apalazzo | October 15, 2008
You may not have noticed, but yesterday, the US's largest trading partner had an election. Watching the returns with my wife, I was struck yet again how different Canada is from US. Just like Americans, Canadians get upset at the government, but unlike Americans, Canadians want the government to work and are ready to punish their leaders if they feel like they are getting screwed. About three elections ago, the Liberals were punished for a financial scandal (incredibly small for US standards, but too big for the patience of most Canadians). What was the result? In 2004 Canadians couldn't…
apalazzo | October 14, 2008Last week one of the fathers of Cell Biology died. I found out Friday during happy hour - but I just haven't had the time to write anything until now.
George Palade and Keith Porter, were the first scientists to peer into the depths of the cell using electron microscopy (EM). This all started in 1945 when Keith Porter, a researcher at Rockefeller University, snapped the first known EM micrograph (right). A year later Palade joined Albert Claude's group to work on the electron microscopy of large structures isolated from tissue culture cells. Palade and Porter started a revolution - they were…
apalazzo | October 9, 2008Over the past two days, many have pointed out that the one person left out of the Nobel Prize was Douglas Prasher, researcher who cloned GFP from jellyfish, Aequorea victoria. Sadly, Prasher lost his funding and his lab just after he performed the ground work that led to Chalfie and (some of) Tsien's Nobel Prize winning work. It turns out that NPR recently found Prasher - he's now driving a bus in Huntsville, Alabama. Listen to the interview here. As one former colleague states, his case is an example of "a staggering waste of talent".
(ht: Abel)
For more on GFP, visit Marc Zimmer's History…
apalazzo | October 8, 2008From the Nobel site:
8 October 2008
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2008 jointly to
Osamu Shimomura, Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), Woods Hole, MA, USA and Boston University Medical School, MA, USA,
Martin Chalfie, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA and
Roger Y. Tsien, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
"for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, GFP".
Well I certainly nailed this one. In fact I got up this morning thinking, "let's find out if Tsien got the Nobel".
This is a well…
apalazzo | October 6, 2008Here are some photos from last week's Ig Nobels:
First up a group photo of my companions for the evening, including (from right to left) Stephanie Miller, Karl Erlandson, Anna Kushnir and baymate (who is apparently signing an ode to the Ig Nobels). You can read Anna's take on the Ig's here.
One of the highlights of the evening was the "Win a Date with a Nobel Laureate (or Benoit Mandelbrot)":
(William Lipscomb and his date)
(Benoit Mandelbrot being presented to the audience - his date was a very young enthusiastic physics student who shrieked as she ran up to greet the famous mathematician…
apalazzo | October 6, 2008Well I was slightly off in my prediction (but not too far):
If you wanted a discovery that dramatically changed life, how about anti-HIV drugs? (I'm not clear on the history here, you'll have to tell me who are responsible or if this is feasible). Of course this prize will raise the issue of the pharmas vs. providers of generic drugs ...
Instead the Nobel prize selection committee did one better and gave the prize for the basic (and controversial) discovery of the HIV virus by Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier. The discovery of the Papilloma virus by Harald zur Hausen was also…
apalazzo | October 3, 2008
(Fresh water rotifer feeding among debris (200x). First prize 2001, Harold Taylor - Kensworth, UK)
Now in it's 35th year, Nikon's Small World Photomicrography Competition is one of the biggest events in the microscopy world. The finalists of this year's competition are up at http://www.nikonsmallworld.com/. You have until October 10th to vote for your favorite.
apalazzo | October 2, 2008Some words come to mind, wacky, crazy and fun. And I'm not talking about the VP debates.
Give up?
It's the 18th First Annual Ig Nobels!
I'll be there and so will blogger Anna Kushnir.
Ticket are still available, I know 'cause I just bought a few, so get yours ASAP. I'll guarentee you that they will be sold out soon.
If you can't make it, try watching the live webcast here.
apalazzo | October 1, 2008This is the third year that I update this list of potential winners. A warning, the list is highly biased towards basic biomedical research. In addition, some of the prizes may be more appropriate for the Chemistry prize.
We'll start with my favorite, Membrane Traffic. This finding is one of the most basic discoveries in cell biology. The two obvious winners would be James Rothman and Randy Schekman.
Last year there was a rumor that intracellular signalling may win. Tony Hunter could get it for phospho-tyrosine, Tony Pawson for protein signalling domains, and Allan Hall for small G-protein…
apalazzo | September 30, 2008One great aspect of the Internet is the amount of information that is to be found out there. Here are some links about the current financial crisis.
First up, a discussion between Bill Moyers and Kevin Phillips from the site:
Bill Moyers sits down with former Nixon White House strategist and political and economic critic Kevin Phillips, whose latest book BAD MONEY: RECKLESS FINANCE, FAILED POLITICS, AND THE GLOBAL CRISIS OF AMERICAN CAPITALISM explores the role that the crumbling financial sector played in the now-fragile American economy.
Next up a couple of recent shows from This American…
apalazzo | September 26, 2008If you live in the Boston area:
Symposium: Science and the Presidential Election
September 30, 2008 1:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Joseph B. Martin Conference Center at Harvard Medical School
Confirmed Speakers:
Dr. George Daley, Associate Professor, Harvard Medical SchoolDr. Kelly Gallagher, Adjunct Lecturer, Harvard University Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School of GovernmentDr. Sheila Jasanoff, Pforzheimer Professor of Science and Technology Studies, Harvard Kennedy School of GovernmentDr. Henry Kelly, President, Federation of American ScientistsMr. Kevin…
apalazzo | September 25, 2008Umm ...
Seriously, the latest issue of Nature has a special section on the US presidential election, including another Q&A with the candidates:
Barack Obama accepted Nature's invitation to answer 18 science-related questions in writing; John McCain's campaign declined. Obama's answers to many of the questions are printed here; answers to additional questions (on topics including biosecurity, the nuclear weapons laboratories and US participation in international projects) can be found atwww.nature.com/uselection. Wherever possible, Nature has noted what McCain has said at other times on…
apalazzo | September 25, 2008Umm ...
Seriously, the latest issue of Nature has a special section on the US presidential election, including another Q&A with the candidates:
Barack Obama accepted Nature's invitation to answer 18 science-related questions in writing; John McCain's campaign declined. Obama's answers to many of the questions are printed here; answers to additional questions (on topics including biosecurity, the nuclear weapons laboratories and US participation in international projects) can be found atwww.nature.com/uselection. Wherever possible, Nature has noted what McCain has said at other times on…
apalazzo | September 25, 2008Elias A. Zerhouni, is stepping down as head of the National Institutes of Health.
I heard about the announcement last night at the NERD meeting. Many were happy. Many blog commentators have added their two cents. Here are mine:
1) He's stepping down real soon (the end of October). Why so quickly? Did something happen? And why is this happening just before the elections and not closer to January when the next administration takes over?
2) Zerhouni is an MD, and under his direction there has been more of an emphasis on translational-research and less on basic research. (Read all about it at the…
apalazzo | September 24, 2008Here we are going to look at the best available figures for offshore drilling, specifically the areas that are currently off-limits. That's what the current political fight is about.
First, how much oil we consume and how much we "produce":
The bottom line is that we consume a heck-of-a-lot more oil than we prodce, about three times as much.
And how much more could we get "offshore" from areas that are currently off-limits?
Well if you comb all the literature out there, the simple answer is that we don't really know. Here's the closest that I've been able to get from an article in…
apalazzo | September 23, 2008I'm back from Toronto. And now I'm just trying to keep up with all the crap I haven't dealt with in the last few days. Tomorrow we have an RNA Data club meeting (info here) and then I got this interesting email about some terrible legislation that might actually come to a vote tomorrow:
On September 11, 2008, the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee (Rep. John Conyers, D-MI) introduced a bill that would effectively reverse the NIH Public Access Policy, as well as make it impossible for other federal agencies to put similar policies into place.
The legislation is HR6845: "Fair Copyright…
apalazzo | September 19, 2008Governmental funding of science is fundamentally important to our economic future.
First let's look at funding for the National Institutes of Health, the main source of money for biomedical research in the US:
Joseph j7uy5 @ Corpus Callosum points out:
I can't help but notice that the funding leveled off the same year that the Iraq War started.
How about the Physical Sciences, Engineering, Math & Computer Sciences? They have all flat-lined since GWB came to power:
On the biggest issues of our time, energy, the story is no better. Money for alternative energy research has been flat…
apalazzo | September 17, 2008My posting frequency may go down as I will be off to Toronto for a little while. There I'll be meeting up with Larry Moran and checking out what it means to be a Torontonian.
(Larry, it looks like I'll win the bet, but we won't know for sure untill after Nov. 2nd.)
apalazzo | September 17, 2008Once upon a time, one of America's greatest strengths was its ability to lead. Citizen from other nations looked up to the US as a model. In WWII soldiers would give up to the US on purpose, because they knew that they would be treated fairly. How do I know this? My grandfather who fought for the Italians was one of them. Imagine that type of power. You are so highly regarded that your enemies would rather give up to you than fight you.
But we've squandered that. In the name of fighting terror, we torture. In the name of justice, we invade a country without justification. In the name of…
apalazzo | September 16, 2008Back when I lived in Canada, health insurance was never a worry. Sure you might have to wait a bit before you got it, but you could always count on being seen by a doctor when ever something is wrong. If you wanted you could have purchased additional health insurance that pays for upgrades, but almost all Canadians (91% in a recent poll) prefer Universal Health Care to the American system. But what is the situation down here in my adopted land? (I've lived in the US for the past eleven years) The Democrats want to change things, they recognize that the system is broken. In contrast the GOP…