3quarksdaily are running their annual competition for best science blog entry. There are 87 really great blog posts competing there for the votes of 3QD readers. But who has the time to read through all of them? So let me make it easy for you: vote for me. This blog’s “Dead Salmon” blog post has […]
The National Academies Press are offering all their books in PDF format for free. The announcement yesterday created a serious traffic surge on their site. But the books are still there, and are still free. Got to buy that new 5Tb external disk now….
Two funding opportunities, available worldwide. Read below and visit www.Agilent.com/lifesciences/emerginginsights for more details and application forms. Agilent’s eMerging Insights Grant Program Fostering integrated, whole-systems approaches to biological research with two $75K grants for open source data-integration tool development The different omics platforms—genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics—are generating new insights into how biological systems […]
Fine, I get it. “Prokaryotes” is a wrong taxonomic term. It’s wrong to lump bacteria and archaea together. That would be like saying “eutoichic” to lump all bacteria, archaea, plants and fungi together because they have cell walls. (“τοίχος” =wall in Greek. My Google Translate-foo is STRONG!) Still, there are so many things in common among […]
5,000 people in Grand Rapids Michigan USA were involved in this project. From the YouTube Comments: The Grand Rapids LipDub Video was filmed May 22nd, with 5,000 people, and involved a major shutdown of downtown Grand Rapids, which was filled with marching bands, parades, weddings, motorcades, bridges on fire, and helicopter take offs. It is […]
It is very annoying when you leave an ssh window open to your server with something running, go to lunch, come back to see this: Read from remote host my.stupid.server.uni.edu: Connection reset by peer. Connection to my.stupid.server.uni.edu closed. So here are two fixes. The first is server side. ssh to your server, and […]
Miami University has joined the National Genomics Research Initiative (NGRI) offered by HHMI Science Education Alliance (SEA) in their Phage Genomics course. The students go directly into the lab, participating in an authentic research experience. In a full-year academic course they: isolate and characterize bacterial viruses from their local soil prepare the viral DNA […]
Music: Ozric Tentacles. Featuring marine life. Mix by Bonci. Highlights: 0:33 Dolphin chasing ring bubble 2:02 Humpback(?) tailfin 2:58 Whale shark swimming with dolphins 3:44 & 4:07 Humpback baleen-syncing 4:11 Manta Ray 5:58 Human and dolphin kiss
For some time now, NERC has been providing us with Bio-Linux. If you don’t want to be bothered with installing all the essential bioinformatic software for your Ubuntu box, you can install Bio-Linux, either as a a Linux distro for installation from scratch, or as a set of packages for an already existing Debian or Ubuntu […]
Pink Floyd, with Syd Barrett.
The classic from Jefferson Airplane.
There are some interesting developments regarding the February outbreak of Legionelliosis which was traced to the Playboy mansion. Reminder: over 120 delegates of the DOMAINFest in Santa Monica, California came down with symptoms of a respiratory illness. The convention included a trip to the Playboy mansion, which later was suspected as the outbreak source. […]
William Shakespeare was baptized April 26, 1564. His birthday is traditionally commemorated on April 23 (incidentally, that is also the date of his death, in 1616). One interesting connection between Shakespeare and evolution was made by Richard Dawkins in his book The Blind Watchmaker: I am talking about the Weasel program. Weasel is an elegant illustration of the […]
I have been teaching a seminar course this semester, and through coaching students I think I learned more about what makes a good presentation than by reading “5 useful tips” type of articles or attending any number of “Improve Your Speaking Skills” classes. By coaching and watching students give research seminars I became acutely aware […]