The Old North State
terrasig | April 21, 2008Once the US Democratic presidential primary is over tomorrow in Pennsylvania, all eyes will be on North Carolina. For the first time since I've lived here, the NC primary will actually matter especially given that Clinton and Obama appear to now be running neck-and-neck in PA.
The Tar Heel Tavern was an early blog carnival, with contributions on numerous topics from the unusually dense NC blogging community. The first THT was hosted by Bora Zivkovic at his old blog, Science and Politics, back on 27 February 2005.
I've offered to resurrect the carnival in time for the NC primary with the…
terrasig | March 30, 2008In attempting to re-engage my academic brain stem, I've been doing a little continuing education the last couple of weeks at various forums hosted by the University-That-Tobacco-Built. Last week I had the pleasure of attending a forum of the Duke student organization, Women in Science and Engineering (WiSE), that featured four academic leaders (who were women) and Bora Zivkovic discussing non-bench science careers.
One of the panelists was an old colleague, Dr Rochelle (Shelly) Schwartz-Bloom, an award-winning neuropharmacologist and educator in the Duke Department of Pharmacology &…
terrasig | March 14, 2008Local wine shops are to wine what ScienceBlogs.com is to science blogs - while perhaps imperfect, they are both good at directing you to unique sources and enriching flavors. With the proliferation of information and winemakers, we can all use some educated filtering guides.
And that is how I view outstanding local vendors of wine. People who know a lot more than I spend their careers seeking out and stocking their stores with underrecognized offerings and low volume quality wines while also contributing to public education on this wonderful, life-enriching beverage.
So I was delighted the…
terrasig | March 14, 2008It's been a roller coaster of a week for Charles E Jordan High School in Durham, North Carolina. (Wikipedia history here).
As we noted earlier this week, Jordan's Shivani Sud took first prize in the Intel Science Talent Search for her work on biochemical markers of stage II colon cancer. The Intel (formerly Westinghouse) Science Talent prize is referred to often as the "junior Nobel prize."
Two and three days later, we learned the identities of the suspects apprehended in the murder of Eve Carson, student body president at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Both young men,…
terrasig | March 12, 2008[Welcome mental_floss blog and Daily Kos readers. After you read about this outstanding young woman, you can learn more about me, my life story, and this blog here.]
If you read elsewhere at ScienceBlogs.com, you'll know that several bloggers have been discussing race and gender issues in the scientific and medical research communities as well as the challenges facing young scientists who pursue academic research careers. So, I was overjoyed this morning to see this glowing face on Shivani Sud, a local young woman of Indian heritage who took first prize in the Intel Science Talent Search (…
terrasig | March 7, 2008
Eve Carson | student body president | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
This photo was taken on Monday, 3 March. Eve was shot less than 36 hours later. The entire campus, community and alumni mourn her death. She had a ethic of public service so strongly symbolized in her response to why she does what she does. [Photo by Tony Deifell]
Primary UNC-CH website
10,000 celebrate Carson's lifeRose Hoban WUNC-FM report on celebration of life
Chancellor's message to students following arrests of suspects (13 March)
Remarks of Eve's father, Bob Carson
Remembering the student's president
Eve…
terrasig | December 1, 2007Today is World AIDS Day but I wish to relay the need for a different kind of help.
Terra Sigillata has just learned that HIV/AIDS researcher Dr Sonia Napravnik and her daughter Sophia were among those whose apartments were destroyed by fire Wednesday night in Carrboro, NC. Sonia is a research assistant professor in the Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Wednesday night Sonia Napravnik's apartment building caught on fire. Her
unit (3rd floor) was destroyed. It is presently unclear how much of her stuff will be retrievable but we are…
terrasig | November 30, 2007There's a great interview up at the website of the North Carolina Biotechnology Center's BT Catalyst with Dr Chris Brodie, associate editor of American Scientist magazine, a publication of the Sigma Xi scientific research society. Chris recently helped to organize a new organization called Science Communicators of North Carolina (SCONC) and speaks with terrific clarity on the changing world for scientists wishing to be involved in public discourse:
In the culture of academic science, the first priority is to secure grants, followed by publishing scientific papers, teaching, administration…
terrasig | November 23, 2007I'm a little late today with The Friday Fermentable. I wanted to be able to report back from a local beer tasting event called Black Friday Beer Fest. In deference to today's major shopping day in the US (named Black Friday to denote that many businesses come out of the "red" due to the brisk sales the day after Thanksgiving), NC's Pop The Cap organization conceived a tasting of dark beers (local, national, and even Polish) to welcome in the holiday season and provide an alternative to hunting for parking spaces at the local mall (Tagline above: "We'd Rather Drink Beer.").
Attendees were…
terrasig | November 11, 2007I've been giving a fair bit of thought to moving my laboratory back to Mac computers. I had a superb, Windows-savvy postdoc in the late 90s who convinced me to go to PC machines because the choice made our grant money go further. But I miss the elegant simplicity of Macs and, as an amateur musician, would love to give GarageBand software a whirl.
So, I read with great interest that jazz saxophonist, Branford Marsalis, will be speaking tomorrow (12 Nov, 6:30 pm) to the Triangle Macintosh Users Group at the NC Mutual Life Building in Durham, North Carolina.
The program format will be similar…
terrasig | October 12, 2007The Southland is all abuzz today following yesterday's Charlotte Observer article by Lisa Zagaroli that members of the US House Homeland Security Committee were advised to get vaccinations (for hepatitis A, hepatitis B, tetanus, diphtheria and influenza) before traveling to car races in Concord, NC, and Taladega, AL.
Neither NASCAR fans or local politicians were pleased with the insinuations:
Rep. Robin Hayes, a Republican from Concord, took umbrage when he heard about it.
"I have never heard of immunizations for domestic travel, and as the representative for Concord, N.C., I feel compelled…
terrasig | March 9, 2007Since many homers read Terra Sig instead of my local interest blog, here's news on today's inaugural activities at our new community space, Bull City Headquarters (BCHQ).
terrasig | November 8, 2006All I was doing yesterday was answering our webhost-wide "Ask A ScienceBlogger" query about the most notable local election races in our respective communities. I was taken aback by getting more traffic on my displeasure with Durham DA, Mike Nifong, than on any other topic since I last asked whether the San Antonio Hooters restaurant could tactfully support the activities of basic and clinical researchers at the internationally-renowned San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.
What I neglected to note yesterday was that competing with Nifong in addition to a candidate who refused to serve if…
terrasig | November 7, 2006We've been out-of-town for a few days but the election day "Ask A ScienceBlogger" requested that we note a local election of special import.
One cannot live in the North Carolina Research Triangle area without being aware of the polarizing re-election campaign for Durham district attorney, Mike Nifong. Nifong, whose claim to fame has been the indictment of Duke men's lacrosse players in the alleged rape of a hired stripper, has been viewed widely as using this case as the basis for his re-election.
Simply Google "Duke lacrosse case" and you'll know of which I speak. Let it suffice to say…
terrasig | October 27, 2006As Bora has posted, the NC Triangle area is about to be paid a visit by Chris Mooney, author of The Republican War on Science, Seed Magazine Washington correspondent, and ScienceBlogger at The Intersection.
The book signing and lecture events are below but I wanted to invite local folks to a meet-up to talk with Chris on Sunday afternoon at 1 pm at Tyler's Taproom in Durham's American Tobacco Historic District. We'll be milling around the bar area until we have a good enough group to be seated (I couldn't afford the $100/hour to reserve their side room). I suspect that we'll be there until…
terrasig | October 22, 2006After putting together last evening's carnival posts, I walked outside this morning to find the Q Opinion section of our local Sunday paper devoted to issues of blogging.
Specifically, writer Eric Ferreri poses the question of whether bloggers should have a code of ethics, just like journalists. Martin Kuhn, a former UNC doctoral fellow in media law, presented his own code of ethics here, with an eye toward concerns that libel suits are a real and growing possibility regarding comments made on blogs and message boards.
"There will be a case where a blogger gets socked with a major judgment…
terrasig | October 21, 2006Welcome to this week's edition of Tar Heel Tavern, a roundup of all that is good about blogging from the state of North Carolina. If I missed your submission or if it's Sunday morning and you think, "Dang, I forget to submit anything," just fire me an e-mail and I'll quickly add your work. So, let's cut to the chase:
Of all the posts, nothing captured Fall in North Carolina like the beautiful pictures Laura sent in from Moomin Light from her annual two-week trip to the mountains.
Down in the state capital, there's one more day left: Mr. R reflects at evolving education on this year's visit…
terrasig | October 19, 2006Are you a North Carolina blogger of any sort? Have you ever lived in North Carolina? C'mon, I know many, many science folks who at one time did their training in the Old North State.
Well, after hosting Tar Heel Tavern at my old blog in the Spring, I thought it would be a good idea to help out Erin and Bora and host THT #87 right here in my relatively new digs.
I have no theme - the only requirement is that you write from or about North Carolina. As I said above, expats are welcome (Derek Lowe, I'm talking to you!)
THT is a loosely launched weekend thing, so it would help me if you would…
terrasig | September 12, 2006I have to admit to feeling a bit unnerved by smelling fire all day yesterday, the anniversary of the US terrorist attacks.
Little did I know that we've got a little case of overzealous municipal composting gone awry:
A massive pile of leaves and wood at a city of Durham composting facility ignited over the weekend...Durham officials said in a media release issued Monday that the giant pile of rotting organic matter is thought to have spontaneously caught fire.
I was just reminded over the weekend that alligators make compost piles to generate the heat necessary to incubate their eggs.…
terrasig | August 28, 2006I was so happy to learn that this e-mail is still posted on CNN's website.
After I read it a year ago, I paid $55 on eBay for a Joe Horn Saints' jersey:
There was a Saint in New Orleans during the wrath of Hurricane Katrina and his name is Joe Horn, pro-football player for the New Orleans Saints. As I sat in my room at the Hilton Riverside, New Orleans, on Saturday two days before Katrina was scheduled to directly hit New Orleans, I weeped while I phoned home to North Carolina, to speak with my mother and my children. It had been confirmed that my flight was canceled along with that of my…