terrasig | August 18, 2006Peter Frishauf, I'm talking to you, as well as all Terra Sig readers who were so helpful on the CD ripping issue last week.
So, if I may be so bold (heck, it's my own blog, right?), I'd like to ask my tech geek readers another two questions because I can't make heads or tails from the Palm Treo forums:
1. What is the most user-friendly RSS newsreader for the Palm OS? For those fans of Bloglines, is the PDA version just as good?
2. How do I load new software onto my expandable card instead of the internal memory? Moving photos from internal memory to the 1GB card is intuitive, but loading…
terrasig | August 17, 2006Just cleaning out the day job e-mail account early this morning and came across something, I should've posted this a month ago when FDA sent me this release.
There are obvious problems with US federal regulation of dietary supplements related to lack of proven efficacy, bioavailability of purported active constitutents, and thinly-veiled medical marketing.
However, few people are aware of the fact that adulteration of dietary supplements is a real problem and, in the case below, potentially life-threatening:
From the FDA MedWatch adverse drug reaction (ADR) reporting program:
MedWatch - The…
terrasig | August 15, 2006So, we're finally turning around some of the darkness that has surrounded this blog since late June.
I'm deeply appreciative of all who've come out to support my student and former lab intern, Jen, who is riding in her brother's memory in the Philadelphia LIVESTRONG 100-mile bike ride for the Lance Armstrong Foundation on 10 Sept 2006.
http://www.livestrongchallenge.org/06pa/jenforjon
With your help, Jen is now over $2,000 ($2,230, precisely) toward her $10,000 goal with about 25 days to go until the ride. Moreover, their team, Jon's Crew, stands midday EDT (1700 hrs GMT) at $9,395 toward…
terrasig | August 14, 2006She could've joined the lab of a Nobel laureate at Yale.
She picked me instead.
This is my thank you.
Regular readers may recall my post earlier last month about the tragic, heart-wrenching loss of the brother of my former student, Jen, a Morehead Scholar and sophomore at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Her brother Jon was a 23-year-old Carnegie-Mellon University graduate student and crew team coach. After completing the Chicago Marathon last fall, some nagging persistent pain in his femur turned out to be the bone cancer, osteosarcoma.
After months of hospitalization…
terrasig | August 13, 2006Before we embark on another edition of The Friday Fermentable, the Pharmboy and everyone at Terra Sig sends out their best wishes to actor, Robin Williams, and his family.
Mr Williams' publicist announced earlier this week that the Academy Award-winning actor and brilliant comedian has checked into an alcohol rehabilitation center following a recent lapse in his 20 years of sobriety.
The Friday Fermentable is dedicated to the responsible enjoyment of alcoholic beverages as just one facet of a richly-experienced life journey. However, we recognize that many of us share a genetic…
terrasig | August 11, 2006Welcome feminist bloggers and commentors from Coturnix's guest post at Echidne of the Snakes.
Howdy, folks. Let me introduce myself. I'm the guy who got this discussion started at Terra Sigillata, where Coturnix's home blog is hosted by ScienceBlogs.com.
Short story is that I asked a rhetorical question about a single Hooters establishment (on the San Antonio, TX, Riverwalk) that sits within two blocks of the world's largest international breast cancer research conference held every December, the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS).
My wife is a medical oncologist specializing in…
terrasig | August 10, 2006A quick question while my brand science has me staring either in a microscope or at my navel:
What is the forecast for this year's Perseids meteor shower around the world?
Of course, I'm personally more interested in the northern hemisphere but I am blessed with a good number of colleagues and blog readers in the southern hemisphere.
What's the word?
terrasig | August 8, 2006Everyone remembers something different about him. I remember his beautiful long hair.
He was a good ol' boy. A man's man. The goodest of the good ol' boys.
His was the pickup you wanted to see if you were broke down beside the road.
He could fix any damn thing.
But he also had beautiful long hair.
I remember this because sometime around last Christmas or New Year's, we each had a drastic change in hair styles. His above the collar for probably the first time in a decade. Several people thought I shaved my head out of empathy or in honor of a cancer patient. I hadn't. But perhaps I…
terrasig | August 7, 2006...all without being perceived as capitalistic, misogynistic, or otherwise demeaning to women?
This is an open thread for y'all because I have to go to a funeral and won't be able to oversee the discussion today.
I brought this point up over the weekend with my ScienceBlogs.com colleagues and it got such a passionate response that I thought I'd open it up to the blogosphere.
I have a very serious question (below) related to breasts, and I really hope the women bloggers and readers will weigh in. I know that there are many high-profile female bloggers out there with a heavy feminist worldview…
terrasig | August 6, 2006This week's focus: What to do with all of that extra tequila lying about, especially during a nationwide heat wave.
Well, I've been out of touch with PharmMom and PharmStiefvater as of late, so this edition of The Friday Fermentable is dedicated to them in their new, year-round home in the Land of Enchantment, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA.
Due to circumstances beyond my control, the posting of The Friday Fermentable is also being posted on New Mexico time, roughly two days late.
Regular readers of Terra Sig know that I am a big fan of The Wall Street Journal because of their tremendous…
terrasig | August 6, 2006My dear techie peeps, for those of you Windows folks, what CD ripping software do you use to put stuff on your iPod and why?
I've got a ton of CDs I have yet to rip and wanted advice before I get started.
One is always tempted to use the .wma default application, but I've tended to like .mp3 apps better like CDex or MM Jukebox.
What say you?
terrasig | August 5, 2006Driving back home from the beach yesterday through the very red part of the state that surrounds my very blue hometown/county:
License plate on white Mazda Miata: THX GOD!
Bumper sticker on said Miata: "Support the Troops, IMPEACH BUSH"
Perhaps they just need to pray a little harder?
terrasig | August 3, 2006Thanks to all for coming over and sharing your MTV memories earlier this week. Our SciBling editor and cat-herder, Katherine, came across with a very vivid list of great memories and Orac was able to bitch about being ever so slightly older than me. Then, Karmen surprised me by intimating that cable TV actually existed in Colorado in 1981, at least at her Grandma's house.
I said I was going to tell you some of my general recollections of MTV, but I have very specific memories of this very week 25 years ago thanks to my personal archivist, number one fan, and all-around keeper of my life…
terrasig | August 3, 2006Let me just say that I love Pam Spaulding of Pam's House Blend and Pandagon.
"I'm black, I'm a lesbian, I'm in the South, and I have lived in the North. I represent different constituencies that aren't well-represented in the blogosphere," says Spaulding, an information technology specialist with Duke University Press.
I hadn't known much about her until my first blog meet-up where I met some dude named Bora, Coturnix, or some crazy thing like that, who first told me that she is one of my reality-based neighbors.
So, the other day, I'm over at one of the many campuses where I hold adjunct…
terrasig | August 2, 2006SciBlings Alex Palazzo (The Daily Transcript) and Mike the Mad Biologist have both held forth recently on Robert Weinberg's editorial in Cell. Weinberg, one of the big daddies of early oncogene research and mentor to some of the best cancer researchers of my generation, expressed his fears that the US investment in training biomedical researchers in the 1990s is going to waste as these trainees move through postdocs and toward faculty positions that simply do not exist. The problem: so-called "Big Biology" initiatives and failure to protect the basic mechanisms of investigator-initiated…
terrasig | August 1, 2006While I'm procrastinating on a really important herbal medicine post and this other thing they call a 'day job,' I just learned via my bud at the New York Daily News, Michael Huff, that today is the 25th anniversary of the launch of MTV, the pioneering US music program on cable television.
There are few things other than their own work or general research discipline that I find scientists and docs discuss more passionately than music. Hence, I'd ask y'all to share with me your favorite MTV memories.
Pretty much everyone knows that the first video to air on 1 Aug 1981 was "Video Killed the…
terrasig | July 31, 2006Interesting timing: former US National Cancer Institute director and current acting FDA commish Dr Andrew von Eschenbach is about to go before the Senate tomorrow regarding his nomination for the permanent position. You know that he was going to get reamed over FDA's delay of over-the-counter approval for the Plan B emergency contraceptive, despite all scientific reasons to move forward.
Well, the Associated Press is now reporting that:
The Food and Drug Administration notified manufacturer Barr Laboratories Inc. Monday that it wanted to meet within seven days to define new steps the…
terrasig | July 30, 2006After being prompted by GrrlScientist and Prof John Lynch, I took this test again remembering that I scored in the 79th percentile before we joined ScienceBlogs.com.
The results page states further that, "it's time to apply to MIT," but after the Tonegawa/Karpova thing, I'll stay with my land-grant state university-earned PhD, thank-you very much. If they wouldn't have me back then, no need to think they'd have me now!
terrasig | July 30, 2006If posting frequency is any indication, regular readers might be able to tell that the last two or three weeks have not been the highlight of my life. And, thankfully for you, I've kept much of it off-blog because of the unique personal identifying characteristics than prevent me from being too honest here. But, let it suffice to say that several friends of mine and old lab colleagues have had deaths of family members due to cancer, two of which were at painfully young ages...not that there's any 'good' time to die of cancer.
Is this odd? Do my recent experiences represent a statistical…
terrasig | July 30, 2006I very rarely post directly on issues of politics outside of science policy, biomedical research funding, or political interference in the scientific process.
However, the came in last night from frequent Terra Sig commenter and all-around kool lady, Anjou:
This is great...
THIS IS A MUST WATCH...
Here is a powerful and amazing statement on Al Jazeera
television. It is the most powerfully articulate statement on the
senseless bloody conflict in the middle east I have heard. The woman
speaking (there are English subtitles) is Wafa Sultan, an Arab-American
psychologist from Los Angeles…