apalazzo | January 9, 2008No I'm not going to write about the NH primary. I'll just say that I'm surprised that Hillary won, and I'm glad that the NH and Iowa votes canceled eachother out. In the end the Democratic nomination will be decided by the more populous states (as it should be).
Let's get on to more important issues.
Yesterday afternoon a very serious topic came up in our bay. You see baymate challenged me to a game of Scrabble (or it's facebook equivalent). I then made a big mistake and mentioned the infamous "reshaven incident".
You might be wondering what exactly is the "reshaven incident"? Click on the…
apalazzo | January 7, 2008What goes into a journal's impact factor? It turns out that this is a good question. These impact factors are calculated by Thomsom Scientific and attempt to quantify the import of any particular scientific journal.
But did anyone read this commentary in the December 17th issue of JCB? It's a revealing look as to how impact factors are compiled.
From the article:
With the aim of dissecting the data to determine which topics were being highly cited and which were not, we decided to buy the data for our three journals (The Journal of Experimental Medicine, The Journal of Cell Biology, and The…
apalazzo | January 6, 2008Yes I'm over a week late - this occurred when I was taking a year-end blogging break. The new legislation, signed into law by GWB states that if your research is funded by the NIH, any manuscript you produce must be deposited in PubMed Central within 12 months of the publication date. From Open Access news [posted December 26th]:
This morning President Bush signed the omnibus spending bill requiring the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) to mandate OA for NIH-funded research.
Here's the language that just became law:
The Director of the National Institutes of Health shall require that…
apalazzo | January 6, 2008Wow! All my friends from the Dean campaign went up to NH today to work in the Obama camp. I on the other hand have stayed behind (I'll be leaving for the lab soon to inject some cells). And I'm vacillating between Obama and Edwards (but leaning towards Obama).
So forget about the Sunday morning political talk shows, read these two items instead and you'll see the source of my inner dispute.
First up, Lambert on problems with Obama (HT: Coturnix). This essay reflects my problems with Obama's strategy. Over the last 27 years, the fiscal conservatives who head the GOP have been tearing down all…
apalazzo | January 5, 2008For anyone who hasn't seen this yet - a Youtube clip (if a 52 minute video can be called a clip) of Radiohead performing the entire In Rainbows Album
apalazzo | January 4, 2008(yes another polical entry - don't worry, I'll soon be back to posting about science)
Some notes on last night's caucus results:
- Obama was the only major candidate not tarnished by a vote for the war. People are rewarding candidates for their past stances and punishing others who took politically expedient stances. Punishment is the voter's greatest tool to control political matters. Future senators take note.
- The number of caucus goers for the Democratic delegate elections almost doubled (from 125K in 2004 to 230K in 2008). Republican turnout was only 108K.
- Obama won in a very white…
apalazzo | January 3, 2008A link to Nature which has a summary of the primary candidates' stance on science issues. (HT: Mike)
Bora just announced the selections for Open Lab 2007, the best science blogging of the year (which I was a judge, although Bora may have forgotten ...)
The Edge asked its illustrious members, which include some of the smartest scientists and thinkers on the planet "WHAT HAVE YOU CHANGED YOUR MIND ABOUT? WHY?" There is also a nice sub-question:
Science is based on evidence. What happens when the data change? How have scientific findings or arguments changed your mind?
Speaking of science &…
apalazzo | January 3, 2008Since I started blogging (over 3 years ago) I have been posting less and less on political matters, but I have a story to share with you on the Iowa caucuses. My wife and I, for reasons that I won't go into here, were big supporters of Dean in 2004. The night of the 2004 Iowa caucuses, Dean supporters were planning a big reception rally in Portsmouth New Hampshire to welcome the Governor to the Granite State. We all met in the basement of a pub in Harvard Square and watched the caucus coverage on CNN. It was tough. Dean did not do as well as we expected. That's when we saw this:
We were a…
apalazzo | January 2, 2008In this coming year I plan to
1) Publish another paper.
2) Spend less time on the blog (great start, eh?)
3) Go to more meetings (I'm already registered for the January Keystone meeting on "Translational Regulatory Mechanisms", and I will try hard to go to the 2008 RNA meeting in Berlin)
4) Apply for a K99 grant (deadline is mid February)
5) Get over to Europe and visit my good pal in Paris
6) Read more scientific papers.
7) Read more books (Atonement is next - I need finish it by the next bookclub meeting on January 15th)
8) Exercise more (Charles River here I come!)
9) Xxx Xxxxx xxxxxxxx (…
apalazzo | December 29, 2007The scientific finding of the year has to be the reprogramming of adult somatic cells into induced pluripotent stem cells (IPS cells). In reality the ground breaking work was published in 2006, however at that time it was not yet clear whether IPS cells were the real thing.
In 2007 IPS cells were indeed shown to be totipotent in the sense that an entire animal can be generated from IPS cells. It is true that for this to occur, IPS cells must be injected into a tetraploid blastocyst, but generally, IPS cells are functionally equivalent (in mouse) to embryonic stem cells. If you start looking…
apalazzo | December 27, 2007Yesterday we arrived back in Boston. The 4 previous day my wife and I were celebrating Christmas up in Montreal with my giant "Italo-Canadese" family. Here are some pics of each night's festivities:
Night 1: My Parents host my father's side of the family. Lots of people, lots of food.
Here's a pic of most people in attendance taken by my wife. The kids' table is not visible. I'm on the left playing the part of waiter.
Night 2: My brother and his girlfriend host a dinner. Not as many people as the night before, but just as much food including our first turkey for this holiday season.
Night 3…
apalazzo | December 20, 2007The scientific life is an interesting one. You work like a dog and have little to show for it. Nothing works and you don't have a clue why that is. Then one day you get that first result. You are happy, but a voice in the back of your head is telling you that this might be another dead end, another artifact. You cautiously proceed. Slowly the data accumulates. One day you put the pieces of the puzzle together. You test your idea, and it works! You're in a grove. Everything (or nearly everything) works. You ride that wave. You don't want to be distracted. Then your backup project starts to…
apalazzo | December 17, 2007From Lawrence Krauss, in a discussion with Natalie Jeremijenko that is featured in the latest issue of Seed:
I think that's what makes science special. As a scientist and someone who tries, for better or worse, to extol the virtues of science in a society that doesn't appreciate many of those virtues, I think that ultimately the good stuff wins out even if it takes a while to do it. Because the final arbiter of success isn't people. In science, it's experiments. It's the ability to make it work. If it works, then people buy into it, whether they like it or not. And I really think that's…
apalazzo | December 12, 2007Reading in the NY Times about James Watson's genome I stumbled on to this:
Professor Church predicted that as the science of genetics advanced, fuzzy categories like race would become less important because genetic characteristics would point to factors like disease at an individual level.
Meanwhile, he said: "There are still a lot of bigots in the world. Maybe showing these things are more nuanced than they'd like it to be makes them think about it."
apalazzo | December 11, 2007Since the discovery of IPS Cells, the stem cell field has exploded. Here's a few links on the latest developements.
First, two cool papers came out recently.
In the first from the Jaenisch lab, mouse IPS Cells were differentiated into erythrocytes and used to cure sickle celled anemia in a mouse model. This would be a first application of these IPS cells in a therapeutic setting.
In the second paper from the Yamanaka group, mouse and human IPS Cells were created by overexpressing 3 of the 4 genes used in the original protocol. In fact the gene that was omitted in this new protocol is myc,…
apalazzo | December 11, 2007Last week I had a cool result - but this week after looking at all the controls it would seem like that amazing result is an artifact.
Oh well ...
Instead of showing you that great result, I'll post the remains of another cell that exploded after microinjection. Note that quite a bit of the membrane stayed behind giving the cellular debris a funny appearance.
apalazzo | December 10, 2007From Corie:
You're invited to a pub night for Boston-based scientists, hosted by Nature Network Boston ... the last one for 2007! (For newcomers to NNB, we host monthly, informal events at local pubs for Boston scientists to hang out, have a beer and chat.) It's a great opportunity to meet colleagues from down the road and across the river.
Bring your lab, labmates and scientist-friends. Forward this email along and let's make this event the biggest turnout yet!
When: Thursday, December 13, 6:30pm
Where: Middlesex Lounge, 315 Mass. Ave in Cambridge. Near Central Square on the Red Line. On…
apalazzo | December 7, 2007This week's mystery campus:
hint:It swallowed the pill-designers
(Lately it has been swallowing many RNA researchers). Since I'm about to leave for NYC for the weekend, I'll confirm any correct answers next week.
apalazzo | December 5, 2007Yesterday, a postdoc from a neighbouring lab came by to hand over an aliquot of antibodies to baymate. Here's what happened:
me: it looks like Santa came early this year.
friendly neighborhood postdoc: Well actually my PI would be Santa. I'm more of a reindeer.
baymate: Nah, you're an elf. Remember, it's the elves that make all the toys while Santa sits back and relaxes.
I think that baymate was on to something. The elves make all the toys, while Santa goes on a world-wide toy-promotion PR tour. But the only question I have is who are the reindeer?