Lazy Day Tuesday Morning Links

I've got lab meeting in 5 mins. Here's some stuff I've read in the blog-o-sphere recently.

From Coturnix, DarkSide interviews Sean Carrol on DailyKos about the Big Bang, Dark Matter, Dark Energy and String Theory.

Next up ... Ode to the ... pocket protector? From M. William Lensch's blog:

The pocket protector was once an icon indicating a technical education, perhaps THE icon. They were tiny vinyl billboards not only proclaiming to the world that you knew important things but also which brand of reagents you preferred (my own vintage specimen says "STP", my dad was a mechanic).

The pocket protector is now something like the Ivory Billed Woodpecker, rarely seen in the wild, never caught on film. I was left to wonder if equivalent scientific icons exist today. I simply cannot think of what the modern equivalent would be. Maybe it's ok that we have weaned ourselves from the pocket-protector. I have a subtle feeling however, that its extinction is unfortunate.

Click here to find out why.

Another blogger from Boston Networks, Corrie Lok, comments about the exodus of talent from the Boston area. (I've subsequently read that many of these stats maybe misleading - I'll provide a link latter).

And on PLoS blogs, Chris Surridge reports,

I've been a bit slow noticing this article, but two weeks ago PLoS Biology published a piece on its community page entitled "Leveraging the Knowledge of Our Peers: Online Communities Hold the Promise to Enhance Scientific Research" from Thomas Sharpton and Arpan Jhaveri.

These two enterprising individuals have set up a website called SIPHS as an attempt to create in science the equivalent of social networking sites such as facebook or openBC.

Click here to read the rest.

I've noticed some big papers about the ever-controvercial Golgi - no time for it now but I promisse to write about the 2-3 papers in the upcoming days.