north carolina
clock | May 29, 2009I'll be going to IASP next week, one of several people reporting from it for Science In The Triangle. We have organized our coverage strategically - I will be there for a couple of events on Tuesday and all day Wednesday. I'll be posting here and on Twitter and Science In The Triangle will aggregate everyone's posts in one place.
What is IASP?:
The International Association of Science Parks (IASP) is a worldwide network of science and technology parks. IASP connects science park professionals from across the globe and provides services that drive growth and effectiveness for members.
IASP…
clock | May 25, 2009I am trying to put together a list of science, nature and medical blogs based in North Carolina, mainly in order to update the Blogroll/aggregator on the Science In The Triangle media page. I tried to put together, out of my own memory, the names and URLs of blogs based in NC, but I need your help to make the list better.
These are either personal, or news, or institutional blogs based in the state. In some cases, these are blogs of people who I know are coming to live in NC very soon. Some of these are group blogs in which one or more co-bloggers are living here. And one is a large group…
clock | May 21, 2009Earlier today I went up the street to Town Hall Grill and saw their white-board where they write the descriptions of Dinner Specials....and there is a new one today with the name "Special for Bora"! Wow! The perks of being a regular customer!
Well, of course I got one, brought it home, re-arranged it on one of my plates and took a picture:
Deliciously tender fried chicken, corn on the cob and fresh (probably locally grown) vegetables: carrots, squash. onions and broccoli. A very summery, light and delicious meal! Yum!
clock | May 11, 2009Are you up to date on the hot debate in biology regarding how genes influence evolution? Some scientists contend genes are in the driver's seat. Others assign more pull to regulatory factors controlling genetic expression. At noon, Wednesday, May 27, come hear Duke biologist Greg Wray explore the importance of it all in a talk entitled "Hardware or Software: Searching for the Genetic Basis for Biological Diversity."
You may not want to miss this one. After Wray's talk, Pizza Talk embarks on its traditional three-month summer vacation. The next nine-month series debuts in September.
Sigma Xi…
clock | May 6, 2009Letting it All Hang Out: The Personal Genome Project
May 19, 2009
6:30-8:30 p.m. with discussion beginning at 7:00 followed by Q&A
Tir Na Nog 218 South Blount Street, Raleigh, 833-7795
Two years ago no one knew what personal genomics was; now it's everywhere. For a few hundred dollars, you can have a peak at part of your own genome. You can theoretically learn your genetic risks for various diseases. And some companies say you can find romance based on your DNA. But what is all this stuff really? What does it actually mean? What will genomic privacy look like in the digital age? The…
clock | May 6, 2009It is really sad when an independent book store closes. It is even sadder when that book store was not just a shop but also a center of local community, a place where people gathered to have coffee, talk, interact with boook authors, take art or yoga classes, participate in theater or children's activities. But the economic downturn is affecting everyone and Market Street Books in Southern Village was forced to close by May 1st.
I went there a couple of times last week, to commiserate with the employees and volunteers who were packing, wondering what the future will bring for them and picked…
clock | May 4, 2009You know I went to the #TriangleTweetup last week at @Bronto, an Email Service Provider in Durham, NC, with an inflatable brontosaurus as its mascot:
Apart from searching Twitter for TriangleTweetup, you could also follow @triangletweetup for updates. At one point during the event, the hashtag was 'trending' but I don't know how high it got.
There were about 250 people there, mostly programers, web developers and PR folks. Reminds me of the old bloggercons. Will tweetups also evolve over the years to attract more people who are using it and less people who are designing it? A first Science…
clock | April 30, 2009There is a Triangle Tweetup tonight and I'll be there, along with about 250 people from the Triangle, as well as from Greensboro and Greenville. You can follow the proceedings on Twitter, of course - @triangletweetup. You will also be able to watch it live!
Looking at the list of attendees, I see several names that are familiar, including my SciBling Abel PharmBoy who has blogged about the event in much greater detail. Then, there will of course be people like Ginny Skalsky, Wayne Sutton, Lenore Ramm and the amazing Rachel of @DPAC. I am assuming that Bob Etheridge on the list is really the…
clock | April 13, 2009Ah, it takes me so long these days to actually blog about events I attend! This one was last Thursday! But here it is. I went to the Triangle Blogger Bash in Durham, organized by Ginny of 30THREADS (find them on Twitter as well) and hosted by the Durham Performing Arts Center.
I am bad at estimating crowds, but there were at least 50 local bloggers there, some new to me, some old friends like Lenore, Anton, Will, Sheril, Ayse, Wayne and Ginny. There was a nice spread of food and a cash bar. The hosts gave out nice prizes (I never ever win stuff like that). You can see some blog reports here…
clock | April 10, 2009I love getting alumni letters from NCSU - I get reminded over and over again how cool research gets done there all the time. In this issue, for instance:
NC State Study Finds Genes Important to Sleep:
For many animals, sleep is a risk: foraging for food, mingling with mates and guarding against predators just aren't possible while snoozing. How, then, has this seemingly life-threatening behavior remained constant among various species of animals?
A new study by scientists at North Carolina State University shows that the fruit fly is genetically wired to sleep, although the sleep comes in…
clock | April 6, 2009Tuesday, April 21, 2009
6:30-8:30 pm with discussion beginning at 7:00 followed by Q&A
Location: The Irregardless Café, 901 W. Morgan Street, Raleigh 833-8898
Think Globally - Eat Locally
How much do you know about the food you eat? Were pesticides applied? Do you know where it was grown and how far it traveled to get to you? How much did its transportation contribute to global warming?
What can we do to bring about the revival of locally produced foods and all the benefits they bring - better taste, nutrition, stronger local economies and relationships with local farmers, reduced…
clock | March 30, 2009This is today:
A Conversation with Dr. Oliver Smithies
Excellence Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
2007 Nobel Laureate
Moderated by Dr. Tony Waldrop, Vice Chancellor for Research and Economic Development
Monday, March 30, 2009
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm
Room 527
Health Sciences Library
Light refreshments to follow
Join us for a chat with Dr. Oliver Smithies about the importance of information access to scientific research, especially his own. Audience participation will be encouraged. Don't miss this opportunity to have your questions answered by Dr. Smithies. You may also submit…
clock | March 23, 2009This week, Carrboro Citizen celebrated its second anniversary. I explained in detail before their model and why I think this is the future of journalism. Now, the Editor, Kirk Ross, gives us the inside story:
You can't be in this business without wondering how much wilder the ride can get. I've written about this before, so I'll spare you the wind up. The talking points are that not every newspaper is in trouble and that most that are hurting are chain-owned metro dailies burdened by debt brought on by a mergers-and-acquisition craze reminiscent of the Dutch tulip bubble.
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To…
clock | March 13, 2009From SCONC:
Thursday, March 19
6pmSCONC night at the Museum of Life and Science. Join your fellow science communicators for refreshments, socializing and a bit of brainstorming about Science in the Triangle - the museum's evolving experiment in community science journalism and scientific-community organizing.
Our host, Troy Livingston, MLS Vice President of Innovation and Learning is seeking SCONC input about ways the group can become involved in community building activities at the site and at the Museum. So get those neurons moving and bring your ideas!
There's plenty of free parking.…
clock | March 12, 2009From SCONC:
Tuesday, March 17
7 p.m.
"Hope, Hype and Communicating Climate Change" The Asheville SCONCs welcome nationally prominent science writer Rick Borchelt to speak on making climate change information intelligible to the lay public. This is the first in a series of three public education lectures on climate change to be held in April and June. Diana Wortham Theatre, Asheville.
Details Here (PDF) More Info: Pamela McCown, Education & Research Services, Inc. pamela@education-research-services.org
clock | March 7, 2009And now I have to travel from this:
to this:
I'll go to the airport in a t-shirt, get dressed on the airplane, and disembark in full Arctic gear! Then reverse the process on the way back.
clock | March 7, 2009From SCONC:
Tuesday, March 24
6:30-8:30 pm
Science Cafe, Raleigh: Gene-Environment Interactions
EPA statistician and geneticist David Reif discusses the interplay between our genes and the environment. What does our shared evolutionary history have to do with common, complex diseases? How might genetics shape differential susceptibility to the multitude of chemicals--both manufactured and natural--present in the environment? How do modern lifestyles impact the evolutionary process? Tir Na Nog, 218 South Blount Street, Raleigh, NC, 919.833.7795
RSVP to katey.ahmann@ncmail.net
terrasig | February 15, 2009I had occasion this week to tell friends the story of my maternal grandmother. She was born in 1906 in an eastern Pennsylvania coal mining town. Her family was so poor that she was sent at age 16 to northern New Jersey to clean houses for wealthy families. She gave me pictures of her from the late 1940s as the only woman in a machine shop and, later, continued to shop for her own groceries three-quarters of a mile away well into her late 80s. Although she drove my mother crazy (my Mom is a fantastic story of achievement for another day), I suspect that grandma had undiagnosed obsessive-…
clock | February 14, 2009On Thursday, for Darwin's 200th birthday, I went down to Raleigh to the Museum of Natural Science to hear Carl Zimmer's talk. The room was packed - I got the last empty seat and there were people standing in the back. A very mixed audience, as Museum talks usually are - there were evolutionary biologists there from Nescent and the W.M.Keck Center for Behavioral Biology at NCSU, there were Museum staff, and then there were interested lay-people, museum-goers, with no formal background in science but interested and curious. It is not easy giving a talk to such a mixed audience - how to keep the…