apalazzo
Posts by this author
August 11, 2007
Over 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…
August 9, 2007
From 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!
August 8, 2007
Do 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…
August 8, 2007
Technology 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…
August 6, 2007
Some 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…
August 6, 2007
Our 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…
August 4, 2007
A 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?…
August 4, 2007
I'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).
August 3, 2007
Yesterday 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…
August 3, 2007
What a trip.
I'll post more pics in the near future. Tonight I'm off to scifoo.
August 2, 2007
Today 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…
August 1, 2007
I'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.
July 31, 2007
I'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…
July 30, 2007
I'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…
July 29, 2007
I'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…
July 26, 2007
I 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…
July 25, 2007
I 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…
July 25, 2007
Corie 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.…
July 23, 2007
Yesterday 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 ...
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…
July 20, 2007
Warning: the following may not be comprehensible for those not working in a lab.
So the other day, baymate and I were discussing how we use up our pipette tips. Not in terms of experimental procedures or in the types of orifices we jam them in, but in the order we remove our pipette tips from the…
July 20, 2007
Corie sent me the info on Nature Network Boston's second pub night:
We are all about connecting scientists in the Boston area, both on the Web and in person.
The drinks night will be next Wednesday, July 25, 2007 at 6:00pm at the Mission Bar and Grill (http://www.themissionbar.com/index.html)…
July 19, 2007
OK, lots of people claim that they understand what it is like to be in science and why so few Americans are in science. What is interesting is that all those that turned down a career in science (see the comments after this post) point out the reason why - lack of job security. But no, that can't…
July 18, 2007
Yesterday's lab meeting went fine. Afterwards I got a chance to flip through some journals that I've ignored for the past 2-3 weeks. Among other items, I came across a commentary by Mike Rossner and Ira Mellman, the two big guys at the Journal of Cell Biology. The commentary concerns the…
July 16, 2007
I've been busy preparing for a lab meeting - I'm presenting tomorrow. These last few months have been weird - since I've submitted my paper, about 1+1/2 months ago, I've been testing various theories, and toying with some ideas. Recently I knocked down two related proteins using siRNAs.…
July 12, 2007
From our last trip but taken by Michael.
(A photo of the jazz group Nomo)
Here are some other concert photos:
Here are some random items and signs at the jazzfest venue:
This photo says it all:
July 12, 2007
A couple of days ago I had a nice conversation with Mitch Waldrop who suggested that I check out a book by Jean-Claude Guedon entitled In Oldenburg's Long Shadow: Librarians, Research Scientists, Publishers, and the Control of Scientific Publishing.
This analysis of the history and future of…
July 12, 2007
(Fresh water rotifer feeding among debris (200x). First prize 2001, Harold Taylor - Kensworth, UK)
Now in it's 34th year, this microscopy competition is one of the most popular around. This year the general public is invited to vote for the winner. Click here for more details.
July 10, 2007
First off, I will be hosting the next Postdoc carnival (What's up postdoc?) here on July 23rd. Email me your favorite blog entry on postdoc life.
Next up is a link that I missed in my science publishing linkfest: Revere mouthing off about open-access. One point that he makes has to do with PubMed:…
July 9, 2007
We spent the weekend up in Montreal where we caught some of the many shows at the Jazz Fest. If you've never been, here's what you're missing:
That's Marsh Dondurma from Israel - a friend of ours has a cousin in the band. Below the fold, I posted a couple of other clips from that same set.…