kbonham
Posts by this author
June 6, 2012
The vast majority of funding for biological research in the US comes from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and as a result, most of our grants are written in a way that plays up the clinical importance of our work. Some variant of the phrase,
This research has implications in the treatment/…
May 27, 2012
The kinks continue to get ironed out one by one after our massive migration. Most of the major problems are happening on the backend, and are likely invisible to you guys (except for the fact that some typically prolific posters have slowed down a bit), but there are a couple of things that I've…
May 25, 2012
In honor of the great Scienceblogs migration, and inspired by Ethan's wonderful post about the migration of the universe, I thought I would talk about something on a smaller scale: cell migration.
The scale is small, but the problem is huge. Most of your organs are locked in place - your heart…
May 23, 2012
Last week, I had the privilege of attending the launch of a new initiative from the Union of Concerned Scientists - The Center for Science and Democracy. The UCS itself was founded in the late 1960's in response to the Cold War nuclear arms race. Graduate students and faculty at MIT decided that…
May 23, 2012
Welcome to the new Science Blogs. You might have noticed some changes around here - let us know which changes you like and which you don't. One of the biggest things affecting your experience is the comment system - you can now reply directly to other people's comments, and you can login so you don…
May 22, 2012
I'll just leave this post up and edit it as needed when I need to check the features... don't mind me.
Picture:
This is a picture of a buff dude climbing
May 12, 2012
No technology is inherently good or evil, it's the use of that technology that determines its value. A blade can be used in surgery to save a life, or as a weapon to take one. The ballistics that enable missiles to destroy enemies also enables the launch of communication satellites and exploration…
April 24, 2012
A few months ago, I wrote about the problems with academic publishing:
These days, there's an entire industry of academic publishers that have become so fully integrated into the research system that many scientists don't realize that there's any distinction between doing science and publishing in…
April 20, 2012
Yesterday on Marketplace, there was a great piece by Alex Chadwick on the fate of all the oil released during the BP oil spill two years ago.
Oil is a product of organic matter that was deposited many, many years ago. It's gone through many, many changes deep in earth under high pressure, high…
April 17, 2012
My birthday was last week, which means I get a whole new chance to set some New Year's resolutions. My regular readers (all 3 of you) might have noticed a serious dearth of posting lately. I have many excuses:
1) I'm (hopefully) coming up on my last year as a PhD student, and I'm in serious data-…
February 28, 2012
I know something's amiss when my google news alert returns headlines like these:
Why women who lust after Brad Pitt may just fancy his immune system
It's His Immune System That You Actually Want to Sleep With
The key to male sexiness: A powerful immune system?
and my personal favorite
Antibodies,…
February 27, 2012
If you've been reading science blogs for a while, you probably know about Open Laboratory. It's a yearly anthology of the best science blog writing on the internet. And the submission form is now open (there's a handy little badge in the left sidebar too).
If you appreciate the stuff that I do…
February 24, 2012
Cool:
During the tests, mice were given access to deposits of heroin over an extended period of time. Those given the vaccine showed a huge drop in heroin consumption, giving the institute hope that it could also work on people[...]
Using the immune system's ability to make an immune response…
February 21, 2012
A little over 300 years ago, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, a dry goods seller from Delft in Holland, learned to grind glass into lenses and fashion the best microscopes the world had ever seen. In those days, the idea of being a "scientist" as a profession was ludicrous. Natural philosophy was pastime…
February 15, 2012
Back in December, Rees Kassen wrote an editorial for Nature arguing that if scientists want political decisions to reflect good science, they have to get involved.
scientists[...] think too highly of their own view of the world and fail to appreciate the complex, multifarious nature of decision…
January 26, 2012
I grew up on the coast of California, and I loved to surf. At my favorite break, Pleasure Point, the best waves were often at low tide, but low tide also meant seaweed. Lots of seaweed.
[Source]
The giant kelp of Monteray Bay is an astonishing organism. It's not actually a plant, it's a brown…
January 18, 2012
I promise, this will be my last semen post for a while.
I've talked about allergy to semen.
I've talked about allergens in semen.
And I've talked about autoimmunity to semen.
All of these are problems, leading to discomfort or infertility. But what if those problems could be leveraged for our…
January 13, 2012
"Reading" books on my iPod is usually great. I can download them from audible, and while I'm tending to the daily monotony that comprises much of labwork (tissue culture, prepping protein samples, running back and forth between centrifuges), I can just pop in my earbuds and keep my brain engaged…
January 9, 2012
The latest issue of the Science in the News "Flash" is out now about the connections between atopic disorders - namely allergies, asthma and eczema.
Itchy, watery eyes, and a drippy nose. Constricted, swollen airways secreting thick mucus. Itchy, red, dry, cracked skin. These symptoms describe…
January 6, 2012
The thing I like most about this mashup is that it's superficially just a mashup of the most popular music of 2011, but it also manages to be a statement on some of the most important events of 2011: the protests from Egypt and Libya to OWS
Maybe it's hard
We will never be never be broken and…
January 5, 2012
At the risk of seeming like a one-trick pony, and piggybacking on my recent appearance on the Savage Lovecast, I thought I would close the loop on immune reactions to semen. I've already written about allergens being transmitted in semen, and about women having allergies to seminal plasma itself.…
January 3, 2012
In case anyone landed here after listening to this week's Savage Lovecast, I wanted to point you in the right direction. Please be gentle - that was my first time being interviewed for anything like that, so I was a bit of a nervous wreck.
For the uninitiated - a couple of weeks ago on his podcast…
December 21, 2011
This entry is cross posted from the the SITN Flash, a bimonthly publication written and edited by Harvard graduate students. You can find my piece, as well as archives of previous articles written by many graduate students at the Science in the News website.
In 1985, the Centers for Disease Control…
December 19, 2011
I know this post has been a long time coming. In the first part of this series, I told you that allergies are the result of an immune response against an external, but normally not harmful substance. In part 2, I told you that allergies are the result of a specific type of immune response called "…
December 16, 2011
I'm sure that science isn't the only profession that gets misrepresented in popular media. I'm sure lawyers and police cringe when watching crime dramas, and soldiers are uncomfortable when watching war movies. Leaving aside shows like CSI, I think that scientist's main media foil is almost by…
November 30, 2011
Here it is, the last day of Movember - a charity initiative to raise money for men's health.
*1 in 6 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime
*A man is diagnosed with prostate cancer every 2.2 minutes
*1 in 2 men will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime
*Men are 24% less…
November 29, 2011
Back in October, I wrote about the bittersweet nature of this year's Nobel in Physiology or Medicine.
On the one hand, it was given for early discoveries in the field of innate immunity - my field! On the other hand, it was given to a scientist that many* feel is undeserving of the honor, while at…
November 22, 2011
I'm a little late with this video:
Yes, I know the actual day has passed, but that doesn't mean you can't make the rest of the month count.
And guys, you don't have to feel left out, even if you don't have a mustache - check out my Movember page, see my luxurious mustache (it's been 3 weeks since…
November 17, 2011
Earlier this week, I wrote a little bit about what causes allergic symptoms - your immune system confuses pollen (or some other allergen) for a worm, and then arms your granulocytic grenades to explode every time you come into contact with it. But why does this confusion happen? This is a bit more…