terrasig | February 6, 2008I received a special missive this morning from the Foundation for Biomedical Research that reported the home of UCLA nicotine researcher, Dr Edie London, was vandalized/terrorized by a fire set to a "device" on her front porch. The story now appears at the Los Angeles Times:
London, a professor of psychiatry and bio-behavioral sciences and of molecular and medical pharmacology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, uses lab monkeys in her research on nicotine addiction.
FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller confirmed that officials with the Joint Terrorism Task Force were investigating the…
terrasig | February 5, 2008For those looking for some new material here, I wanted to say that I spent my energy on the first post of the week for a piece over at the ScienceBlogs editor's blog, Page 3.14.
Readers may recall that I sang the praises of the DrugMonkey blog here a few weeks ago on the occasion of their first anniversary in the blogosphere at their old site. With their joining the Sb network, new ScienceBlogs community manager, Virginia Hughes, asked me to write a welcome/introductory post to recognize my new colleagues, DrugMonkey and PhysioProf. (Ginny is an awesome blogger in her own right, here and at…
terrasig | February 3, 2008
Yesterday was the 1st anniversary of Blogroll Amnesty Day, originally proposed by a reasonably prominent blogger who used the occasion to relieve himself of guilt when purging his blogroll and building back up only a list of those he reads regularly.
I learned via my new homies, PhysioProf and DrugMonkey that Jon Swift and Skippy have proposed this day instead as an opportunity for low-traffic bloggers to blogroll even lower-traffic bloggers to help everyone rise up in notoriety.
Despite being here at ScienceBlogs for 20 months, I have managed to keep my readership to a small but select…
terrasig | February 3, 2008Many of us who are principal investigators of academic research laboratories operate essentially as CEOs of our little empires. Therefore, I throw out to the Terra Sig readership a very interesting Sunday morning story entitled, "Bloggin' Bosses", by Frank Nelson of the Raleigh News & Observer.
Of course, true CEO bloggers have to contend with somewhat bigger issues and must always use their real names:
Angry customers swarmed Burt's Bees in November as soon as the all-natural cosmetics maker announced plans to sell itself.
Critics consider the buyer, bleach maker Clorox, to be far from…
terrasig | February 2, 2008Readers and colleagues often ask why scientists care to blog, especially given increasing time demands and decreasing research funding. For me, the blog is an opportunity to have discussions with colleagues from diverse research areas all around the world. Quite often, I learn something quite new that I would not normally encounter in my chosen field of cancer pharmacology.
A case in point stems from a reader comment by Dr Italo MR Guedes, a Brazilian soil scientist who writes the blog, Geófagos (Google Translate works well enough unless, of course, you are already fluent in Portuguese).…
terrasig | January 31, 2008So concludes a paper by Drs Andrew Oswald and David Blanchflower in a paper to appear in the journal, Social Science and Medicine. (full text not yet available).
From the UK Telegraph story, the University of Warwick's Oswald explains:
"The first theory is that when you are young you have high aspirations and then in middle age have to learn to quell them. After all we cannot all be captain of the national football team or a rock star.
"The 30s and 40s are therefore painful times when reality sets in but when you get older you've learnt to accept yourself.
"The second theory is that people…
terrasig | January 29, 2008. . .that's the message from Dr Bertha Madras, deputy director of the White House Office on National Drug Control Policy, to heroin and morphine users whose lives might be saved in the overdose situation by public distribution of "overdose rescue kits" comprised of a $9.50 nasal spray containing Narcan.
Narcan is the brand name for naloxone, an antagonist (blocker) of these drugs at μ opioid receptors. When an overdose of opioid drugs binds to these receptors in the respiratory control center of a primitive part of our brain, one stops breathing, a situation that pathologists say is "…
terrasig | January 28, 2008If you read nothing else: Men with prostate cancer should avoid any dietary supplement containing testosterone (or anything that sounds like it) or that offers claims of increased virility, sexual performance, or increased muscle mass.
Consumption of a herbal/hormone dietary supplement has been linked to two cases of aggressive prostate cancer as reported in a paper in the 15 January issue of Clinical Cancer Research (abstract free; full paper paywalled) . The observations and follow-up studies were conducted by urologists at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School and Baylor…
terrasig | January 25, 2008When Duke genetics researcher Dr Marcy C Speer died of breast cancer last August at age 47, a huge void was left in the community of her friends, her university, and her field. As Director of the Center for Human Genetics at Duke University Medical Center, Dr Speer was tremendously successful as a scientist, collaborator, and role model. Among her many accomplishments and recognitions was her appointment and service to NIH's Genetics of Health and Human Disease study section.
NIH's Center for Scientific Review, or CSR, is the entity charged with all aspects of the peer-review of some 80,000…
terrasig | January 24, 2008This just in from NIH tonight - the new director is a serious, well-credentialed physician-scientist and administrator. What will this mean for NCCAM and the funding process for alternative medicine-related projects? Discuss amongst yourselves:
National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director, Elias A. Zerhouni, M.D., has named Josephine P. Briggs, M.D., to be the director of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM). An accomplished researcher and physician, Dr. Briggs brings a focus on translational research to the study of complementary and alternative medicine (…
terrasig | January 23, 2008Plenty of e-ink has already been spilled regarding the panel on "Changing Minds Through Science Communication: a panel on Framing Science," from this past weekend's NC Science Blogging Conference (see Larry Moran, Rick MacPherson, Molly Keener, and Ryan Somma for examples). The panel was the least "unconference" session of the meeting, beginning with 10 min presentations from ocean conservationist and marine biology bloggers Jennifer Jacquet and Sheril Kirshenbaum followed by Chris Mooney, Sheril's co-blogger, freelance writer, and author of The Republican War on Science and Storm World.…
terrasig | January 23, 2008Via Berci Meskó at Science Roll, I learned that the medblogger-formerly-known-as Flea has just given his first detailed interview since shutting down his blog during his pediatric malpractice case. Fellow physician, Orac, had a characteristically complete commentary on the situation that included the admonition not to blog about one's own ongoing malpractice trial. I also recall being shocked at the time that Flea would make off-color comments about the plaintiff attorney's bedroom habits.
In his interview on Eric Turkewitz's New York Personal Injury Law Blog, Dr Robert "Flea" Lindeman…
terrasig | January 21, 2008
From "Lesser Known Wise and Prophetic Words of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr." by liberal writer and California Democratic Party delegate, Deborah White:
"Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power; religion gives man wisdom which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values.
The two are not rivals. They are complementary.
Science keeps religion from sinking into the valley of crippling irrationalism and paralyzing obscurantism. Religion prevents science from falling into the marsh of obsolete materialism and moral…
terrasig | January 20, 2008. . . but in a good way. I'm working frantically on a project due 31 Jan and then spent much of the weekend at various blogger gatherings associated with the NC Science Blogging Conference, the second annual unconference for those interested in writing about science topics for all audiences.
The conference was bracketed by a well-attended Friday evening dinner and a Sunday brunch, the former with Jim Neal, a Democratic candidate for US Senate, and the latter with Representative Brad Miller (D-NC) from Carolina's 13th District.
I could go on and on about all of the great people I met but…
terrasig | January 18, 2008My wine co-blogger and dear scientific colleague, Erleichda, and I had hoped to bring you an account of the wines enjoyed at our recent meetup. Erleichda and I have recently had the good fortune of regaining support for our scientific interactions and had a face-to-face conference of the principals for planning and reviewing our collaborative studies. As you would (and should) expect, getting the two of us together would also include the enjoyment of various wines and culinary delights.
However, circumstances beyond our control led to our group being treated to an evening at an…
terrasig | January 18, 2008Erleichda is the nom de plume of a guest blogger who contributes regularly to The Friday Fermentable columns. The act of contributing a column periodically on the topic of wine is consistent with the philosophy embodied in his pseudonym, i.e., to "lighten up" (from 'Jitterbug Perfume' by Tom Robbins).
Erleichda holds a PhD in microbiology following a baccalaureate in the same discipline. Post-doctoral training was received in tumor immunology and virology. While initial employment involved transplantation immunology research for a few years, a subsequent job at a research institute focused…
terrasig | January 18, 2008We're a little bit late here in wishing the DrugMonkey blog a happy 1st blogiversary. Contributors DrugMonkey, BikeMonkey, and PhysioProf have had a very productive year of offering valuable career advice for graduate and postgraduate trainees in the biomedical sciences, general discussions on NIH grant funding, and various topics in neuroscience.
The sci/med blogosphere is populated quite heavily by graduate students, medical students, and postdoctoral fellows. This situation is perhaps easy to explain in that most of these trainees are of an age that is comfortable with social networking…
terrasig | January 17, 2008Yesterday, the FDA released a warning statement on an increasingly common mistake in the medically-unsupported practice of "chelation therapy" for autism:
FDA notified healthcare professionals and patients about important safety information concerning Edetate Disodium. There have been cases where children and adults have died when they were mistakenly given Edetate Disodium instead of Edetate Calcium Disodium (Calcium Disodium Versenate) or when Edetate Disodium was used for "chelation therapies" and other uses that are not approved by the FDA. Edetate Disodium was approved as an emergency…
terrasig | January 15, 2008This missive came in yesterday from NIH, apparently sent to all investigators funded by the agencies:
A recent open letter to Secretary Leavitt (PDF here) from Dr. Roland Nardone and several experts in cell biology highlighted an important methodological issue associated with research involving cultured cells. The letter identifies a number of instances in which research has been based on misidentified or contaminated cultures. In some cases, proper characterization would have altered the experimental outcome significantly. Improper characterization can impede efforts to replicate…
terrasig | January 13, 2008Leave it to PharmGirl, MD, to point me in the direction of a story that addresses the core theme of this blog: not only can medicines come from the Earth, but the Earth can itself be medicine. This time we're not talking about South Carolina "sandlappers" as detailed in my inaugural post here as authored originally at the old blog. (For newcomers, you'll get this gist if you also read, "Why Terra Sigillata?").
Instead, we wish to point your attention to a LiveScience article by Clara Moskowitz entitled, Why Chimps Eat Dirt. The practice of eating soil, known as geophagy, is common among…