terrasig | March 14, 2009Well, the living nightmare that is my home office refuses to clean itself completely. So , I am left with all the best intentions but no pie to contribute to the Pi Day competition.
I had intended to bake PharmGirl's great-grandmother's old Southern traditional coconut pie. Alas, it was not to be.
From PharmGirl's Facebook page today:
This is my husband's favorite -- a recipe passed down from my great grandmother.
Coconut Pie
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups shredded coconut
1 cup milk
1/2 stick butter
1 t. vanilla
3/4 cups sugar (decrease to 1/2 cup if using sweetened shredded coconut)
1 unbaked pie…
terrasig | March 14, 2009Even though it's Saturday morning, drinking coffee while getting ready to take the PharmKid to ballet class, I'm not usually one to throw up YouTube videos as blog posts without any context.
However, my dear friend, frequent commenter, and devoted traffic-driver, anjou, passed this along to me.
I've never really gotten into the whole spoken-word / poetry slam movement but maybe it's because I haven't been paying attention. We also don't have HBO so I've never seen Def Poetry, where these Vanessa Hidary performances aired.
Even if you aren't Jewish or a woman, these two are worth every…
terrasig | March 12, 2009Today marks 12 years since you died.
Well, it might have been today, possibly yesterday, I hope not too many days ago.
You see, you died alone in your apartment you rented from your sister downstairs. Yet no one checked on you as your mail accumulated Monday and Tuesday. One of your drinking buddies from the Disabled American Veterans post told me proudly at your funeral that he probably had with you your last beer that Saturday night. So, maybe it was the 8th or 9th?
When I think back, though, I believe you died some eight years earlier, just after your 50th birthday party. For your…
terrasig | March 12, 2009Wayne Sutton is to social media what Bora Zivkovic is to science blogging.
So, I got this tweet today from Wayne from Blackhippychick's Blog on 100 Black Twitterers of note:
Are you curious to know what the African American Community is twittering about then check out these 100 Black Twitters. The ones chosen except in a very few cases update daily. The last 50 are demographically based and are based on the number of followers or on a claim of being a celebrity. writing about celebrities or connected to one.
(So, Mom, we talked about Twitter - it's like a miniblog. You get to post 140…
terrasig | March 11, 2009Back in February 2007, we had a lively discussion on a post about pharmacist objection to filling prescriptions for drugs they felt went again their personal moral stance: from morning-after pills to garden-variety oral contraceptives. I held that since pharmacists are licensed by the state to provide a service to the citizenry (and they make about as much money as a full professor at a US research university), they should be required to fill prescriptions. Some commenters argued that ethical practice of one's profession dictate that one apply moral standards. I disagree. As an agent of…
terrasig | March 9, 2009
I'm very proud today to see one of my formative professors, Dr Fulton Crews, quoted extensively in a USAToday article on a new, web-based alcohol awareness initiative, "Rethinking Drinking," from NIH's National Institute for Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) Division of Treatment and Recovery Research.
While many associate heavy drinking with liver problems, it can also increase the risk for heart disease, sleep disorders, depression, stroke and stomach bleeding. Consumed during pregnancy, it can cause fetal brain damage, says Fulton Crews, director of the Bowles Center for Alcohol…
terrasig | March 8, 2009I used to keep a separate blog for items of local interest but I can't even keep up with one. So, you'll occasionally have to bear with me posting about issues of import from the area in and around Terra Sigillata World Headquarters.
But here's a local bit of info for our NC Triangle readers that should also remind the rest of you around the world to see what you can do in your own communities, especially during the global economic downturn.
This came across a tag in my Facebook from my far-better half, PharmGirl. I said, "Wow, this is great - where did you get it? Did you write it?" The…
terrasig | March 6, 2009We're really fortunate here at Terra Sigillata World Headquarters to have a strong, dedicated readership. But I'm always tickled when we attract new readers and attention to the views we express here.
Late yesterday I received a very nice e-mail from Andrew Plemmons Pratt, Managing Editor of Science Progress, a blog of the well-known liberal think tank, Center for American Progress.
In his post, Don't Bury the Next Generation of Researchers Under Billions in NIH Funding, Andrew notes my enthusiasm in our 23 Feb post for being sure that junior investigators already in the pipeline not be…
terrasig | March 5, 2009Chris Mooney just asked the question as to why sci/med bloggers are up in arms about Sen Tom Harkin's recent complaints about the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), the arm of NIH charged with funding studies to investigate the mechanisms and efficacy of modalities not currently considered mainstream medicine. I left a comment for Chris that ended up being a blog post so I'll share it with Terra Sig readers here and expound a bit for good measure.
The problem is that Harkin has stated that the establishment is discriminating against alternative medicine and…
terrasig | March 4, 2009I just wanted to send out congratulations to my friends and colleagues in Charleston at the Medical College of South Carolina (MUSC) on the 2 March announcement of their receipt of NCI Cancer Center designation:
The Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) Hollings Cancer Center has attained National Cancer Institute (NCI) designation, a distinction held by only 63 other cancer centers in the U.S. The Hollings Cancer Center (HCC) is the only institution in South Carolina with this prestigious status.
Andrew S. Kraft, MD, Director of the Hollings Cancer Center (HCC), said being named one of…
terrasig | March 3, 2009Run, do not walk, to the most recent addition to the ScienceBlogs.com family, AoMFASR, the blog of geology professor, Dr Kim Hannula.
You people already had to bear with my fawning about Colorado but you'll now get real, natural history and geological sciences info from a scientist with expertise to share with you the glory of the American Southwest.
I think it's really gneiss that Sb invited Kim to join but I think she should be prepared not to take any schist from anyone. This blog network has its faults but a great many of us are alluvial fans.
terrasig | March 2, 2009I have to travel to Washington, DC, quite a bit - this week, in fact. So, boy, I wish that our Amtrak rail service to the nation's capital was faster and more dependable because once you get to the airport, go through security, etc., we're starting to get closer to the time it takes to drive.
Our European readers will howl they learn it takes almost 6 hours to travel the 280 mi/450 km from the capital of North Carolina to DC. While Amtrak service is pretty awesome from Boston through New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, once you're south of DC the passenger trains have to compete…
terrasig | February 27, 2009I've been scarce around these parts and hope to get a Friday Fermentable up before midnight. However, I just wanted to share the following on the last couple of days discussions about Nature Publishing Group's various pronouncements on the importance of science blogging, especially their mention in Nature Methods of ScienceOnline'09, an unconference I co-organized this year with founders and online science visionaries, Bora Zivkovic and Anton Zuiker.
Bora has the main stories and DrugMonkey adds commentary and his own personal experiences.
But leave it to Anton Zuiker to capture the whole…
terrasig | February 25, 2009Okay people, these students in Miss Stacy Baker's biology classes and Extreme Biology blog have been rocking my world for quite some time. They've now burst onto the national media and were all the buzz of the recent ScienceOnline'09 conference.
For those not familiar with the story, Stacy Baker is a biology teacher at the Calverton School in Huntingtown, Maryland, who began a website for student activities and class notes back in 2006. With the boundless enthusiasm of ninth-graders and more seasoned AP biology students, the site has become interactive: a blog, Extreme Biology, with videos…
terrasig | February 23, 2009Over the weekend, Comrade PhysioProf at DrugMonkey posted on the details of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) stimulus funds distribution for the US National Institutes of Health.
For some unusual reason, the letter that was sent to NIH investigators and posted on the NIH website has now been removed and replaced today by the statement:
The announcement from the Acting NIH Director will be issued later today.
We are making every effort to get this vital information to you as soon as possible.
This page was last reviewed on February 23, 2009.
From the DrugMonkey post and an article…
terrasig | February 23, 2009Welcome 4 March readers of The Daily Grail - please be sure to also click on the original post about the DMT article by my colleague, Laura Mariani.
Thanks to Dave Munger & Co's ResearchBlogging.org, I just found a fabulous neuroscience grad student blogger from Emory University: Laura E Mariani at Neurotypical?
Doctor-to-be Mariani blogged last Monday about a paper in Science where the endogenous ligand of the orphan sigma-1 receptor was identified as the hallucinogen, N,N'-dimethyltryptamine, or DMT. The work originated with the group of Arnold Ruoho and colleagues at the University…
terrasig | February 22, 2009
You can see all the stars as you walk down Hollywood Boulevard,
Some that you recognise, some that you've hardly even heard of,
People who worked and suffered and struggled for fame,
Some who succeeded and some who suffered in vain.
Celluloid Heroes, The Kinks, 1972
Star-generator hat tip: Pharmagossip
With gratitude to Johnny G. for taking me and T.P. to our first big concert, The Kinks at Nassau Coliseum, 1979-ish.
terrasig | February 20, 2009While I get to finishing my post on the much-ballyhooed ScienceOnline'09 winetasting, I'd like to share with readers a fantastic wine essay by MIT Professor of Science Writing and multiply-decorated journalist, Thomas Levenson. Tom also writes The Inverse Square Blog where each post includes at least one illustration as beautiful as his writing. Tom is also author of the upcoming book, Newton and the Counterfeiter: The Unknown Detective Career of the World's Greatest Scientist, currently scheduled for release on 4 June 2009.
I had the lovely pleasure of sitting between Tom and Rebecca Skloot…
terrasig | February 20, 2009Dear Friends,
I have been so swamped lately, I cannot even spend enough time with PharmGirl and PharmKid much less find time to call my out-of-state family, what with time zones, kid bedtimes, and such.
However, each of you continue to put out a large volume of high quality posts that I really want to read fully but just can't right now. I've been working for five weeks on my ScienceOnline'09 winetasting post that is still not done and will definitely miss the deadline for submitting a post to the Diversity in Science carnival. And I've now been getting bluescreen memory dump errors on the…
terrasig | February 19, 2009The complicity of revered academic institutions in the promotion of pseudoscience today takes another step forward.
The University of the Sciences in Philadelphia (USP), known formerly as the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science (PCP&S), will bestow an honorary Doctor(ate) of Science on John A Borneman, III, to celebrate their Founders' Day.
From the university press release:
Borneman has spent his lifetime committed to the development and regulation of homeopathic medicine within the United States. He is the third of four generations of "John Bornemans" to attend the Philadelphia…