terrasig | December 30, 2008I see you - I've been there.
You're sitting in the lab the day before New Year's Eve looking at what you've done over the last year - or last six years - and thinking about how you're ever going to turn this postdoc or extended grad school period into some gainful career. The economy is for hell no matter where you live and you're wondering if this is all worth it.
Well, as I've said before, don't limit your options until you explore them. The US drug, medical device, food, cosmetic regulatory and safety agency, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), can provide a really satisfying…
terrasig | December 30, 2008Even at this incredibly slow time of the year for blog traffic, we hit about 250% of our average readership yesterday with search engines finding our post on Allergan's new eyelash enhancing cosmeceutical, Latisse.
Lots of folks wanting to know where to buy Latisse - Allergan stock anyone?
(Aside: Among my other search term hits yesterday was: "'junior faculty' hate my job." It hit an older post on whether junior faculty should invest time in writing review articles. I suggest that the reader start adding feeds to many of our commenters who with whom they may be able to commiserate.)
terrasig | December 28, 2008The tagline is from Elaine D'Farley at Self magazine talking about the FDA's then-pending approval of Allergan's Latisse™ for cosmetic growth of longer, thicker eyelashes treatment of hypotrichosis of the eyelashes. While not expected until early 2009, Jacob Goldstein at the WSJ Health Blog clued me in to the approval last Friday (Allergan press release here).
Whether Ms. D'Farley intended, the choice of the brandname, Latisse, conjures up images of the design of the same name used on handbags and area rugs.
Allergan is a leader in "medical aesthetic products" such as botulinum toxin type A…
terrasig | December 28, 2008Blame Isis:
Figure 1: New Balance 908 trail shoes with my Polar S1 footpod (to go with my four-year-old Polar RS200).
And don't give me grief about my Smartwool Light Hiking Socks - best trail running sock on the planet.
terrasig | December 26, 2008For as good of an attitude as I normally seem to have on the blog, I just simply don't do well with the end-of-the-year holidays (but condolences should be sent instead to my dear friend who suffered a true loss earlier this morning). While it may take some therapy to truly understand my blahs this week, let it suffice to say that the return from our vacation and a continued mystery leak in our basement may have made me a bit more irritable than usual. After spending part of Christmas and much of today ripping out drywall and trying to diagnose the cause of basement flooding, you'd think I'…
terrasig | December 24, 2008Okay, Dear Reader, I know you are tired of my ranting about Key West no matter how much I try to make it a focus of natural product therapeutics. So, with your indulgence, I need to make two serious awards to acknowledge the warmth and kindness of the good souls of Key West. Two people went above and beyond the call of duty to make our trip wonderful:
1. To the waitress (and likely owner) of Flamingo's Cafe: We had a terrific brunch at one of the few places (thankfully) that does not serve alcohol on Duval Street. I indulged otherwise with the incredible Crabcake Eggs Benedict and a side of…
terrasig | December 23, 2008In our last few hours bidding farewell to the Conch Republic, we stopped at the Southernmost Point marker. Regular commenter and blogger leigh (the path forward) reminded us to "get a picture of the family pharmboy at the southernmost point marker, that's classic cheesy fun." Well, dear leigh, we found that the marker does not currently look like the photo to the right - as of Saturday, the buoy is only repainted with the bands of color and devoid of any identifying lettering.
In fact, this classic comment appeared in the Citizen's Voice section of the Key West Citizen on Sunday, 14 December…
terrasig | December 21, 2008I wrote at length the other day about my visit and talk at the Key West Tropical Forest & Botanical Garden, noting that Duke students and their Key West High School mentees would be presenting the results of their 2008 projects yesterday afternoon. Well, we were sadly flying out about the time of the presentations but one of them captured all of the results.
In fact, one project chronicled all the projects dating back to 2002 - kind of like looking in a mirror's reflection of a mirror.
This project established the Science Corner for the garden website, hosted at Duke but linked on the…
terrasig | December 21, 2008
Click on the photo to find out where we spotted these little miracles of nature.
And nary a PLoS T-shirt among them.
terrasig | December 19, 2008As I mentioned in my intro post to our week in Key West, I was definitely going to make a visit to the Key West Tropical Forest & Botanical Garden. We took the then-PharmToddler there in November 2003 when this gem was just being relaunched after decades of negligence. According to Georgia Tasker at the Miami Herald:
It was begun in the Great Depression days of 1934 by the City of Key West, and built by the WPA at the same time as the city's aquarium. At one point, the garden contained an aviary, hand-made rock walls, green houses and 7,000 plants. It opened in 1936 and flourished for…
terrasig | December 16, 2008While my Left Coast US and Japanese readers may scoff at the fuss, folks along the southeast US coast are abuzz with this morning's minor tremor near Summerville, South Carolina. I'm not a seismology expert, or even an enthusiast for that matter, but I do remember reading a waterfront plaque about the Great Charleston Earthquake of 1886 when invited there for a talk at the Medical University of South Carolina. That magnitude 7.6 (estimated) monster stands as the strongest earthquake in recorded eastern US history.
Local coverage of the recent temblor is here.
terrasig | December 15, 2008And happy 3rd blogoversary to Terra Sigillata.
Must be some sort of blogging stimulatory hormone in the water each December since both Orac and Greg Laden also celebrated a few days ago the anniversary of their respective blog launches.
But the reason I picked 15 December to launch Terra Sig with, "A Humble PharmBoy Begins to Sow," was because it was PharmSis' birthday and I knew I'd never forget that.
We won't mention what birthday this is for the ever-devoted little sister of mine (*cough*), but I just wanted to send best wishes out to her when she should be here in Key West with us. Turns…
terrasig | December 14, 2008Welcome readers of the It's Only Key West (IOKW) discussion forum (and thanks to Kategoe for sending you here) - keep your suggestions coming in the comments below the post. I just came from Hogfish tonight where I sat between two people thrown out of the bar by 7:15 pm, one for regular old drunkenness and the other for nearly starting a fight. Cynical me wants to say they were paid actors. But the food was superb.
Seizing upon our new tradition of getting out of Dodge for the week before Christmas madness, the Family Pharmboy will be broadcasting this week from Key West, Florida, The Conch…
terrasig | December 11, 2008NIH's NCCAM released a survey report on the use of complementary and alternative medicine in the US (report PDF here, post at WSJ Health Blog here.) . I don't know about you but the picture at Health Blog of the child receiving chiropractic manipulation scared the bejeezus out of me.
Overall trends were toward greater use of these unproven approaches, many of which have no basis in science. Most concerning is that one in nine children were estimated to have received a CAM therapy. And from the NCCAM report abstract:
Children whose parent used CAM were almost five times as likely (23.9%) to…
terrasig | December 10, 2008Driving home tonight, I learned that NPR is cutting staff and canceling two shows produced at NPR West: News & Notes with Farai Chideya and Day to Day with Madeleine Brand. (Full memo at HuffPo)
Farai put up a blog post late this afternoon entitled, We Love You! (And, Yes, We Are Cancelled). I don't know if I'd have the gut and optimism to be so gracious in the face of having my show terminated effective 20 March 2009. The companion blog post at Day to Day certainly lacked this optimism. But Farai has many, many things going in her favor despite this setback:
Chideya, who was born and…
terrasig | December 10, 2008I have something like ten posts already started and none of them done due to that silly work thing. I don't know how the other people around ScienceBlogs actually get posts up with such frequency.
In the meantime, I had a thought while conversing with Alice Pawley and Suzanne Franks about their session at the upcoming ScienceOnline'09 unconference on gender issues in science where I, brave one that I am, will represent all men and discuss how we all think we boys can be allies.
In the meantime, please re-read Alice's post on the recent anniversary of the Montreal Massacre:
On December 6,…
terrasig | December 7, 2008I used to live in a place where if you lacked proper hiking boots you could actually die, or be very badly injured.
My 1991 Vasque Sundowner hiking boots are now barely good enough to wear while cutting the lawn (damn monoculture!) in my now-suburban life. (Then again, that means they are old enough to go to college.). At least I still have some great state parks very close to me and some great national parks within 3 hr where we could backpack.
When looking to order a new pair of Sundowners online (since our local REI stopped carrying the version for my wide stubby feet), I was shocked to…
terrasig | December 6, 2008Brothers Bora and Drug reminded me that it is time for the early December traditional meme of recording one's first sentence of each month's first post.
Just as an aside, on my visit with this week with Anton and Bora to Ernie Hood's Radio In Vivo show to promote ScienceOnline'09, Ernie asked, "how do you pronounce Terra Sigillata?"
You'll recall, I hope, that we named the blog Terra Sigillata because it was the name of the first trademarked drug: a planchet of fat and mineral-rich clay from the Greek isle of Lemnos. However, terra sigillata is also a kind of clayworks that is finished with…
terrasig | December 5, 2008As I sang the praises the other day about Chris Patil's contributions to a recent PLoS biology paper and in launching the Hourglass blog carnival, I wanted to post the call for submissions:
Hi all --
I just posted the call for submissions for Hourglass V, the fifth installation of our blog carnival about the biology of aging.
This edition will be hosted by me, at Ouroboros.
Please send submissions to hourglass[dot]host[at]gmail.com .
What we're looking for:
> Topics of posts should have something to do with the biology of aging, broadly
> speaking -- including fundamental research in…
terrasig | December 2, 2008Number 9. . .
I just learned this from the Great One, writedit:
NIH grants for FY2010 funding will be scored by review panels on a 1-to-9 scale instead of the current 1-to-5 scale. (Which for you, the applicant, is multiplied by 100 for your priority score.).
Guaranteed that we'll all still stay between 1.1 and 2.5 for 40% of the grants and it won't make a difference until people like me die.
Sorry. I'm just very cynical today.