terrasig | October 12, 2008When dialing up SiteMeter this morning over the first cup of coffee, I noted an unusually large number of hits coming from Fark.com to my post on a NEJM article detailing lead poisoning cases among marijuana users in Germany.
In that article, lead shavings were used to boost dime bags that were "a little light." The combustion of the particles lead to lead poisoning in users and is one of the few scenarios where use of a chelating agent ((2,3-dimercaptosuccinic acid; DMSA; succimer; Chemet®) was both indicated and effective.
Turns out that the Fark.com hits today are coming from a forum…
terrasig | October 11, 2008Nobel Prize month also means that Denver's 5280 magazine has announced the annual results of their top 270 medical professionals in 79 specialties. While the picture here is the cover of last year's issue featuring my dear colleague, Dr John J (Jay) Reusch, the good doctor was again named among the top six physicians in Cardiovascular Medicine. Our other compatriot, Dr Daniel (Dan) Bessesen was named for the sixth year among the top specialists in Endocrinology, Diabetes, & Metabolism.
Even my former pulmonologist, Dr James (Jim) Good, made the list - for his 14th year! The Pulmonary…
terrasig | October 11, 2008. . .is not the name of my new punk rock band.
It is, however, the key text of lab results that came back this week in following up on the most highly-read post of my blogging career.
That is all.
terrasig | October 10, 2008Another Wine Experience- A romp thru northern Italy: the Piemonte
by Erleichda
Following a week of hiking around lakes Orta, Maggiore and Como, the eight of us piled into a rented van with all our luggage and headed for the Piedmont (or Piemonte) region, home of dolcetto, barbera, barbaresco and barolo wines. Lucky us (or was it good planning?), we arrived in Alba just in time for lunch and a few hours before the beginning of the annual wine festival. More than 100 wine producers, and a thousand different wines, awaited our tasting glasses (10 euros for a wine glass as an admission price,…
terrasig | October 9, 2008You probably thought this was going to be about Dr Robert Gallo.
Driving in to lab this morning I heard Dan Charles' story on NPR's Morning Edition about the unheralded scientist, Dr Douglas Prasher, who first cloned the green fluorescent protein gene from Aequorea victoria in 1992, as published in Gene. This amazing laboratory tool, you will note, was the focus of yesterday's awarding of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Prasher freely distributed the cDNA to those requesting it, including at least two of the three recently Nobelists.
Because of funding shortfalls from both NIH and the…
terrasig | October 8, 2008I am about to lead a discussion of science and medical blogs with a group of journalism students in a course entitled, Medical Journalism. While many of the students are specifically majoring in medical and science journalism in a master's program, some are undergraduates in general journalism and mass communications looking to get a flavor for medical writing for print and broadcast.
My question to the valued readers of this humble blog is:
What would you tell these young, knowledge-seeking minds about how science and medical blogs and bloggers might contribute to their future careers as "…
terrasig | October 8, 2008Nature's gift of green fluorescent protein (GFP) from the jellyfish, Aequorea victoria, has always been important to me, personally and professionally. In fact, PharmGirl, MD, and I would have never met if not for this wonder macromolecule nor then would PharmKid exist.
Well, it appears that GFP has been of enough important to others that the three scientists central to its discovery and development were just awarded the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry:
Osamu Shimomura (Woods Hole and Boston University) first isolated GFP from the jellyfish Aequorea victoria, which drifts with the currents off…
terrasig | October 5, 2008The 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been split between the discoverers of two viruses of major pathophysiological importance.
Half of the prize goes to German Dr prof Harald zur Hausen for his discovery of human papilloma virus as the cause of cervical cancer while the other half went to the French team that discovered human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), Françoise Barr´-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier.
Just a few early thoughts: Notably absent from the award is American Robert Gallo, whose role in the HIV discovery has been long disputed. That this Nobel can only be awarded to a…
terrasig | October 5, 2008The author, human rights activist, folklorist, and environmentalist, Stetson Kennedy, is celebrating his 92nd birthday today in the company of friends and family near St. Augustine, Florida.
His website, StetsonKennedy.com, used to have a guestbook but the webmaster, his grandson Sean, took it down after extensive spamming.
So, please leave your birthday wishes in the comments below as we have it on very good authority that those close to Stetson actually read Terra Sigillata.
Much of my generation probably only knows Stetson Kennedy as the Klan-busting infiltrator popularized in…
terrasig | October 5, 2008We here at Terra Sig are peripheral to Teh Atheist Cabal at ScienceBlogs so I had to do a consortium-wide search to be sure no one like PZ, revere, or Laden wrote about this lawsuit filed by the Freedom From Religion Foundation.
The nation's largest group of atheists and agnostics is suing President Bush, the governor of Wisconsin and other officials over the federal law designating a National Day of Prayer.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation sued Friday in U.S. district court, arguing that the president's mandated proclamations calling on Americans to pray violates a constitutional ban on…
terrasig | October 4, 2008DrDrA just posted on a currently 37-comment-long thread of a post by PhysioProf at DrugMonkey based on a quote from a post by Dr Brazen Hussy (opening sentence almost as long and convoluted as the title, eh?).
The short summary: postdocs and other academic job candidates are disqualifying themselves from even applying for certain positions because:
1. they don't feel they meet the job description in the ad
2. the job is at a "lesser" institution or department
3. the job is in a place (they think) they'd never want to live
4. they'd feel bad about turning down a position at a place they know…
terrasig | October 2, 2008As I alluded to in the previous post, many science bloggers like us are currently running challenges to readers to donate to projects at DonorsChoose.org.
This great organization has been a sponsoring clearinghouse for all kinds of educational projects proposed by US public schoolteachers, many of which are very basic activities for which public funds are not available, then donors like you and I get to choose to whom we wish to send a few doubloons.
Independently of the ScienceBlogs drive, I just learned that American Express has selected DonorsChoose as five finalists who are competing…
terrasig | October 2, 2008I am completely crushed, hammered, and otherwise incapacitated at work right now - apologies to readers who are looking for some natural products and pharmacology wisdom. It is in my brain but just not making it into pixels right now.
In the meantime, I did want to let readers know that we are participating for our 3rd year in the DonorsChoose.org Blogger Challenge here at ScienceBlogs. More later on the program and my interests, past experiences, etc.
In the meantime, you can check out some of the projects about which I am passionate at:
Terra Sigillata's "More Abel To Do Science" Blogger…
terrasig | September 30, 2008This morning's post from Molecule of the Day reminds me to ask "cyanuric acid question."
With the recent adulterations with melamine of Chinese milk and milk products (like White Rabbit chocolates) and foods with other milk-derived ingredients, we wonder if we will ultimately hear that a compound from fertilizer, cyanuric acid, is part of the mix.
Melamine is a cheap chemical that gives a false positive in typical protein assays; therefore, it can be used to make food appear to contain more protein than it actually does. You'll often hear of cyanuric acid being referred to as a pool chemical…
terrasig | September 29, 2008My apologies, dear readers, for having little time to write proper natural products content.
I just got home and was watching Olbermann with the Family Pharmboy where clips from Tina Fey's faux Katie Couric interview were mashed up with Sarah Palin's actual one. (See Orac for the SNL clips).
Pharmboy: I wish Tina Fey were the Republican VP pick.
PharmGirl: I think Tina Fey should have been the Republican candidate.
P.S. I would donate to the McCain campaign if they let Sheril Kirshenbaum debate Sarah Palin.
terrasig | September 26, 2008I received this tip earlier in the week from a former PharmD student and Pharmboy lab alum who now lives in the SF Bay area. In saving it for The Friday Fermentable, I am now just another of the literally hundreds of media outlets covering the story.
If you haven't heard, there is a Chilean organic winery called Palin (but pronounced, 'pay-LEEN') that makes an organic Syrah, a lovely french wine grape.
I want to give credit (since the rest of the media hasn't) to San Francisco wine industry veteran, Amy Monroe, a marketing and sales associate at Ridge Vineyards, one of my favorite but now…
terrasig | September 24, 2008Any of you working in academic programs that offer forensic sciences training are well aware that CSI has been a boon this multidisciplinary area of biology, chemistry, engineering and materials sciences.
However, we don't yet have any television programs glorifying a career in pharmacology or biotechnology.
I've just spent a few hours on YouTube, BSCS, Bio-Rad, and a bunch of other science education sites but I can't find what I am looking for.
What I need: A 10-12 minute video for high school students that demonstrates career opportunities in biotechnology and/or the biologicals side of…
terrasig | September 23, 2008As you may have heard elsewhere, the third annual major (and free) US science blogging conference, ScienceOnline'09, began accepting registrations last Monday. The meeting will be held 16-18 January 2009 in Research Triangle Park, NC, USA.
As of 10 am EDT today, there are already 78 registrants on the way to a cap of 225-ish. However, I have noted that only one registrant is listed on the wiki under a pseudonym.
This is a special message to my kindred spirits who write under a pseudonym and are wondering how in the heck they can go to such a great communications extravaganza and bloggy…
terrasig | September 22, 2008I had to laugh, through my tears of course, that the Bush administration's bill requesting $700 billion for the Treasury Department to purchase failing mortgage assets is not even three pages long.
Where did the idea come from for such a concise funding request???
Those of us with NIH research funding received e-mails last week on the outcome of "Enhancing Peer Review," a year-long effort by the funding agency to "fund the best science, by the best scientists, with the least amount of administrative burden."
One of the outcomes garnering the greatest attention has been the proposal to reduce…
terrasig | September 22, 2008Here's an update on E. coli-gate in Tularosa, NM:
Okay, so it's more than fluid - it's about a pint of sludge left in front of each house where the garbage truck stopped. But this is ridiculous:
[Tularosa resident Ken] Riedlinger took samples from the sludge puddle to the Diagnostic and Technology Center in Alamogordo and they found a huge amount of E. coli, he said.
"The upper tray reported it's infinite, the numbers were too great to count," Riedlinger said. "This is massive, massive E. coli. This is deadly stuff."
E. coli is a bacterium found in the lower intestine of warm-blooded animals…