So more than a week has gone by and there has been little press about the science Nobels. And I must say that this year's Medicine and Chemistry prizes are some of the most important in quite a while. But even between the two, the Chemistry is especially important. Why? I'm not sure. Maybe they were overshadowed by Obama's award??? Or maybe science journalists are sleeping on the job. I can hear them now "Ribosomes ... boring." Nothing could be further from the truth. Ribosomes are arguably the most important biological molecule that we know of. I don't have much time to write long essays…
Unraveling the ribosome is one of science's Holy Grails. Were God a molecule, he or she would be a ribosome, a veritable galaxy of atoms whose job is to translate genetic code into the stuff of life--protein. - Brian Maffly, reporter for the Slt Lake Tribune in a recent article, Ramakrishnan: Nobel-winning work started in Utah (and yes the article features a good friend of mine who worked in Venki's lab)
So we got back yesterday from our trip and we are in the post-traveling cleanup mode - Cleaning up the apartment, the fridge, and the email box. In fact I just received an email from one Coimbra student filled with photos from the past week. Below the fold are some pictures of our trip + comments about our time there. I have to say that I really enjoy teaching. This past week I've talked about the history of our eukarytotic cells and how this informs their structure. I was going to record my lecture and post it, but it didn't happen. Maybe next time. Speaking of ancient, the University of…
Well it has been a great week. Edgar Gomes, Phong Tran, Helder Maiato and I just finished teaching a week long Graduate Student Course at the University of Coimbra. Here's a photo of us with most of the class just after we finished dinner at a local joint. Despite my wonderful week, I did miss out on the Nobel gossip. There was a lack of reliable wireless internet at the hotel and I wasn't able to read or blog much (I am now in Porto at Edgar's parents house using their wireless connection). Scrolling through Scienceblogs yesterday afternoon, I noticed the lack of commentary about the…
"for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase" (from the Nobel website) Congrats. This Nobel was one that many people expected. I don't have much time to blog about why telomerase and telomeres are so important, but I would hope that other science bloggers will step in. Here is a link to the YouTube Nobel Prize Live Web Cast. Some links from Jonathan A. Eisen's Blog.
Welcome one and all to another edition of Map That Campus. Since I'm restarting this feature, I though that I would try something a little different. Here is today's mystery campus: (more below the fold) Clues: To figure out the answer, you'll first need to identify a famous Canadian. Besides nationality, there are some parallels between this person and me. He was educated at this institution and then worked in this institution I did the opposite. He then left to serve as a volunteer doctor here where he developed the mobile medical unit that helped to deliver blood transfusions to…
This is the fourth year that I update this list of potential winners. A warning, the list is highly biased towards basic biomedical research. In addition, some of the prizes may be more appropriate for the Chemistry prize. We'll start with my favorite, Membrane Traffic. This finding is one of the most basic discoveries in cell biology. The two obvious winners would be James Rothman and Randy Schekman. Intracellular signaling may win. Tony Hunter could get it for phospho-tyrosine, Tony Pawson for protein signalling domains, and Allan Hall for small G-protein switches. Maybe Lew Cantley for…
I'm going to harp on a subject that really annoys me. The use of the word "fact" - this is a totally useless concept and is the source of a lot of confusion out in the general public and amongst science journalists. Science does not build facts. It builds models, ideas concepts and theories - tools for our mind. Not facts. The idea of a "fact" leads to confusion and misunderstanding. This notion subconsciously promotes the comparison of the products of scientific endeavor to religious dogma. Facts = immutable truths. Is gravity a "fact"? Does evolution "exist"? Is calculus "real"? To me…
Hello everyone, It's been quite a while since I've even looked at my blog. Much has happened since I last posted. I said goodbye to all my friends in Boston, moved back to my native country, started up a lab, hired my first employee, gone to a few scientific conferences, assigned projects to eager undergrads, dealt with the bureaucracy of a major University from a whole different level, written my first grant as a PI, and seen my young son pass through several developmental stages. And here I am, reviving my long neglected blog. In honour* of this resurrection (or is it a metamorphosis), I…
This is an attempt to get back into blog-writing mode. My time has become split in a thousand different ways. There are a multitude of items that need to be accomplished before I leave for Toronto. Here's a few of them: I would like to wrap up three ongoing projects, or at least get most of the lab work done. I need to find a place to live in my hometown-to-be. I need to set up the lab-to-be. I need to set up my new lab website, to attract students and postdocs. I need to plan ahead for the next few years, or get into that mind set. (Excuse me, I'm at home today with the kid and he just peed…
As you can see, juggling lab and fatherhood has left me no time to blog. So now that I'm waiting for the centrifuge to cool down I'll take this opportunity to quote a great musician whose words have some resonance these days: Cranium implants, false debt, funny money, dead sat heart, signs of the empire in decline, stretching the bottom line without regard to time or limits of mankind, paying no attention to the laws of cause and effect, advance and decline, the ways of ancient biorythms, science, no conscience. -Steve Coleman, from the song No Conscience, off of Steve Coleman and the Five…
Monday, our son Xander was born. Since then I've been getting to know who this new human being is. I've been taking care of most of his, and my wife's, needs. We've shared many moments and lived a life without distractions. Like Zen Buddhist monks our only concerns are food, sleep and poop. The first few days I shunned my laptop, but now that my parents are in town we've been able to request and obtain the high technology items that permeate every action performed within the 21st century. Now as my wife, and son sleep I am quickly typing this post. Soon they will be awake and a new set of…
Today's quote is from the first two lines of a research manuscript about the neuroscience of Schadenfreude that appeared in a recent issue of Science. Envy is one of the seven biblical sins, the Shakespearian "green-eyed monster," and what Bertrand Russell called an unfortunate facet of human nature. It is an irrational, unpleasant feeling and a "painful emotion" characterized by feelings of inferiority and resentment produced by an awareness of another's superior quality, achievement, or possessions. It's not very often that you read flowery language in a scientific paper. Note that five of…
Well after a bit of a holiday, the New England RNA Data Club is back. We'll be meeting next week here at HMS. Here's the latest email: Hello All, The next meeting of the New England RNA Club will take place Wednesday, March 4th. We will have beverages starting at 5:30PM and talks from 6:00-7:00PM in the Cannon room at Harvard Medical School. Our speakers will be: Daehyun Baek, Bartel Lab, Whitehead Lidia Vasilieva, Buratowski Lab, HMS After the talks we will have food and more beverages. If you are in need of parking, please email us back ASAP. This meeting is sponsored by MERCK, Qiagen and…
An article appeared in today's Science Section under the title, Beaker-Ready Projects? Colleges Have Quite a Few Here's a passage that highlights what I've been harping about: The acting director of the National Institutes of Health begged university administrators on Wednesday to avoid even applying for stimulus money unless the universities planned to hire people almost immediately. "It would be the height of embarrassment," the official, Dr. Raynard S. Kington, said, "if we give these grants and find out that institutions are not spending them to hire people and make purchases and advance…
Natural human pathological variation can be readily identified by highly trained professionals, in other words doctors. Pathological variations of other model organisms are usually eaten. - Stephen O'Rahilly, Co-Director of IMS and Director of IMS Metabolic Research Laboratories, Cambridge University UK, on the advantages of studying humans who have rare metabolic diseases.
If you have happened to browse DrugMonkey, you'll have noticed a discussion about how the NIH should spend its share of the stimulus package (~$10 billion). (For more info click here.) Unfortunately the plan, according to the NIH statement is the same usual BS - all quick fixes and no forethought about how to use this opportunity to repair some endemic problems with how we train our academic scientists. But within the cloudy depths of the comment section of DrugMonkey's PhysioProf's post, fellow Scibling Abel Pharmboy raises a key point: In general, I'm very concerned that the pressure to…
One common feature of bench work is downtime. Some activity, such as cutting and pasting DNA, require the researcher to incubate their samples for various periods of time. What to do? Well ideally the scientist in question should take advantage of this time to either, perform other experiments, make reagents such as buffers, or catch up on the scientific literature. I tend to use Google Reader to scan the RSS feeds from various journals. Of course I scan through blogs as well. Sometimes though your day is filled with some brain-draining activity, such as microinjecting tissue culture cells.…
Yesterday I and a few local PhDs had a chat with a reporter from [insert name of big newspaper here] and we started talking about the life of a gradstudent and/or postdoc in the biomedical sciences. At the end of the conversation I brought up the academic blog scene and the reporter asked for a list of blogs written by gradstudents and or postdocs. I've started to compile a list of blogs that convey the zeitgeist of life in the lower rungs of the academic ladder, but I am also soliciting your help. What am I looking for? As an example, I'll point to Ambivalent Academic who posted an excellent…
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice but in practice, there is. - Yogi Bera (also attributed to Jan L. A. van de Snepscheut and Chuck Reid according to Wikiquote)