Sandra Porter
sporte
Posts by this author
January 15, 2010
Okay, I'll grant that visiting Second Life can seem a bit uncomfortable, especially at first, but it does open some new doors and present an alternative to travel.
In flu season, virtual visits could be the next best thing to being there. (Yikes, that sounds like an ad. No more yahoo news for…
January 13, 2010
Is there a place for citizen scientists in the world of digital biology?
Many of the citizen science projects that I've been reading about have a common structure. There's a University lab at the top, outreach educators in the middle, and a group of citizens out in the field collecting data.
After…
January 13, 2010
A common theme I hear in talks on personalized medicine, is that increased access to genomic data and medical literature are changing the relationship between doctors and patients. Patients are through being passive recipients of paternalistic health care. They are demanding to participate and be…
January 12, 2010
When I was a post-doc, I spent a few months seriously thinking about changing careers and teaching high school. I might have followed through on that plan, too, but I didn't know how to pay for it.
Today, if you have a background in science, technology, math, or engineering, you can retrain to…
January 11, 2010
Do citizen science efforts ever go beyond "feel good" contributions? Do the data get published in peer-reviewed journals?
In an earlier post, I started a list of citizen science projects that allow students to make a contribution. Many commentors are graciously adding to that list and I thank you…
January 8, 2010
These days, DNA sequencing happens in one of three ways.
In the early days of DNA sequencing (like the 80's), labs prepared their own samples, sequenced those samples, and analyzed their results. Some labs still do this.
Then, in the 90's, genome centers came along. Genome centers are like giant…
January 8, 2010
Next Saturday afternoon, at ScienceOnline2010, the science goddess, the chemspider, and I will be presenting a workshop on getting students involved in citizen science.
In preparation, I'm compiling a set of links to projects that involve students in citizen science. If you know of any good…
January 7, 2010
This month's cover of The Scientist has a mistake that makes me cringe.
Can you spot what's wrong?
And they call themselves "The Scientist" humph!
January 7, 2010
Blaine Bettinger has an absolutely wonderful post where he compares his results for type 2 diabetes from 23andMe and DeCODEme.
I really liked his post and I appreciated the way he showed the data from the two companies and elaborated on their interpretation of his genotype and his risk.…
January 6, 2010
"What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet"
- Juliet, from Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
I realized from the comments on my previous post and from Mike's post that more explanations were in order.
It seems we have two topics - why do we need a…
January 4, 2010
If you're in Seattle, Dr. Bruce Alberts will be talking tomorrow night (Jan 5th) at the Seattle Aquarium on science education and the role that scientists play.
There are also some really interesting talks at a day-long workshop, Wednesday (Jan 6th) at the UW South Campus Center.
The details and…
January 4, 2010
An NSF post on Twitter this morning described an interesting study from the University of Pennsylanvia and Cornell University, that found that some people who call themselves "African Americans" may only be 1% West African, according to their DNA.
The University of Pennsylvania press release…
January 1, 2010
What do you call a biologist who uses bioinformatics tools to do research, but doesn't program?
You don't know?
Neither does anyone else.
The names we use
People who practice biology are known by many names, so many, that the number of names almost reflects the diversity of biology itself.…
December 30, 2009
I often get questions about bioinformatics, bioinformatics jobs and career paths. Most of the questions reflect a general sense of confusion between creating bioinformatics resources and using them. Bioinformatics is unique in this sense. No one confuses writing a package like Photoshop with…
December 2, 2009
For many years, I've been perfectly content to work with small numbers of things. Working with one gene or one protein is great. Even small groups of genes are okay. I'm fine with alternatively spliced genes with multiple transcripts, or multiple polymorphisms, or genes in multi-gene families, or…
October 14, 2009
If you have a little time, the Dolan DNA Learning Center at Cold Spring Harbor will be presenting some really interesting workshops on neuroscience and genetics.
The dates are:
Nov. 5, 2009: Inside Cancer - workshop on teaching cancer; Raritan
Valley Community College, Somerville, NJ
Nov. 6, 2009…
September 23, 2009
We always see interesting creatures whenever we walk on the beach. Now, a new program from the University of Washington and the state department of Fish and Wildlife is seeking to enlist beach walkers in a community science project where they can help monitor biodiversity.
The program is…
September 22, 2009
This morning I attended the Fifth Annual WBBA Governor's Life Sciences Summit. The breakfast was great; the talks were okay.
I do enjoy the stories about people who's lives were saved because of biotechnology and I agree that the focus of the summit, research and discovery are important, but I can…
September 21, 2009
How did it get between the windows?
Maybe this is why the flight attendant kept asking us to close the shades.
September 2, 2009
This summer, I had the good fortune to attend three (or was it four?) conferences on science education. One of the most inspirational conferences was one on Vision and Change in Biology Education. This conference was co-sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the AAAS. It was a call to…
August 14, 2009
You might think the coolest thing about the Next Generation DNA Sequencing technologies is that we can use them to sequence long-dead mammoths, entire populations of microbes, or bits of bone from Neanderthals.
But you would be wrong.
Sure, those are all cool things to do, but Next Generation…
July 26, 2009
I've just returned from two conferences that focused on educating students for careers in science and technology and what do I find here at the home fort? There's Chad writing a very nice series on science careers!
I was a little puzzled by PNAS acryonym in his titles since to me, PNAS stands for "…
July 26, 2009
Last spring, I gave my first hands-on workshop in working with Next Generation Sequencing data at the Eighth Annual UT-ORNL-KBRIN Bioinformatics Summit at Fall Creek Falls State Park in Tennessee. The proceedings from that conference are now on-line at BMC Bioinformatics and it's fun to look back…
July 24, 2009
I don't remember learning about plasma when I took physics, but it's amazing stuff. Last week at the Hi-Tec conference in Arizona, I got to learn how an electromagnetic field can be used to push plasma around a tube. Community college students get to play with the coolest toys!
Here's some plasma…
July 21, 2009
Liveblogging from the Hi-Tec conference
I'm currently at the Hi-Tec conference in Scottsdale, Arizona. (If you follow me on Twitter - www.twitter.com/@digitalbio - you may have seen me complaining about the temperature). It's an interesting conference, so I'm going to share some of the things that…
July 11, 2009
There aren't many reports of 14 year-olds making scientific contributions. Even in the field of astronomy, Caroline Moore, the youngest person to discover a supernova, is a bit unusual.
This supernova comes from Astronomy Picture of the day. Photo credits: High-Z Supernova Search Team, HST, NASA…
July 11, 2009
One of my all time favorite books is South: The Last Antarctic Expedition of Shackleton and the Endurance (The Explorers Club Classic) . It's an amazing adventure and an incredible story. It's a comfort to know that any challenges I face will be easier than those conquered by Shackleton.
Luckily,…
June 20, 2009
For those of you who may have been wondering where I've been, these past few weeks have seen me grading final projects, writing a chapter on analyzing Next Gen DNA sequencing data for the Current Protocols series, and flying back and forth between Seattle and various meetings elsewhere in the U.S…
May 8, 2009
One of the interesting things I learned today was that many people are calling for the genome sequences of the chimps and Macaques to be finished.
This is especially amusing because the human genome isn't quite done. We're primates, too! Why not finish our genome?
[I blame these new-found…
May 6, 2009
We always enjoy home science experiments and it was fun the other night to learn about a new experiment we could try with our teenage daughter and an iPhone.
As it turned out, the joke was on us.
My husband is an enthusiastic fan of the iPhone store. Last night, he downloaded this application…