apalazzo | August 11, 2007Over my ear phones I hear Ira Glass tell the audience of This American Life about Radiolab, a show produced by WNYC (New York's NPR). Then a couple of days later while perusing down Ouroboros I see this:
In case you missed it on the air, you can hear the Mortality episode of WNYC's clever and insightful program Radiolab program as a podcast. In this episode, hosts Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich (who are the science equivalent of the Tappett Brothers without the lame jokes and annoying laughter ) tackle the question that keeps Ouroboros readers awake at night-- why can't we have more life?…
apalazzo | August 9, 2007From petermr's blog:
A+A ran on young scientists and the culture of fear. This was probably the highlight of the meeting for me - where else could you get an idea which surfaced at 0930 on one day and 26 hours later there was a deep debate among equals?
Wow, thanks!
apalazzo | August 8, 2007Do you remember that letter in which the editors of The Journal of Cell Biology criticized Howard Hughes Medical Institute for capitulating to Elsevier? Just to remind you, HHMI had been pressuring Elsevier, publisher of Cell and other scientific journals, to allow the free distribution of published material, 6 months after the date of publication. HHMI & Elsevier reach a compromised (described bellow) and JCB criticized HHMI for giving in to Elsevier.
Now HHMI has officially responded, and that letter appears in the most recent edition of JCB. You'll find that and JCB's reply below the…
apalazzo | August 8, 2007Technology is neutral until human beings do things with it. The moral value of technology, I think, has to do with what we do with it, and not what it is, or what it's potential might be.
- William Gibson
The author of Neuromancer was interviewed yesterday on NPR's OnPoint. To hear the show click here.
Also, Gibson's blog.
apalazzo | August 6, 2007Some items I'd like to mention:
- before scifoo, there was a meetup of bloggers in the Bay Area. I finally placed some flesh over my electronic friends and got to meet some other bloggers. Andreas Engvig over at Sharpbrains has a photo. Bora has some more photos.
- one of the best conversations I had was after scifoo. On the train into SF, I sat next to Christopher Clark who studies how large wales whales communicate over long distances. If this sounds interesting, click here.
- here's a picture of Martin Rees, Freeman Dyson and me (it's really me, I swear!) ... and some other half hidden guy…
apalazzo | August 6, 2007Our session on Scientific Communication and Young Scientists, the Culture of Fear, was great. Many bigwigs in the scientific publishing industry were present and a lot of ideas were pitched around. I would also like to thank Andrew Walkinshaw who co-hosted the session, Eric Lander for encouraging us to pursue this discussion, Pam Silver for giving a nice perspective on the whole issue, and all the other participants for giving their views.
Now someone had asked that we vlog the session, we actually tried to set it up but we didn't have the time. In retrospect I'm glad we didn't. This became…
apalazzo | August 4, 2007A big topic of conversation at Scifoo seems to be the future of scientific communication. I have renounced using the term Open Access, this term has been applied to so many different aspects of scientific publishing that it is utterly worthless. It's a buzz word. It's cool. But what does it mean? And instead of talking about the practicalities, much of the conversation is ethereal.
We need to define the real issues. What scientists want. What scientists need. How does science publishing impact the lives of scientists, both as a producer of scientific data and as a consumer. After a session on…
apalazzo | August 4, 2007I'm now having coffee with Bora and Prof. Steve Steve at the Googleplex. Want proof?
And here is a close up. (Just in case you can't read it).
apalazzo | August 3, 2007Yesterday I met up with a few sciblings including Bora, Josh and Chris and some science bloggers like Attila. Today I arrived at "the Googleplex". Right now it's 2:30AM on the west coast, and I'm exhausted. Here's just a couple of highlights from this evening's activities at scifoo ... we learned about space tourism, energy flux on planet earth and how to convey energy issues to youngsters, custom biology and of course open access. In fact, I spent quite a while talking to several conference attendees (over wine) about how outfits like PLoS One and JoVE are performing. Tomorrow Bora will lead…
apalazzo | August 3, 2007What a trip.
I'll post more pics in the near future. Tonight I'm off to scifoo.
apalazzo | August 2, 2007Today I will be coming back from our little camping trip (hopefully!) Until I get back to my labtop, I'll entertain you with another post on microscopy.
Flipping through Nature, I stumbled onto this commentary: The good, the bad and the ugly. Here's a taste:
To correctly capture images using a modern microscope, researchers must have a good grasp of optics, an awareness of the microscope's complexity and an obsession for detail. Such skills can take months or even years to master, and yet, owing to inexperience or the rush to publish, are all too often squeezed into hours or days. Popular…
apalazzo | August 1, 2007I'm away camping. Here's another microscopy post from my previous blog.
Well writing a paper makes you feel beaten-up. But now that it's done I feel better. (Hope the reviewers like it).
PS Guess what's I've captured in this image.
apalazzo | July 31, 2007I'm gone camping. Late last week I preprogrammed my blog to repost all these entries on microscopy. Enjoy!
I read far too many papers where the author claims that their favorite protein "localizes to the leading edge in migrating cells". Then they show a pretty picture like this one:
The problem is that the cell thickens right at the leading edge. So if your protein is freely floating around, there will ALWAYS be more of it (in absolute terms) at the leading edge then in the nearby lamella. To underline this point, the image above is of fluorescent dextran microinjected into the cytoplasm…
apalazzo | July 30, 2007I'm away in California - while I'm gone, I'm reposting all these old entries on microscopy, enjoy!
Here's a micrograph of a fibroblast (connective tissue cell) adherring to fibronectin coated coverslip. The cell was immunostained for regular microtubules (red) and modified detyrosinated microtubules (green, although since these are only partialy modified red+green = yellow).
apalazzo | July 29, 2007I'm off camping - so this week I'll be posting some old entries on microscopy, enjoy.
OK here's a post geared mostly to cell biologists. My big pet peeve about reading the scientific literature is ... colored fluorescent images.
Why do people insist on pseudo-coloring their images? I know that you want pretty pictures and as every kid knows the more colorful the picture the more adoration one gets from approving parents ... but we're talking about data and instructing/convincing your fellow peers about new findings.
So why is color bad for data presentation?
Your eyes are better at detecting…
apalazzo | July 26, 2007I was once asked "do you ever run out of things to write about in your blog?" My answer was that I am just lucky. I'm surrounded by inteligent people who always have something interesting to say. Usually I have too many things to write about, but sadly I don't have enough time.
Well last night was another example of this principle - I would write more on the many conversations we had, but today is crazy, I just don't have the time.
Why?
Andy and Dr J, two good friends, are leaving the lab and we'll be having a farewell party tonight. Tomorrow my wife and I are off to California and the…
apalazzo | July 25, 2007I just wanted to post a brief entry on the newest paper from the Moore lab. I've already hinted at some of these results in a post from last year.
As you all know, mRNA is made and processed in the nucleus. During mRNA synthesis, all the introns must be removed and all the exon sequences must be glued together to produce mature mRNA. At each exon-exon fusion site (called exon junctions) a protein complex, called the exon junction complex (EJC), is deposited. Once processing is over and done, the mature mRNA is exported from the nucleus into the cytoplasm. Then ribosomes engage the mRNA and…
apalazzo | July 25, 2007Corie from NNB is organizing a meetup tonight at the Mission Bar & Grill (724 Huntington, right off of Brigham Circle). It starts at 6PM. There will be at least one free round of drinks ... so if you live or work near the Harvard Medical School (i.e. Longwood) area, I encourage you to join us. Click here for details.
apalazzo | July 23, 2007Yesterday I saw this graph in the NYTimes:
Click here for a larger version.
On the bright side (no pun intended) the numbers are better then what they used to be (does anyone have the numbers from the 2000 election?)
Then today I read this.
Sheesh!
I'm not going to say anything more ...
apalazzo | July 23, 2007
Postdoctoral fellows of the world
Unite and take over
- The Anonymous Postdocs
Before we get started I need to make this special announcement: If you would like to host a future edition of What's Up Postdoc? please email Propter Doc.
Now on to the main event ... Welcome to edition number 6 of What's Up Postdoc?, the carnival of postdoc-hood and all related matters.
Starting off.
In the US there seems to be a crisis (so they say) - not enough young Americans are choosing scientific careers. Is this so? And why? You can join the discussion over at Eye on Science.
Lou over at A Scientist's Life…