apalazzo | February 5, 2008After arriving back home from the Keystone symposia, I jumped right into preparing for lab meeting where I'm presenting mostly new data. I haven't fully digested the conference, but I'll just leave you with a couple of remarks.
1) The miRNA field is a mess. It remains unclear whether all or any of the proposed mechanisms for miRNA mediated silencing are true.
2) RNA granules are everywhere. Anytime the cell does something funky with it's mRNA (be it NMD or miRNA induced silencing) it shoves the mRNA in question into a granule. But why? Could it be a general response to stress? Paul Anderson…
apalazzo | January 28, 2008Arrive to the conference early to take in a day of skiing before the conference.
+
90 minute delay in take off at Boston, with a mad dash to our connecting flight in Portland.
=
Luggage stuck in Portland = No ski equipment = No skiing = Working on the talk and the grant.
apalazzo | January 27, 2008Well we are happy about last night.
This afternoon I'm taking off for northern Idaho. I'll somewhere in the mountains for about a week. Between the meeting, skiing and working on the grant I don't know how much blogging I'll be able to do. For the past two week's songs from Radiohead's new album have been bouncing inside my skull. I'll leave you with three songs that Thom Yorke recorded "in the basement"
Here is Down is the New Up:
Next, is the last song from In Rainbows, Videotape
Finally we have Last Flowers
See you next week.
apalazzo | January 26, 2008I often read these guys - the lives they describe are something that any struggling young scientist trapped in the web of academia and the NIH can relate to. Since their move to Sb, they've even managed to post on grant writing. Go check 'em out.
apalazzo | January 25, 2008Wake up, make breakfast. Espresso, two slices of bread from a French batard from Clear Flour Bread with some mouhamara spread from Arax. In the newspaper I read about the primaries, the financial crisis and nothing too important. I waste an hour with email, signing up to some HHMI online system, reading teh intertubes and blogging. Time to work on the grant. I read the background and significance section ... did I compose that crap? After rewriting a bit I move down to preliminary data. Not so bad. I add some clarifications here and there ... man I have to finish the methods section and it's…
apalazzo | January 24, 2008Unfortunately I'll be out of town, but I encourage anyone in the Boston area to go. Here's the latest from Corie:
Hi everyone,
The new year is well underway so it's time for another one of the famous Nature Network Boston pub nights!
(For those of you new to NNB (http://network.nature.com/boston), the networking website for Boston scientists, we host monthly informal gatherings at a local pub for Boston-area scientists to meet, chat, and have a drink. We believe in online networking, but we also believe in old-fashion facetime...with a bit of alcohol too.)
When: Tuesday, January 29, 2008, 6:…
apalazzo | January 23, 2008Hello world. It's been about a week now that I've given up bench work for the pen. Instead of commuting to the lab, I've been anchored to my chair writing this longish compilation of past results, inconsistencies in the literature, and my little addition to the confusion that exists in my field of study. On top of that I need to prepare a talk for the upcoming Keystone symposia on "Translational Regulatory Mechanisms". So much to do, so little time.
Intersperse between my thoughts are visits from family and friends through instant messaging. "how are you? what have you been up to? it's your…
apalazzo | January 20, 2008
And if you enjoyed that clip, here's another video of a crow performing an incredible act of intelligence:
apalazzo | January 19, 2008Wow! I really need this! With this program you can store, search and organize all those PDFs.
From the website:
Do you have dozens of PDF files from your favorite scientific articles scattered on your harddrive? Do you also try to desperately organize them by renaming and archiving them in folders? But like the piles of printed articles on your desk, you can't keep up with all the new papers you download, and despite all your efforts it has become impossible to find that one article.
Finally that all belongs to the past. We've been there, trust us, we know. That's why we wrote Papers, our…
apalazzo | January 19, 2008I read an interesting article in today's NY Times. Apparently, the inspector general's office of the Department of Health and Human Services released a report suggesting that the NIH should do a better job of monitoring potential conflicts of interest. From the NY Times article:
The health institutes awarded more than $23 billion last year through over 50,000 competitive grants to more than 325,000 researchers at over 3,000 universities. Each grant typically underwrites only a part of the cost of the research at issue.
Universities are increasingly seeking other sources of income to support…
apalazzo | January 18, 2008Baymate just freaked-out over that bio-rad PCR clip that's been making the rounds. If you really want to see it, look beneath the fold.
apalazzo | January 18, 2008The first Map that Campus of 2008. My apologies to the NU posse who have been patiently waiting not to see their alma mater.
And so without wasting any more words, here is this week's mystery campus:
hint: It's definitely not on Mike Huckabee's campaign tour!
Leave your answer in the comments section, I'll certify any winners tomorrow.
apalazzo | January 16, 2008Well a study just came out that there are lots of little non-coding RNAs expressed in interesting patterns in the Brain. I've actaully heard about similar unpublished data from some other sources.
Does this mean that the genome is filled with functional ncRNA encoding genes? Hold your horses. As noted elsewhere, these little bits of RNA represent less than 1% of the genome. Moreover no function has been ascribed to them (perhaps they are negative or positive regulators of gene expression?) Third, many studies iindicate that 50-70% of the genome is transcribed as primary transcripts - so are…
apalazzo | January 15, 2008Read it here.
Fortunately, I was able to see him give a talk, just a month ago. Unfortunately he will not get a Nobel despite creating a whole field of research while going against the paradigms of the day.
Click here to watch an episode on Nova dedicated to his research.
Update: Orac has this nice tribute.
apalazzo | January 15, 2008Behind the scenes I've been ranting at my Scienceblog neighbours. Since I've been busy writing my k99 grant and have little energy to write about any of the new papers out there I'll repost some of my comments in modified form here.
Why are cell biology, molecular biology, biochemistry, microbiology never covered in the media? I've spoken to so many science journalists - most of whom have no science training. I've come to the conclusion that the barrier is too high - as a result when it comes time to write about these topics, most science journalists end up writing about "genomes" and "junk…
apalazzo | January 12, 2008
What a beautiful day. We just got back from a walk in Mt Auburn Cemetery where we randomly came across Richard Buckminster Fuller's grave. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera. Fortunately we live in the time of the internet where information and photos can be acquired within seconds. (The photo on the left was ripped off of Wikipedia.) In addition we saw William Morton's grave. He's the guy who discovered that either could be used as an anaesthetic. The site was marked by a monument erected "by the citizens of Boston".
Getting back to this idea, of how we are living in a revolutionary…
apalazzo | January 10, 2008Sometime last year Mitch Waldrop conducted extensive interviews with many who were experimenting between Science and the Web2.0. The result is this article that appeared yesterday on the SciAm website. In keeping with the spirit of Web2.0, you can add your comments or suggests edits to the article before it appears in the magazine as a hard copy. Bellow is the email that Mitch sent out:
Welcome to a Scientific American experiment in "networked journalism," in which readers--you--get to collaborate with the author to give a story its final form.
The article, below, is a particularly apt…
apalazzo | January 10, 2008Forget about all the crazy conspiracy theories about why Hillary won (such as the Deibold theory, the white poor vs black candidate theory, the who is on top of the list theory, the Chris Matthews revulsion theory, the Hillary preconceived teary-eyed pro-sympathy theory) - the real issue is whether reshaven should be counted as a word in Scrabble.
Yesterday we discussed what the Official Scrabble Dictionary had to say on this issue, but as a commenter pointed out:
Also note the irony of letting a book, written by a supposed higher authority, decide your opinion on whether something exists…
apalazzo | January 10, 2008This looks great!
My only question is how much energy does it take to compress the air need for their 200km trip. That energy must come from somewhere (like a coal burning electricity plant). On the flip side, the cost can't be too high if 1.5 euros fills your tank. As a bonus I'm sure that some contraption could be designed that allows the driver to manually compress air through human power (in case you run out of air). Very cool stuff.
(HT: Cliff Schecter)