | August 17, 2006David at the World's Fair wants to know what makes a good viral campaign:
Essentially, as scientific types who tend to analyse, over-analyse, supra-analyse things, and who like to categorize and follow empirical trends, I'm interesting in hearing what you think it is that sparks these viral outbursts of information outreach? This question (and apologies for its convolution) also relates directly to your role as a blogger, where the assumption is that you revel in increased traffic, and are kind of looking for these tricks anyway. I guess, I'm just interested in hearing a scientist's opinion…