Displaying the most recent of 472 posts written by

Iddo

2010 Homology High-Low Count

Previously on our show: ‘ Homology is Not a Quantitative Term‘. Homology is a drop-in replacement for the  “common ancestry”. It does not make any sense to say “low common ancestry” “high common ancestry” “micro common ancestry” or (egads!) “70% common ancestry”. You cannot be 70% homologous any more than you can be 70% pregnant. […]

Actually, Frank is the best dinosaur

Last week I posted a video of Dan Telfer arguing with his audience over who is the best dinosaur. Well,  The Black Keys, a blues band from Akron, Ohio came up with the best dinosaur. His name is Frank, and he is a Funkasaurus rex. See and, more importantly, listen for yourselves. Epic dino-slide is […]

Goat breath causes aphids to drop to the ground

Some headlines just write themselves… It has been known for some time that an approaching large herbivore causes aphids to abandon ship …err plant. Makes sense since, after all, there’s not much of a point in staying on the particular bit of shrubbery that will be consumed, lock, stalk and barrel by a ravenous forager. […]

Feynman uses chess to explain science

YouTube is chock-a-block with vids of Richard Feynman. I love the way he uses analogies to explain science. Here is one of my favorites, the discovery of natural laws as viewing a chess game.

And the best dinosaur is…

Not only the funniest, but also the best-informed rant on dinosaurs I have ever heard. OK, I only heard this one, but it cracked me up. NSFW language.

Baby Sloths

These are just ridiculously cute, I had to put them in. The sloth counterpart of Marilyn Manson appears at the end. A few interesting facts about sloths (edited from Wikipedia): Look at your forearm. Your hair grows towards your hand. In most mammals hair grows towards their extremities. In sloths, hair grows in the opposite […]

I can’t hear you, the bacteria are too noisy

Much too noisy. When looking at a population of genetically identical bacteria, the number of proteins they produce varies. The picture below shows the levels of one type of protein that was fused to a green fluorescent protein (so we can see it): clearly there is a variation in how much of the protein each […]

Arcade Fire: The Suburbs

Arcade Fire’s new album, The Suburbs is officially available today. Unofficially, there is already a fan video. Pretty cool. You can also listen to a stream of the entire album from NPR.

The Third Reviewer added Microbiology

The Third Reviewer is a website for those of us who would rather show up to a journal club late, beer in hand and in their pajamas. Which means basically 100% of all scientists I know. TTR pulls feeds form multiple journals, and posts the abstracts on its site for us to comment upon; anonymously […]

The Scope(s) of Substance

Bora Zivkovic, the BUCA (Best Universal Common Ancestor) of science bloggers has tagged this blog with with a Blog of Substance award. As a grateful recipient of this award I am obligated to do two things: 1. Sum up my blogging motivation, philosophy and experience in exactly 10 words. 2. Pass this award on to […]

Protein Function: how do we know that we know what we know?

The trouble with genomic sequencing, is that it is too cheap. Anyone that has a bit of extra cash laying around, you can scrape the bugs off your windshield, sequence them, and write a paper. Seriously? Yes, seriously now: as we sequence more and more genomes, our annotation tools cannot keep up with them. It’s […]

I’m Shipping up to Boston

Got back recently from the ISMB 2010 meeting in Boston. Five days amongst great science and scientists. I microblogged some of the talks on my FriendFeed channel, but definitely not all I attended. All the keynotes were microblogged by many of the attendees on the ISMB 2010 feed. An a conference is not just about […]

Stayin’ Alive

It’s been a while since I posted, mainly due to a convergence of conferences, work and grant writing. Not that the grant writing crunch is over yet, but I have to take a break, and prove I am still alive. Not only am I still alive, but apparently the Horton Plains slender Loris is still […]

What do you mean “Flash Gordon approaching”?

Just saw Flash Gordon (1980 movie) with my kids. I was about the same age when I saw it first. Being a child lacking any humor, and professing myself to be an avid and serious science fiction fan, I considered watching this campy over-the-top self-parodying science fiction movie a complete waste of time. OhOne and […]

This is what it smells like when mice cry

A pheromone in the male mouse’s tears causes a positive sexual response in female mice who smell it. The neural pathway was meticulously mapped in a study published today in Nature. Females ready to copulate arch their back and pose their behind when the pheromone, ESP1 is secreted. Females not ready to copulate usually just […]