Posts
May 25, 2013
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Enzymes are reliable and indispensable workhorses in every cell. Without them, things would happen very slowly or not at all. Molecular biologists use them as tools as routinely as pipettes, vortexers, centrifuges – automatically, no fuss. So I was a bit surprised, when Marie referred to one of her enzymes as „our little diva“. The „diva“ officially goes by the name of CircLigaseTM II ssDNA Ligase, and for an enzyme she really is quite demanding. For one, she doesn’t... Read
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Cow: the digestive system’s complex mysteries
Nova Jiang is an artist and UCLA alumna who makes work that connects different fields and encourages audience participation. One of her recent projects was done for the Pittsburgh Children’s Museum. ’Cow’ is an interactive mechanical wood sculpture that kids can place a ball in it’s mouth and watch it travel a simplified version of the digestive cycle.
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1:33 PM | Update: Summer Approaches
As the weather finally begins to pick up and the remaining undergraduates frolick down by the lake in post-exam bliss, us postgrads take up our traditional "staring out of the tinted lab window and sighing quietly" routine...
It's a bank holiday this weekend, and The Boss ("we're not a bank") seems to think we'll all be working on Monday, but I reckon a few hours in the sunshine is nourishing for the body and soul. Enjoy the mini-break everyone!
I'll be […]
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How important are computers to learning? Many education reform advocates, in particular Bill Gates, argue that one way to improve education is to give poor students free computers. Rich kids, after all, appear to have an edge in school because they regularly use computers at home. Computers for poor kids would bridge the so called digital divide, the gap between students who have access to information technologies and those who don’t, and ramp up the learning gains of the […]
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Hey Julie,I hope you've had a fun week. I saw a new in-press publication with your name on it - "Smelling more or less: Investigating the olfactory experience of the domestic dog" - looks like a really great study, and so timely after my last post about dogs and olfactory enrichment! Looking forward to reading it (and all those other cool Learning and Motivation articles) over the weekend. So did you do your homework? Did you watch this clip from the Sydney Opera
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Kogan L.R., Schoenfeld-Tacher R. & Simon A.A. (2012). Behavioral effects of auditory stimulation on kenneled dogs, Journal of Veterinary Behavior: Clinical Applications and Research, 7 (5) 268-275. DOI: 10.1016/j.jveb.2011.11.002
Wells D., Graham L. & Hepper P. (2002). The influence of auditory stimulation on the behaviour of dogs housed in a rescue shelter., Animal Welfare, 11 (4) 385-393. Other: Link
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May 24, 2013
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We produce way more PhD scientists than the existing demand for tenure-track faculty positions. That’s a straight up fact that we all recognize. The corollary to this fact is that people planning to get PhD must recognize that there must be a multiplicity of careers to keep in mind while in graduate school. (There’s a […]
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I love storify , particularly for conferences and events. It's a great way to b...
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laughingsquid:
UCLA Broadcasts Brain Surgery Live to Twitter, Vine, & Instagram
“The patient, a Los Angeles actor and musician, was awakened during the surgery and asked to play guitar in order to help fine tune the placement of the implant.” AMAZING.
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6:29 PM | Impact for Women
Next week I am due to share a platform with Dave Delpy, CEO of the EPSRC amongst others, discussing the ‘Impact of Impact’. This is an event organised by a new student body, the Cambridge University Science and Policy Exchange. … Continue reading →
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Brain autoregulation 133- Dynamic cerebral autoregulation in subjects with Alzheimer’s disease, mild cognitive imparment, and controls: evidence for increased peripheral vascular resistance with possible predictive value – Gommer et al. 134- The frequency response of cerebral autoregulation – Fraser et al. Lower body positive pressure and the brain 135- Middle cerebral artery blood flow velocity […]
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6:03 PM | Onward and downward
Between 1969 and 1972, 12 people (all of them men) walked on the moon, took an afternoon stroll 240,000 miles away. Around this same time, Sylvia Earle, the first chief scientist for the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, was just learning to dive deep below the surface of the sea. Back then the tempertature of [...]
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Since the 1960s, the federal government has operated a series of programs, called TRIO, designed to help low-income students apply to, and succeed in, college.
TRIO (made up of Upward Bound, Talent Search, Student Support Services, and other, smaller programs), which provides about $1 billion to high schools and colleges, hasn’t been shown to be effective, however.
As Daniela Fairchild of the Fordham Foundation explains, “federal government’s major efforts to better […]
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3:32 PM | Academic Family Tree III
I thought I would post a more updated #chemistrytwittertree since it has recently been mentioned in the Nature Chemistry blogroll. This is by no means the final tree so feel tree to offer suggestions on how to make it even bigger and better. If you aren’t on the tree but can spot a way on, then […]
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Education Secretary Arne Duncan is getting concerned about America’s estimated $1.1 trillion student loan burden. Speaking Tuesday during testimony before the House education committee, he said, "the fact that that debt surpasses a trillion dollars, there's no upside there.”
This appears to be the first time President Barack Obama’s education secretary has publically indicated concern about America’s education debt.
According to an Ed Week piece, “he's interested […]
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Fossil fuel divestment is one of the major subjects of student activists today. Back in December energy advocate Bill McKibben argued that colleges should cease investing in oil companies: “fossil fuel industry [is] an enemy that must be defeated,” since the industry uses “money and political influence to block climate action in Washington.”
Students at many colleges have taken up the cause, known as “Fossil Free.” There are fossil fuel divestment […]
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Yosemite! From UC Berkeley’s digital collection: Stereo Views from Alaska to Mexico, ca. 1859-1902.
May 23, 2013
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5:38 PM | Donors Choose end of the year challenge
For a couple of years the science blogging community has been working with Donors Choose to fund raise for schools around the country. These projects include a wide range of basic to specialized equipment that teachers need to improve the classroom experience for their students. Donors Choose has arranged to double the contributions (up to [...]
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4:58 PM | NCWIT Summit 2013 trip report
The 2013 NCWIT Summit wrapped up yesterday, and as always it was time well spent. This is my 4th NCWIT summit, and my 3rd as a member*—Carleton joined, I believe, in 2011. It’s always great to see old friends and colleagues from other schools and these summits are always in great locations (this year’s setting, […]
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Last week I traveled up to Ottawa with two of my students – our goal was to visit the Arachnid collection at the Canadian National Collection of Insects (CNCI) (and Arachnids and Nematodes). The spider collection is housed on the fourth floor of the Neatby building, in a room that seldom has its lights turned on. […]
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Today's guest post was written by Alison Graettinger, a postdoc in the UB Geology department who's working with the Center for Geohazard Studies. She was in charge of the series of maar-creation experiments I helped out at a few weeks ago, which are a followup to the experiments that I wrote about last year. She offered to put together this post so you could learn a bit about the science and international collaborations behind the experiments.
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3:17 PM | Is bed-sharing unsafe?
The other day I read that "Bed-sharing raises cot death (SIDS) risk fivefold". You probably know that we have been co-sleeping (as in bed-sharing) with BlueEyes since he was about 5 months and we might co-sleep with prospective baby from a much earlier age. So I thought "Yikes!" when I read this press release about a study by Carpenter et al. However, there are a number of limitations to this study, which have been nicely summarized by here at EvolutionaryParenting.com. This is the summary of […]
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12:14 PM | The safety talk with students in your lab
Safety is a top priority in my lab, though in the lab I’m not particularly over-concerned about safety. The only chemical typically involved with our labwork is ethanol, there are other potential hazards, but not different than those that students experience in teaching labs. Other researchers have bigger safety issues in the lab. Not far […]
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How does your garden grow?
Anyone who has a vegetable garden knows that soil plays a huge role in the success of the garden (and some scientists believe it also affects the taste of your veggies).
The California Soil Resource Lab at UC Davis has developed an app that gives you the stats on the soil at your location. You can download the SoilWeb app for iPhone or Android — or use the online version.
If your location doesn’t have the best soil, correct tillage and the use of good
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7:09 AM | The cleanroom
Before she enters the cleanroom, Marie pins her protocol for the day and a list of her samples to the window between corridor and lab. From the outside. You can barely see through the screen. Although not very old, it is almost opaque with a yellowish haze, and the entire lab looks somewhat disheveled. Not what you would expect from the cleanest room in town. But to keep the room this clean, as free from any modern DNA as possible... Read more
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12:06 AM | Getting used to life on board
The Indigo V crew is getting used to life on board the ship and late night watches. We have been sailing along the African coast in the sunshine.The weather has been reasonably good so far but the wind is blowing head on from the travelling direction, which means we have been motoring for most of the way so far.After a short refuel and fixes in Port Elizabeth, we will sail out of territorial waters and start the main bulk of the scientific sampling all the way through to Mauritius.Martin
May 22, 2013
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Parental Financial Help: More Is More or More Is Less?
Over the past several decades, colleges and universities have responded to deep cuts in external funding by increasing tuition. The costs increasingly fall on the shoulders of students (and in many cases, their parents), who often make difficult financial decisions to attend college.
A new study from UC Merced asks: do students with parental financial support do better academically in college?
The answer turns out to be complex, with
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For the U.S. college students who will be paying for a four-year bachelor’s degree long after graduation day, here’s some consolation: At least it didn’t take you six or eight years. College is expensive, yet unpredictably so. Some students pay little for degrees from elite private institutions, after tuition discounts and financial aid. Many of their peers, however, will pay far more than they expected for lower-cost universities. A big reason for this is the increasing
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The Canadian twitter world has been split in the last couple of days. You have of course the Duffy-Brazeau-Harb-Wallen-Wright-Perrin saga filling the trend boxes. But then, you have the story of the Tories’ problem with science, be it defunding, muzzling, … Continue reading →
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I mentioned the ‘potato peeling rule’ in a Tweet this morning, prompted by the second year Physical Chemistry exam which is actually taking place as I write this. I should start by acknowledging the originator of the term, my colleague John Staniforth (you can find his Facebook profile here). Many of the equations in statistical […]
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3:31 PM | Félicitations !
Dans la section "bonnes nouvelles", une de mes étudiantes à la maitrise (en tant que directeur) a effectué son dépôt final hier ! Elle est la troisième étudiante de mon laboratoire à graduer ! Son mémoire s’intitule Impact du diabète de type 2 bien contrôlé et sans complications cardiovasculaires sur la consommation maximale d’oxygène, la cinétique […]
