tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-302149012024-03-07T16:12:01.966-08:00FlygalDiscussions of urban life from New York and the Bay Area, science, policy and pop cultureFlygalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13097501675484646396noreply@blogger.comBlogger23125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30214901.post-72226829503200644932007-11-17T19:00:00.000-08:002007-11-18T11:21:18.332-08:00Breakfast at Saul'sThis morning I grabbed my book and wandered down the street to my local Jewish Deli. I grabbed a booth as far away from the whimpering child and one table away from a man who looked a lot like a young Bill Cosby. The waiter poured me a cup of strong, hot coffee in one of those off-white ceramic mugs whose handles always seem to crowd my fingers and scorch my knuckles. I ordered the eggs and onions with a side of hash browns and an onion bagel with cream cheese.<br /><br />The only difference in my routine? I did all this in Berkeley, California not Brooklyn, New York.<br /><br />I've been casting about for how best to transition Flygal76 from a blog about life in New York City to one about life in the Bay Area of California... and this morning I realized that some things, like brunch at your local Jewish Deli, just transition themselves!<br /><br />I mean, it's not like I'm moving to a farm in Nebraska (thank God), Berkeley's a lot like Park Slope, Brooklyn: lots of kids and parents; lots of places to eat good food; plenty of community-oriented people; and did I mention the good food?<br /><br />Life in Berkeley differs from Brooklyn in some important respects though: my commute is 20 minutes walking instead of 45 minutes on the subway so no more evil subway eye (yea!); no more encounters with tragic hipsters in Union Square subway station, the people I encounter on my commute now are Cal students and those Berkeley residents who make their home on Shattuck Ave (though 7:45 AM is a bit early for both).<br /><br />Overall, life is pretty good so far. I can walk to the Cheeseboard (a worker owned cooperative that sells cheese (natch) and fancy-pants pizza); the original Peet's Coffee; Love at First Bite, a cupcake shop with all the flavor and none of the celebrity of Magnolia; and three grocery stores that sell, natural, organic free-range, free-love goodies at a fraction of the price of "Gross-tedes" and "Food Extortion" in New York.<br /><br />I have a garden, as the Brits would say, so I'm planting native California plants in the hopes that the hummingbirds and butterflies I've seen buzzing around others' gardens will find their way into mine and entertain me and my cat. Gone are the fire escape gardens with under watered plants turned to ashtrays.<br /><br />I even have a dishwasher, washer and dryer. It's like moving into the Barbie Dream House of my Youth... I even have a Ken arriving in 5 days!<br /><br />Despite my initial euphoria, I'm sure that the Bay Area with its smug environmentalism, and liberalism will get on this jaded east coaster's nerves. So if my first Pollyanna-ish post disappoints you, stay tuned, I'm sure I'll return to the snarky posts of yore.Flygalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13097501675484646396noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30214901.post-18995766396621430202007-08-22T12:43:00.000-07:002007-08-22T13:17:19.798-07:00News Flash: Too many Biomed Scientists, Not Enough Jobs<span style="font-family:arial;">I've got to hand it to <em>Nature Magazine</em>, intrepid journal that it is, breaking open a heretofore unheard of story: grad schools, particularly in the biomedical sciences, are training too many grad students; this has led to a surge in biomedical postdocs but, amazingly, the number of tenured faculty positions has not concomitantly risen...</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">If this is news to you as well, then welcome to life outside that rock you were living under.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">In today's </span><a href="http://eresources.library.mssm.edu:2106/nature/journal/v448/n7156/index.html"><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>Nature Magazine</em> </span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">(email me if you aren't attached to an institution that has a subscription and I'll send you the article) Erika Check discussed a recent Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (</span><span style="font-family:arial;">FASEB) <a href="http://http//opa.faseb.org/pages/PolicyIssues/training_datappt.htm">publication</a> </span><span style="font-family:arial;">that lays out the bad news in easy-to-understand graphs and charts. I seriously have to hand it to Erika; she's been one of the few science writers to discuss the ugly truth: we're training too many scientists for the current number of academic jobs and level of federal funding available. I truly look forward to reading her well-researched, balanced articles each week.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I haven't fully digested the FASEB report yet, but the news isn't good. They basically show that grad school matriculation has gone up (particularly among non-residents) but that GRE scores haven't. So no arguing that there are more qualified applicants than in the 1970's... grad schools have just become big PhD factories. (Note: Anyone interested in the topic of S&E graduate education should read Goldman and Massy's 2000 book by the same name <em>The PhD Factory: Training and Employment of Science and Engineering Doctorates in the United States</em>)</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The FASEB report further states that NIH funding of training grants for grad students and postdocs has gone down while demand for these grants has gone up. So we're training more scientists but the money is not coming from training grants but from <em>research grants</em>. This may seem like a negligible difference unless you've ever been tethered to the bench by a tyrannical boss supporting you off of his or her research grant. Sadly, not much training happens in these situations.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Ah, but what to do? NIH has already been given its Christmas bonus in the form of a budget doubling between 1999 and 2003. And much like the grasshopper in the fable of the Grasshopper and the Ant, most of the money from the budget doubling was frittered away like a summer afternoon. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">But here's the real news flash: it's beginning to get a little chilly, and the worst is still yet to come.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Thank God I left the bench.</span>Flygalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13097501675484646396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30214901.post-24792913398803800932007-08-20T17:33:00.000-07:002007-08-20T17:34:06.326-07:00I'm a 20-sided Die!<a href="http://dicepool.com/catalog/quiz.php"><br /><br /><img src="http://dicepool.com/catalog/images/splats/friendly.jpg" height="200px" width="400px" alt="I am a d20"/></a><br /><br /><p><a href="http://dicepool.com/catalog/quiz.php">Take the quiz at dicepool.com</a></p>Flygalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13097501675484646396noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30214901.post-56115594149052297912007-05-11T21:56:00.000-07:002007-05-11T10:34:33.061-07:00Attention hipsters<div><span style="font-family:arial;">The great thing about having a blog is that I can rant as much as I want when I want and where I want (assuming it's close to a computer). I invoke this privilege today to recount my commuting experience this morning and to issue advice to all those tragically hip New Yorkers who cross my path.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">I normally don't leave the confines of the N train during the morning rush until my appointed stop, but this morning, in an effort to shop at Trader Joe's before the hoards descended upon it, I hopped off the train at Union Square just after 9:00 AM.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Union Square, where the yellow trains, green trains and grey L train converge, is a mad house at any time of day and is especially intimidating at 9:00 AM when all the people with "serious jobs" have been at work for an hour or more and those left commuting are the aimless, oblivious commuters who don't have to be at work till 9:30 or 10:00.</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> (Apologies to those diligent commuters with flexible schedules for lumping you into the latter category.)</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">It was in this setting that I encountered my first tragic hipster of the day. I more wove around him than encountered him, really, seeing as how he was WANDERING AIMLESSLY ON THE SUBWAY PLATFORM! Come on! You're in the subway station, that implies intent to RIDE A SUBWAY TRAIN. You've got the express to your right, the local to the left, JUST PICK ONE AND GET OUT OF MY F***ING WAY!</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Of course I said none of this, being the gentile southern lady I am (heh). I just grumbled about f***ing hipsters and went on my way. But thinking back on this guy I'm really bugged by the pervasive trait that all the tragic hipsters seem to share: those enormous f***ing aviator sunglasses. Have you noticed that irrespective of weather, temperature, and most annoyingly, location, the aviators are always donned, the hair is always shaggy and those retarded looking military hats are always on their heads (except when replaced by the equally annoying newsboy hats).</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Maybe that's why this poor kid was wandering aimlessly on the Union Square platform, he couldn't see through his hip yet impractical sunglasses to determine which train he should get on. Was that it? Or was it that he had the sunglasses on to hide his bloodshot eyes from the harsh neon lights of the subway platform?</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Either way, hipsters of New York, let's be practical. You don't live in Miami, LA, San Tropez or any of the other well-lit destinations that might necessitate consistent wearing of aviator sunglasses. You live in New York City where 7 million people miraculously manage to live together without doing each other serious bodily harm (at least not on a regular basis). And you, hip though you are, must do your part to maintain this ecosystem. </span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;">So while I realize that you take a great deal of pride in your appearance and have invested heavily in your plaid and corduroy wardrobe, please think for a moment about how your utter oblivion to the world around you may piss off those of us who are not quite as hip as you.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;">And take off your sunglasses inside for f**k's sake. </span><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5063357159536671026" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJSs3gyRdtt5YPfBgFrKEFOW9Qyr3qWBIKA3GZH8je500VTsmsH4Oe9YMFD8j48PSHrpVdB0PHaFrBg7JpOWYxuZquCIji9owdumTvt2dAmzmBi5t5cdzSipcqJ_0OBWbVQZDR9A/s400/hipster.jpg" border="0" /></div><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Thanks to <em>The Fed</em>, Columbia's subversive newspaper, for the hipster guide. It's worth looking at the full size picture </span><a href="http://www.columbia.edu/cu/thefed/v2/archives/19/19.3/images/hipster.jpg"><span style="font-family:Arial;">here</span></a><span style="font-family:Arial;">.</span>Flygalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13097501675484646396noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30214901.post-23178116521923685412007-05-10T19:00:00.000-07:002007-05-11T10:00:43.268-07:00City Slalom<span style="font-family:arial;">Monday's </span><a href="http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2007/05/i_cant_believe_its_science_for_33.php"><span style="font-family:arial;">I Can't Believe It's Science</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> discussed a few recent "science-ish" articles including one by Richard Wiseman, a University of Hertfordshire psychologist, that found world-wide walking speeds have increased since the last such study in 1997. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I have no trouble believing that in our increasingly 24/7 society, where we're multitasking and trying to be in 3 places at once ,we've picked up the pace and are getting there faster than we did just 10 years ago. After all, 10 years ago, cell phones were big clunky things, blackberries were fruit that you ate and email was only good for sending around unix-based lewd jokes, or that 's what it was used for at my college at least... I feel so old.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">The part of the article that surprised me was that New York City was only the 6th fastest city in the world. Working in midtown I think that we're fairly fast walkers, especially in the Rockefeller Concourse... if you're not careful you'll get flattened by some snooty-looking ad executive wearing 4 inch heels and through some miracle of biomechanics power walking to get to where ever ad executives have to go.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">So although I was first surprised that Singapore (really? Singapore? Maybe they really are an Asian Tiger force to be reckoned with like <em>The Economist</em> says... those fast walking Singhs) had garnered first place, I soon recalled that not all those who walk in New York are (a) New Yorkers and (b) fast walkers.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ1hUB_cILoMG3F5_U9JqGY7RsdgmRH288FDgOq0QMtiJSmV9f6mdeaS5dN6RPdILx-yf1KUMyoACm8xlB3VzTlVhblgtoRRu1BCFZg_cC1dbB0JqRhgwppjumGEXjqWIL50F2fQ/s1600-h/tony.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5063343342626879778" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ1hUB_cILoMG3F5_U9JqGY7RsdgmRH288FDgOq0QMtiJSmV9f6mdeaS5dN6RPdILx-yf1KUMyoACm8xlB3VzTlVhblgtoRRu1BCFZg_cC1dbB0JqRhgwppjumGEXjqWIL50F2fQ/s320/tony.jpg" border="0" /></a>To address these annoyingly slow walkers, Time Out New York, the obsessive guide to compulsive entertainment, took matters into their own hands. Dressing up like <a href="http://www.timeout.com/newyork/Details.do?page=1&xyurl=xyl://TONYWebArticles1/606/features/walk_of_shame.xml">oversexed meter maids</a>, they handed out tickets to individuals guilty of the following infractions:</span><br /><ul><li><span style="font-family:Arial;">Walking too slowly in a crowded area</span></li><li><span style="font-family:Arial;">Stopping in an inconvenient place</span></li><li><span style="font-family:Arial;">Blocking pedestrian traffic by walking side by side in a group of three or more</span></li><li><span style="font-family:Arial;">Irritating use of cell phone</span></li><li><span style="font-family:Arial;">Stopping at the top of the stairs in a subway station (Great quote from the article: "Where is Wooster? Hint: not at the top of the stairs")</span></li><li><span style="font-family:Arial;">Other (I think this category could be extended to the tourists who sling their H&M bags willy-nilly and who are generally recipients of the evil sidewalk eye*)</span></li></ul><p><span style="font-family:Arial;">It seems clear to me that in order to be contenders for 2017's award for fastest walking city, New Yorkers are going to have to get serious about enforcement of the afore mentioned moving (or failure to move) violations. You can download your own spiffy citations like the one pictured at the link above. So get out there and show those annoying foot draggers that we won't stand for their leisurely strolls down 5th Avenue, or any other avenue!</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Arial;">*see <a href="http://flygal76.blogspot.com/2006/11/commuter-profiling.html">evil subway eye</a></span></p>Flygalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13097501675484646396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30214901.post-16907060083292214072007-05-01T05:00:00.000-07:002007-05-01T13:01:07.951-07:00Always Pee Where You PayToday's Science Times <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/01/health/01brod.html?ref=science">(A Simple Need, All Too Often Unmet)</a> once again delivers helpful advice to us big apple dwellers. For the author, Jane Brody, and many other New Yorkers have often found themselves in need of a restroom at an inconvenient time or in an inconvenient place, this article is truly a public service.<br /><br />The article also reminded me of wise words my aunt, a long time resident of Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, gave me during my early visits to New York: "Always pee where you pay." Brody lists a smattering of likely venues for public toilets in New York, but neglects to encourage paying customers to linger for an extra 2 minutes that can mean the difference between comfort and urgency. My aunt, on the other hand, would encourage us to "just try" to pee before leaving whatever eating establishment, museum or shop where money had exchanged hands. It's a handy phrase that I consider to be some of the best life advice I've ever received.<br /><br />The most cruel and discouraging time to really have to pee, though, might be on a weekend afternoon whilst touring the city's finer drinking establishments. Then one must not only consider the lack of public restrooms, but also the famous "breaking of the seal" physiological response to having consumed lots of beer.<br /><br />Actually, I have no idea whether this response is psychological or whether it actually has some physiological basis, but I do know that no matter how long I've been doing 18 oz curls, after I take an initial potty break, I have to pee like every half an hour thereafter. This becomes very cumbersome if I'm sitting on the inside of a booth, or worse if I happen to be unaccompanied at the time by nought but lots of shopping bags.<br /><br />So hats off to Brody for pointing out a pervasive public health concern for New Yorkers, but remember kids, for a truly great New York City pub crawl, Always Pee Where you Pay and Don't Break the Seal!<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/01/health/01brod.html?ref=science"></a>Flygalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13097501675484646396noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30214901.post-60415223041307932592007-04-26T18:00:00.000-07:002007-04-26T11:17:58.704-07:00Better Drinking through Science<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEjk7WtBMRpGjUsfEX2UqgJ2AmIV6IEHzO9IPUN5w8tUSUqxfoOh_lMnQ9-tkHNiqazTODIz374okzfrtT-fL7Qit7wAZHhY00q6Ex3rliOuLcrPVrxLbZwDoEqWX-JVoMDJT7Ug/s1600-h/guiness.jpg"><span style="font-family:arial;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5057795821133445378" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEjk7WtBMRpGjUsfEX2UqgJ2AmIV6IEHzO9IPUN5w8tUSUqxfoOh_lMnQ9-tkHNiqazTODIz374okzfrtT-fL7Qit7wAZHhY00q6Ex3rliOuLcrPVrxLbZwDoEqWX-JVoMDJT7Ug/s320/guiness.jpg" border="0" /></span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">Now this is the kind of science we should be supporting more of! According to </span><a href="http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2007/04/head_start_scientists_crack_be.php"><span style="font-family:arial;">Seed Magazine</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, Robert MacPherson, a mathematician at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, and David Srolovitz, a physicist at Yeshiva University, New York have discovered why some beers holds their head and others do not.<br /><br />Surprisingly, the degree to which a beer holds its head is not directly correlated to the blood alcohol content of the beer's dispenser, as I had always suspected. But, according to <em>Seed Magazine</em>:<br /><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><br /><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">"Beer foam is a microstructure with complex interfaces. In other words: a cellular structure comprising networks of gas-filled bubbles separated by liquid.<br /><br />The walls of these bubbles move as a result of surface tension—and the speed at which they move is related to the curvature of the bubbles. As a result of this movement, the bubbles merge and the structure coarsens,” meaning that the foam settles and eventually disappears."<br /></span></blockquote><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Ostensibly, the difference in Lager and Stout, aside from the obvious differences in taste, lies in variations created either by the liquid surrounding the bubbles or by the gas filling the bubbles. My money's on the gas since I know (from meticulous pub-based research) that Guinness taps require a nitrogen source and other beer taps just require regular carbon dioxide.<br /><br />On a related note, just to show you the difference between <em>Nature</em>, where MacPherson and Srolovitz's work was published yesterday and <em>Seed Magazine</em> where I just read about their paper, I saw the citation below on my weekly email table of contents from Nature and thought, "Yawn, who <em>cares</em> about von Neuman relations and microstructures." Of course I failed to read the last line in the summary. Contrast that with Seed's catchy headline, <a href="http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2007/04/head_start_scientists_crack_be.php">"Head Start: Scientists Crack Beer-Froth Enigma,"</a> all I can say is "thank God for science writers, <em>Nature </em>should consider hiring some!"<br /></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><strong>To recap:</strong></span><br /><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Guiness and Budweiser are inherently different</p><br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><strong>Boring:</strong></span><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span></strong><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">"The von Neumann relation generalized to coarsening of three-dimensional microstructures"</span><br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;">(<em>Nature</em> Volume 446 Number 7139 p1053)<br /></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Over 50 years ago, von Neumann derived an exact formula for the growth rate of a cell in a two-dimensional cellular structure. Now the extension of this result into three (and higher) dimensions has been found. <strong><span style="color:#ff0000;">The formula could lead to predictive models for various industrial and commercial processing scenarios, such as controlling the head on a pint of beer.</span></strong><br />Robert D. MacPherson and David J. Srolovitz</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><strong>Cool:</strong></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><strong></strong></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxUyI_Domzx3vGTC9RKRPATqgJV6SDL5Gqf1PJ59oPRNX5wTOOWh0FWpjUPTeUI0eCgl-XUkOtmNll8dRXjd9cA0zPyQ9MyN7UZVV1tOTCNL6QDbuznDuPG8RfJ3G9jf8x2V43Cw/s1600-h/seed.bmp"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5057801602159425810" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxUyI_Domzx3vGTC9RKRPATqgJV6SDL5Gqf1PJ59oPRNX5wTOOWh0FWpjUPTeUI0eCgl-XUkOtmNll8dRXjd9cA0zPyQ9MyN7UZVV1tOTCNL6QDbuznDuPG8RfJ3G9jf8x2V43Cw/s320/seed.bmp" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span>Flygalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13097501675484646396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30214901.post-80473728641376613802007-04-26T05:00:00.000-07:002007-04-26T08:09:59.660-07:00Permanent rest stop for Drive<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPWGBq3_wXNZIS1E0xxodTFOxA3xbzxKIyrUD5OVSysbcI-uM9IVIQxCMAyJ-s0rAiyyhRauF5JwwHys-K9bp3Fdc_Z7Ke9dy6neGDrJ7v2nd9mH0nL7Bnb7hIJH0Q6B1gk_rGvA/s1600-h/drive.jpg"><span style="font-family:arial;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5057746635167971570" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPWGBq3_wXNZIS1E0xxodTFOxA3xbzxKIyrUD5OVSysbcI-uM9IVIQxCMAyJ-s0rAiyyhRauF5JwwHys-K9bp3Fdc_Z7Ke9dy6neGDrJ7v2nd9mH0nL7Bnb7hIJH0Q6B1gk_rGvA/s320/drive.jpg" border="0" /></span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">I knew it was too good to be true. The creative genius behind <em>Angel</em>, <em>Firefly</em> (no not Joss) and the little-known <em>Wonderfall</em>s, <a href="http://www.timminear.net/">Tim Minear</a>, has once again been left high and dry by Fox.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I anticipated <em>Drive's</em> premiere for months before it finally aired in a two-part season premiere on April 15th. It's ratings were not great but I held out hope that once it settled into its usual Monday night at 8 PM slot that things would improve.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Disappointingly, however, the ratings did not improve and after just 4 episodes, Fox cancelled the series. I enjoyed the four episodes and was hooked by the high speed chases in the mysterious, secret, illegal, cross country road race. And <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0277213/">Nathan Fillion</a> is hot. </span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">The curious thing about <em>Drive</em> is not that it was cancelled, good well-written television is almost always replaced by inane reality TV these days, but that fans seemed to know from the beginning that it would be cancelled.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Reading postings at <a href="http://whedonesque.com/">Whedonesque </a>and <a href="http://www.tvsquad.com/">TV Squad </a>on April 16th revealed that fans were cautious about becoming too attached to the show. After Minear's experiences with <em>Firefly</em> and <em>Wonderfalls</em> <a href="http://interplanetsarah.blogspot.com/">InterplanetSarah </a>even likened Tim and Fox's relationship to Charlie Brown and Lucy with the football. Like Lucy, Fox keeps pulling Tim's shows away at the last minute.</span> <span style="font-family:arial;">To give Fox credit, though, they did a good job advertising <em>Drive</em> and, unlile <em>Firefly</em>, didn't premiere it on Friday night.<br /></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Much as I lament the loss of a show that I enjoyed (albeit briefly) I do wonder whether the networks made the only rational decision by cancelling a show with low ratings to avoid losing advertisers' dollars.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">While I don't pretend to know how accurate Nielsen ratings are at predicting the actual viewership of a show, they do appear to be the only game in town. If the network execs are beholden to these ratings to determine which programs are revenue generating, then we shouldn't blame the network execs, but instead the Nielsen rating system for the loss of favorite shows.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Perhaps in addition to recruiting creative talent to write, direct and act in TV shows, we should also find additional ways to measure the viewership of these shows. We've seen that if Nielsen is to be believed, then the U.S. wants to watch trashy reality TV shows with no redeeming social value. This American TV consumer, at least, would rather turn the television off than watch the search for the next Pussy Cat Doll.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span>Flygalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13097501675484646396noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30214901.post-72565014979511485412007-04-03T20:00:00.000-07:002007-04-03T13:35:38.345-07:00Cybertwin<span style="font-family:arial;">So if you've scrolled down to the bottom of my blog lately you've probably noticed all the crap I have pasted down there.<br /><br />In particular you may be wondering what the Cybertwin is all about. Well, try talking to it and find out! I'm kind of curious too. I spent about 45 minutes answering random questions in the hopes that when you talk to it it'll be entertaining and not very much like talking to me.<br /><br />Here's an example of a recent conversation I had with my cyber twin (my input is listed as "you" the cybertwin is labeled "Flygal"):<span style="font-family:Arial;"><br /><blockquote><strong>You</strong>: Hello<br /><strong>Flygal</strong>: Hi there!<br /><strong>You</strong>: You're hot<br /><strong>Flygal</strong>: Hmm, time to get that perscription checked.<br /><strong>You</strong>: What's your name?<br /><strong>Flygal</strong>: Flygal76<br /><strong>You</strong>: What's your real name?<br /><strong>Flygal</strong>: Flygalerina<br /><strong>You</strong>: What do you enjoy doing?<br /><strong>Flygal</strong>: play with my cat<br /><strong>You</strong>: What kind of cat do you have?<br /><strong>Flygal</strong>: Any that my owner Flygal teaches me to.<br /><strong>You</strong>: That's nice<br /><strong>Flygal</strong>: Are you being sarcastic?<br /><strong>You</strong>: No, I'm being kind. I really like you.<br /><strong>Flygal</strong>: do you really vtc128?<br /><strong>You</strong>: yes, i want to call you later<br /><strong>Flygal</strong>: The reason why people are always wishing for what they<br />don't have, is that there is nothing else to wish for - Houghton Line<br /><strong>You</strong>: That's really deep.<br /><strong>Flygal</strong>: Thanks for the explanation.</blockquote><p><br /></span><span style="font-family:Arial;">I found it hilarious... I think I could entertain myself all day! Let me know if you have a Cybertwin and I'll go chat with it!</span></p></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></blockquote><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></blockquote><blockquote></span></blockquote><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span>Flygalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13097501675484646396noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30214901.post-55865086420695765542007-04-03T05:00:00.000-07:002007-04-03T09:23:34.645-07:00Stanford, Schmanford!<span style="font-family:arial;">Who needs to move their lab to California now that New York's approved stem cell funding? As reported yesterday in </span><a href="http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2007/402/4?rss=1"><span style="font-family:arial;">ScienceNOW</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> (the petulant child of science journalism most recently overheard tantruming, "I want my science and I want it NOW!") on Friday March 31st, with moments to spare before FY08 began, NY state legislators passed the state's budget including 100 million dollars for stem cell research in New York state.<br /><br />Why New York state begins its fiscal year in April, I don't understand, probably along the same lines as why commuters must listen to their iPods at levels audible to passengers around them. Annoying, but in the end only hurting themselves.<br /><br />So what does the 100 million dollars mean for New York researchers? Mainly, it means that because of lack of federal funding, the U.S. will continue to develop patchwork funding and therefore uneven regulatory policy for stem cell research. This is concerning because although funding stem cell research on a state-by-state basis may alleviate the short-term problem of low public funding for this research, it ignores the long-term problem that the U.S., as a nation, is rendering itself uncompetitive with other countries who have approved government funds for stem cell research country-wide.<br /><br />If all researchers who wanted to conduct research on human embryonic stem (ES) cells resided in California, New Jersey, New York and a few others who are considering allocating state funds to supporting this research, there would be no problem. However, since biomedical research takes place in virtually every state in the nation and stem ce</span><span style="font-family:arial;">ll researchers are the new "It Scientists" this research should be happening everywhere. Though due to the lack of federal funding, it can only happen where state or private monies are available. This gives certain states a competitive advantage, but may hinders research cooperation overall.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">To take a step back, the national policy on stem cell research was set by President Bush by Executive Order (EO) in August 2001 when he <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/08/20010809-2.html">said </a>that existing human ES cell lines could be used for government funded research but that no newly created stem cell lines could be used for <em>federally funded </em>research.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">There were two main problems with this approach. The first was that <em>most</em> biomedical research is federally funded. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) boasts a 28 billion dollar a year budget including 15 million to support biomedical research at extramural (outside of the NIH campus). Additionally most academic researchers at top-tier research institutions receive most of their funding from the NIH. So by disallowing research using federal funds on newly created stem cell lines, the president was essentially putting a stop to research on new stem cell lines. Since then, new mechanisms of private funding for stem cell research have emerged, but no where near the scale of NIH funding.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">The second problem with Bush's 2001 EO approach was that the existing human embryonic stem cell lines were no great shakes. Before researchers purified human ES cells, they started with a more laboratory friendly mammalian system, and purified Murine (mouse) ES cells. ES cells can't survive on their own, however, and must be grown on a so-called "feeder layer" of cells that provide nutrients and support to the ES cells. Since Murine ES cells were first purified, Murine feeder layers were readily available to provide support to the first human ES cells purified. At the time that Bush announced his 2001 EO, the only human ES cells available were grown on Murine feeder cells and thus not a therapeutically useful human ES source. (Why? because mice aren't people... nuff said)</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">So to bring the discussion back around to New York State's well-intentioned 100 million Empire State Stem Cell Fund, I say kudos to New York State, your stem cell researchers won't defect across the Hudson to New Jersey or across the country to California.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">But the overarching problem hasn't been solved. In the absence of a permissive federal policy on funding human ES cell research, the patchwork state-by-state regulation discourages collaboration and may end up hampering research. </span>Flygalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13097501675484646396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30214901.post-68690863775911611612007-03-27T13:35:00.000-07:002007-03-27T13:38:24.480-07:00Dark Matter<span style="font-family:arial;">I love the Science Times. If it weren't for the newsprint that gets all over my fingers and adds to the general feeling of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">disgustingness</span> I have when I arrive at work I would pick it up every Tuesday on my way to the subway.<br /><br />Instead I try to read it online, and today I'm glad that I did. </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/27/science/27dark.html?ref=science"><span style="font-family:arial;">This article</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> discussing what happens when grad students go crazy and kill their professors highlights the uncomfortable experience of being beholden to your advisor and having your success, and at times entire happiness, wrapped up in his or her approval.<br /><br />And <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">advisers</span> aren't always the most humble or encouraging of individuals. One faculty member I knew in grad school would force his students to prepare posters for national meetings and departmental retreats on nights and weekends and then would randomly pull their presentations from the agenda with little or no explanation. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The sad part? He was a really nice guy to the grad students who weren't in his lab; we had no idea what a jerk he was until one of our classmates joined his lab. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The really sad part? He was given tenure and continues to oppress and mistreat his lab members to this day.<br /><br />If <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">the</span> tenure system rewards people like that, why would someone who's decent and treats his or her students well ever want to be a faculty member? Search me! But luckily I worked with one.<br /><br />My advisor was a relatively new faculty member when I joined her lab in <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">the</span> last <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">millennium</span>. She got to know her lab members, invited us to her house for parties and took us out for lunches to celebrate successful paper and grant submissions.<br /><br />But she's definitely in the minority, though for the life of me I can't understand why. Much as I was troubled by the reports of violence against PhD advisers in the Times article today, after viewing life in other labs at my graduate school and others, I think the tenure system provides no incentive to treat graduate students any better.</span>Flygalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13097501675484646396noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30214901.post-11510998170542943852007-02-27T16:30:00.000-08:002007-02-27T11:28:07.025-08:00Badges? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Badges!<span style="font-family:arial;">Once again, </span><a href="http://interplanetsarah.blogspot.com/"><span style="font-family:arial;">Interplanetsarah </span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">has provided me with a funny take on science and scientists. What if, instead of publishing papers in peer-reviewed journals, we had to accrue a number of merit badges in order to advance to the next stage of our career?<br /><br />The </span><a href="http://scq.ubc.ca/sciencescouts/#badges"><span style="font-family:arial;">Order of the Science Scouts of Exemplary Repute and Above Average Physique</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> has provided a mechanism to do just that. I've earned a number of these badges, but share a few anecdotes on my favorites here.<br /><br /><br /></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgslEyb47vpOFBWD03KCgw45tv57wxb0-qdSNKsuGapZvTHSxtvxHukyPyXw2nw9W398D2Ux_mnsF7NxnuxswVotLk7TcSgl30ceDAMCQTEtlbl_LgSTBqP1Xd9VJ7UHGk4uvT0IA/s1600-h/01talk.jpg"><span style="font-family:arial;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5036291890528088338" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgslEyb47vpOFBWD03KCgw45tv57wxb0-qdSNKsuGapZvTHSxtvxHukyPyXw2nw9W398D2Ux_mnsF7NxnuxswVotLk7TcSgl30ceDAMCQTEtlbl_LgSTBqP1Xd9VJ7UHGk4uvT0IA/s320/01talk.jpg" border="0" /></span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">The "talking science badge" goes hand-in hand with the </span><a href="http://scq.ubc.ca/sciencescouts/index.html#6"><span style="font-family:arial;">blogging science</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> badge for me. A favorite story about explaining science to non-scientists comes from the 2003 <em>Drosophila</em> Annual Meeting that was held in Chicago. As thousands of <em>Drosophila</em> biologists descended upon the hotel, two business types sat in the hotel bar looking slightly bewildered. Being the friendly gal that I am, I said "Hello" giving them the opportunity to ask just what the heck these badly dressed people were doing wandering around the hotel wearing badges decorated with flies? I explained that the flies were <em>Drosophila melanogaster </em>and that they were one of the oldest and most effective model organisms around. I explain that scientists at this meeting were studying everything from Diabetes to Neuron Regeneration to Cancer. They nodded, looking around with a new appreciation for the crowd surrounding them (because if <em>Drosophila </em>biologists know how to do anything, it's congregate at a bar!). I like to think that informal conversations like that one are just as helpful as Scientific American or Nova.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKGJnyAsSr-9ehlLOCUcwUB5wJmJGtlTHP4IPNYWcWfmhXtEPEveA8VwvxHqOjK6lKdEZv2BbwuTJCGcnvjKE2QNnDHTNOpSPanj_AwTiDe38FCwl1Ckwx8MHZGGnyGcjpH_M6kg/s1600-h/11ninja.jpg"><span style="font-family:arial;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5036294141090951458" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKGJnyAsSr-9ehlLOCUcwUB5wJmJGtlTHP4IPNYWcWfmhXtEPEveA8VwvxHqOjK6lKdEZv2BbwuTJCGcnvjKE2QNnDHTNOpSPanj_AwTiDe38FCwl1Ckwx8MHZGGnyGcjpH_M6kg/s320/11ninja.jpg" border="0" /></span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">The "I may look like a scientist but I'm actually also a ninja" badge is one that every scientist should aspire to hold, particularly since it is purported to be lethal in combination with the </span><a href="http://www2.blogger.com/(http://scq.ubc.ca/sciencescouts/index.html#10)"><span style="font-family:arial;">"destroyer of quackery" badge</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. While the badge is aimed at those who manage to seek out and dispel junk science masquerading as real science, I've actually been recruited to be a ninja... <em>a</em> <em>science policy ninja</em>! The details are unimportant and too closely tied to my identity, which I try to keep well-separated from this blog, but the basic story was this: when I was working in a federal agency in Washington, DC, the deputy director of a neighboring office complained about his neighbor who kept taking the trash out at ungodly hours and banging around in the alley that their houses shared. So the deputy director proposed that we make like ninjas and steal his neighbor's garbage cans. We never did, but the ninja joke was a running one between us. Does that count? I think so!</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Finally, kudos to David Ng, creator of the OSSERAAP and author of the hilarious and (in my mind) unoffensive (others disagree) </span><a href="http://www.inklingmagazine.com/articles/a-gap-ad-celebrity-speaks-to-a-geneticist/"><span style="font-family:arial;">Jeans Versus Genes: the Ultimate Scientific Discourse</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">.<br /></span></p><span style="font-family:arial;"></span>Flygalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13097501675484646396noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30214901.post-68187012905308186472007-01-30T19:00:00.000-08:002007-01-30T13:15:43.580-08:00Wedding Planning: A Bridal Registry for Murder Weapons<div><span style="font-family:arial;">My boyfriend and I got engaged between Christmas and New Year’s and being the practical, career-driven type, we sensibly decided to punt the whole wedding planning effort until we had lined up our next jobs (we’re both in transition this year). Meanwhile, all of our friends and loved ones who have been waiting expectantly for years for us to decide to get hitched couldn’t wait to send cards with well wishes and in some cases, engagement gifts.<br /><br />This is where announcing an engagement without a solid idea of when you’re getting married becomes a problem. People start to ask when you’re getting married, (we’ll be the first to know that, thank you) where you want to honeymoon, (seriously? Can’t we find new jobs first?) and, worst of all, when you’re having kids (come on! We have a cat and 8 plants, isn’t that enough?).<br /><br />So when my mother asked us, on behalf of a friend, whether we had decided what kind of crystal we’d like, my fiancé and I decided to look online at Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s to see what fabulous options we had to choose from. First we had to get past the fact that the Macy’s website totally sucks and for some reason groups crystal by what’s on sale rather than by designer or by type of design. We attempted to browse their selection online but quickly realized that it was one of those “if you don’t know what you’re looking for, you aren’t going to find it” web experiences which is always frustrating.<br /><br />The Bloomingdale’s website was much better organized, though we realized that we had no idea what the pieces actually looked like, as lighting and the inability to zoom in on many of them left us wondering whether the crystal was really “smoky” or whether the picture was taken in low light.<br /><br />After about an hour of poking around on the web, we decided that we really needed to visit the crystal department of these stores to see and hold the actual pieces. We knew that we both liked the wine glasses with big bowls (suitable for snobbishly swirling red wine and checking out its “legs”) and thought that a decorative stem would be preferable to the classic cut crystal goblets our mothers had.<br /><br />So after work we set off for the crystal department of Macy’s. We reasoned that since Macy’s had recently purchased every single other department store in the United States except Bloomingdale’s our wedding guests might have better access to it than to Bloomie’s. Plus, I’m from the South and thought that there was something pretentious about registering at Bloomingdale’s. Most of the weddings down South that I’ve been to register at sensible places like Belk or Target – Crate and Barrel is also acceptable though they have low market penetration outside of big cities like Raleigh and Charlotte. Plus, Bloomingdale’s calls up visions of fur-clad women with names like Mitzy and Buffy who have lunch at the Waldorf before stopping by Bloomie’s to pick out 1000 count Egyptian Cotton sheets for the maid’s quarters.<br /><br />I’ll probably have to revise this particular view of Bloomingdale’s in light of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, but I’ll get to that later. First, the crystal department at Macy’s.<br /><br />After the holiday crush I experienced last month, our Monday night expedition to Macy’s was refreshingly calm. A few folks wandered through, glancing at the post-Christmas, Post-Martin Luther King Day, Pre-President’s Day sale items. It was freezing outside, so most of them were probably just been getting out of the cold, I don’t think the sales were that great.<br /><br />We rode the escalators up past the perfume and handbags, past the non-designer women’s apparel, through the designer women’s apparel, past the shoes, the bedding (oops, almost thought crystal was in with bedding but it’s SO NOT), though the children’s clothes and at last to the tippy-top of Macy’s where we found the crystal and china section.<br /><br />The wedding and gift registry kiosk was helpfully located in the center of the crystal/china department and all the other couples were armed with a barcode readers and were scanning in items for their registries. My fiancé and I, only planning for a reconnaissance mission, decided to skip the scanner and look at what Macy’s had to offer before committing to a registry there.<br /><br />One thing I’ll say for Macy’s brick and mortar is that it’s much better organized than the web site. We browsed various designers: Waterford, Swarovski, Vera Wang for Waterford, Kate Spade for Waterford… I found myself reminiscing about when Kate Spade and Vera Wang had only designed apparel, ah, the good old days. We found some hideous things and some beautiful things, some reasonable things and some crazy-expensive things ($200 for a wine glass? Are you sure it’s not made of diamonds?) when suddenly we found… murder weapons.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwcMjsLY03oQAtTbml0gvyTZtIiMilFv31HrMmwx62L4cPLUSro-9QkyEjg8_f_uLM2jYiAMJl6GU8csusER2Bt7WhA6-hwbAINpIPQfxsVv4KVRJI67Oz8arvVmunxszC-IzLoA/s1600-h/murder+by+crystal.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5025934741600911890" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwcMjsLY03oQAtTbml0gvyTZtIiMilFv31HrMmwx62L4cPLUSro-9QkyEjg8_f_uLM2jYiAMJl6GU8csusER2Bt7WhA6-hwbAINpIPQfxsVv4KVRJI67Oz8arvVmunxszC-IzLoA/s320/murder+by+crystal.jpg" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;">We spotted them at the same time, snuck in among the crystal stemware. We picked them up and looked at each other laughing, “Oh my god! You could kill someone with this!” The gravity of the situation was immediate (plus they were really heavy) as we realized that not only could we register for pretty things but we could also register for… dangerous things.<br /><br />We retraced our steps around the crystal section picking up heavy objects and remarking to each other, “Hey this could be a murder weapon too!” By the end of our shopping trip we had found a few crystal goblets that we would consider registering for and many more potential murder weapons. It was fun.<br /><br />We left Macy’s without holding one of the snazzy barcode readers, and tonight we’re going to check out Bloomie’s (fur-clad Buffies notwithstanding). I can’t help but anticipate finding murder weapons more than finding that perfect crystal goblet. I hope planning the rest of the wedding is this entertaining!</span>Flygalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13097501675484646396noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30214901.post-53139303148972616962007-01-17T04:30:00.000-08:002007-01-17T08:58:36.522-08:00Celebrities and Science<span style="font-family:arial;">I realized in December that of all the RSS feeds I have littering my personalized Google home page, I was clicking to read </span><a href="http://www.newscientist.com/home.ns"><span style="font-family:arial;">New Scientist</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> more and more frequently. Sure, I love the </span><a href="http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/zeitgeist/"><span style="font-family:arial;">Seed Daily Zeitgeist</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, but for unique, provocative content, New Scientist won hands down. So I got a subscription... as if I need more magazines to read! But in perusing the first issue (January 6-12) I was not disappointed. There on page 5 was a short piece that made me smile and feel that the world might just become a better place.<br /><br />The article reported that a UK charity, </span><a href="http://www.senseaboutscience.org.uk/"><span style="font-family:arial;">Sense about Science </span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">(SAS), launched a campaign earlier this month encouraging celebrities to promote scientific accuracy in their comments to the media. They've even developed this </span><a href="http://www.senseaboutscience.org.uk/pdf/ScienceForCelebrities.pdf"><span style="font-family:arial;">handy pamphlet </span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">debunking some of the most common misconceptions celebrities perpetuate about the importance of "natural food" and the danger of immunizing children. They also have a phone number celebrities can call to check information before making a statement in public.<br /><br />But what makes misrepresentation of science so insidious is that most incorrect statements pass the "straight face test" and even sound plausible. The scientific community needs their own celebrities: charming, well-respected scientists who will speak out against public misconceptions and set the record straight.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">What makes this difficult, however, is the very nature of science as a constantly evolving, theory-based way of assessing knowledge. The fact that the FDA <a href="http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2006/NEW01541.html">said in December </a>that eating meat from cloned animals is safe doesn't mean that 5 years from now, they may believe differently. However, by today's standards of food safety, eating this meat is just as safe as eating any other type of meat.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Perhaps the root of the problem with celebrities misrepresenting science lies the very basic fact that the general public does not understand science and thus does not have as well-developed a "BS Filter" when it comes to scientific misrepresentations. Or perhaps we, as a society, have simply grown incurious as information is delivered to us in increasingly well-digested, bite size pieces. Even I shy away from overly-long news articles; the one on celebrities and science was after all only 171 words long.</span>Flygalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13097501675484646396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30214901.post-46714207877360393522007-01-11T07:28:00.000-08:002007-01-11T07:40:19.289-08:00<span><span style="font-family:arial;">My good friend, <a href="http://interplanetsarah.blogspot.com">Interplanet Sarah</a>, got me hooked on <em>Firefly </em>and <em>Wonderfalls</em> (all one season of them) and as a result, I can't wait for <em>Drive</em> to start. It's the latest Tim Minear show, yet like <em>Firefly</em> and <em>Wonderfalls</em> it seems destined for hardship before it even starts! According to TV Squad, Fox announced that Drive will begin March 1st in the 9 PM Thursday time slot recently vacated (thank God) by <em>The OC</em>.<br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><span></span></span></span><br /><span><span style="font-family:arial;"><span>Brett Love at <a href="http://www.tvsquad.com/2007/01/10/fox-sets-premiere-for-drive-more-casting-news/">TV Squad </a>offers this analysis with which I completely </span></span></span><span><span style="font-family:arial;"><span>agree:</span></span></span><br /><span><span style="font-family:arial;"><span><br /><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;"><span>"I continue to be baffled about the whole Minear/Fox relationship. It's a very Lucy with the football kind of thing. Here you go Tim, make another new show. This time we promise to support it, and give it a real shot. Really we do. Honest. And then right before the kickoff of the show.... whooops. Here's Tim on his back again.</span><br /><span></span><br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><span>"It would actually be a better idea for a sit-com than either of the two on their last<br />legs comedies that will be leading in to Drive. A vengeful programming executive is bent on tormenting a producer/writer so he hires him, and locks him into an exclusive deal, only to thwart his attempts at success at every turn. The big mystery is just what did our hapless producer/writer do to bring about such hatred. " </span></span></blockquote></span></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></span><span><span style="font-family:arial;">Seriously, folks, with the amount of crap on TV, can't you bump one of the mindless reality TV shows and schedule <em>Drive</em> in a timeslot other than the one currently occupied by Grey's Anatomy and CSI?</span></span>Flygalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13097501675484646396noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30214901.post-90902648969399382722007-01-08T06:20:00.001-08:002007-03-27T13:39:40.463-07:00Stem cells... Get Yer Stem Cells!<span style="font-family:arial;">In a surprising paper announced for publication in <em>Nature Biotechnology</em> this week, scientists at Wake Forest School of Medicine (Go Deacs!) and Harvard School of Medicine claim to have purified human embryonic stem cells from amniotic fluid. (See report in Scientific American at: </span><a href="http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&articleID=F4BB3ACB-E7F2-99DF-349FD71C1164C66D&ref=rss"><span style="font-family:arial;">Science & Technology at Scientific American.com</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">)<br /><br />Why, you may wonder (if you wonder about such things at all), is this discovery any more important or any less controversial than previously documented methods of isolating stem cells from human embryos? There are a few reasons:<br /><br />1. Amniocenteses are an extremely common procedure generally used in mothers over 35 to diagnose chromosomal abnormalities such as trisomy 21 (Downs Syndrome) and other gross chromosomal abnormalities. The procedure uses a long needle to extract amniotic fluid (the fluid surrounding a fetus) and does carry some risks to the pregnancy, but is nonetheless a common procedure.<br /><br />2. The stem cells which authors estimate make up 1% of all cells in amniotic fluid do not appear to be required for embryonic development; these cells have been sloughed off or otherwise discharged from the embryo and float around in the amniotic fluid. This may prove to be a critical difference for individuals who believe that the current practice of generating human stem cells, removing them from the inner cell mass of early stage embryos, is tantamount to murder. The presence of stem cells<em> in the amniotic fluid</em> means that they are not being removed from the actual embryo, perhaps sidestepping certain religious and ethical objections.<br /><br />Are these stem cells as good as the ones that have been previously isolated? So far it appears that these stem cells have the ability to differentiate into the three main tissue types: ectoderm, mesoderm and endoderm from which all organs and tissues are made. The challenge, should this source of stem cells be proven to be as reliable as the inner cell mass, is to understand the growth factors and signals these cells require to differentiate into adult tissue types.<br /><br />Perhaps such a benign source of embryonic stem cells is just what the field needs to escape the political rhetoric that currently circumscribes its research.</span>Flygalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13097501675484646396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30214901.post-6790652299748320872006-12-21T08:39:00.000-08:002006-12-21T08:40:45.537-08:00Potty Talk<span style="font-family:arial;">In keeping with the childish theme of rewriting Christmas Carols, I read over on </span><a href="http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/mg19225831.600-peecycling.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">New Scientist</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> that there's a particularly egregious and difficult to stem form of environmental pollution in which we are all engaged. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />Using the potty.<br /><br />According to the article, "Despite making up only 1 per cent of the volume of waste water, urine contributes about 80 per cent of the nitrogen and 45 per cent of all the phosphate. Peeing into the pan immediately dilutes these chemicals with vast quantities of water, making the removal process unnecessarily inefficient."<br /><br />The article goes on to describe (in a lot of detail) the sewage disposal system and how, unless you're a green European you're pretty much destroying the environment one flush at a time.<br /><br />The only part I'm unclear on is once you've separated the urine from the "grey and black water" (eww!) and put it into tanks where "microbes" break down the nitrogen and phosphorus, what are the actual by products of this whole effort? According to the </span><a href="http://environment.newscientist.com/data/images/archive/2583/25831601.jpg"><span style="font-family:arial;">diagram on the website</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, the "sludge" (again eww!) is either brought to a landfill or incenerated. Isn't that contributing more methane (a potent greenhouse gas) to the atmosphere? What they really need are the methane convertase bacteria which I suspect we'll find any day by a </span><a href="http://www.noc.soton.ac.uk/chess/"><span style="font-family:arial;">hydrothermal vent in the deep ocean</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">.<br /><br />So just in case you were feeling self righteous about driving your Prius or not even owning a car (like me) remember that you're no different from that Hummer driver, every time to pop a sqat.</span><br /></span>Flygalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13097501675484646396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30214901.post-66343014387033615772006-12-19T07:27:00.000-08:002006-12-21T20:46:04.716-08:00Jingle Balls<span style="font-family:arial;">Julia Ward at TV Squad reports on the </span><a href="http://www.tvsquad.com/2006/12/19/two-and-a-half-men-vs-american-family-association/"><span style="font-family:arial;">latest assault on Christmas </span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">by... Charlie Sheen? Come on! I laughed, giggled and guffawed my way through last week's highly irreverent <em>Two and a Half Men</em> Christmas episode. I'm beginning to think that the American Family Association, the organization that has called for an apology from CBS, has no sense of humor.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">In the <a href="http://www.afa.net/aa121306.htm">action</a> alert on the AFA's web site, they claim that "CBS and Sheen knew that the lyrics [to Sheen's revised Christmas carol] would greatly offend Christians, but did not hesitate to air them." Somehow, I seriously doubt that these lyrics</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>“Joy to the world, I’m getting laid; I’m getting laid tonight. </em></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>We’ll light the yule log, deck the halls, and then we’ll play some jingle balls. </em></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>It’s been a real long wait – this is our second date! </em></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>It’s Christmas Eve and I’m getting laid.”</em></span><br /><em><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span></em><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">were flagged by Standards and Practices as offensive to Christians... and I think that we all know from watching <em>Studio 60 </em>what Standards and Practices thinks will offend Christians.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">If anything from that episode was questionable, it might have been the subplot of Jake, Charlie's ten-year-old nephew, getting wasted on eggnog and throwing up in the car on the way to Grandma's house. I mean, doesn't underage drinking pose a much greater threat to American Family Values than some re engineered Christmas carol!</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">I guess I don't understand American Family Values at all. If revising Christmas carols and relabeling "Christmas Sales" as "Holiday Sales" are what is really destroying the American family, I think I'll just hole up in the godless city of New York and spike all the minors' drinks at the next Holiday party.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">And, for all you other irreverent family values destroyers, here are some alternative lyrics to favorite Christmas carols. Though they're most popular with the 8-10 demographic, I still find them highly amusing. Merry Christkwanzakuh! -Flygal</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"><em>(to the tune of We Three Kings)</em></span><br /><em><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:Arial;">We three kings of Orient are</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:Arial;">Smoking on a rubber cigar</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:Arial;">It was loaded and exploded</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:Arial;">We two kings of Orient are...</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:Arial;">(to the tune of Joy to the World)</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:Arial;">Joy to the World!</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:Arial;">The teacher's dead</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:Arial;">We barbecued her head!</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:Arial;">What happened to her body?</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:Arial;">We flushed it down the potty</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:Arial;">And around and around it goes,</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:Arial;">And around and around it goes,</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:Arial;">And around and around and around it goes!</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:Arial;">(to the tune of Deck the Halls)</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:Arial;">Douse the halls with gasoline</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:Arial;">Fa-la-la-la-la La-la-la-la</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:Arial;">Light a match and watch it gleam</span></em><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>Fa-la-la-la-la La-la-la-la</em></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>Burn the school house down to ashes</em></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>Fa-la-la-la-la La-la-la-la</em></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>Aren't you glad you played with matches?</em></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>Fa-la-la-la-la La-la-la-la</em></span>Flygalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13097501675484646396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30214901.post-67493663646106324442006-12-07T06:31:00.000-08:002006-12-07T06:36:20.498-08:00Jacob's List or Ladder or Something<span style="font-family:arial;">I'm entertained by the fact that even though Lost is off the air until next year, Jeff Jensen at </span><a href="http://www.ew.com/ew/article/commentary/0,6115,1566980_3_0_,00.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">Entertainment Weekly </span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">is still postulating away about where the mythology is going. This week's whacked out theory: the connection to the Old Testament...<br /><br />I'll admit that the names and the mythology seem to be congruent, and the whole science vs. faith thing seems to fit but I think that it's about as likely that the Others are a lost tribe of Israel as it is those crazy evangelists in Times Square are.<br /><br />Thoughts?</span>Flygalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13097501675484646396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30214901.post-51908673099002067982006-12-04T11:38:00.000-08:002006-12-21T20:48:31.411-08:00Heroes: a mid-season entertainment and scientific analysis<span style="font-family:arial;">The first half of the first season of <a href="http://www.nbc.com/Heroes/">Heroes</a> has just completed. And I just have to say Wow! and Whew! Never have I been so riveted to a show waiting with baited breath as the talented actors, writers and director delivered high-quality, entertaining, thought-provoking shows from one week to the next.<br /><br />Well never since I started watching <a href="http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/Main_Page">Lost</a>. But this post is about Heroes and will not dissolve into a whiny rant about how much better the first season of Lost was and how the writers have no idea where they're going... you can go to any of the <a href="http://forums.televisionwithoutpity.com/index.php?s=f0a267bdbe397c95ad45fe40ad42d432&showforum=708"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">TWOP</span> Lost Forums</a> for that... </span><br /><br /><p><span style="font-family:arial;">I won't attempt to recap last night's episode, Erin over at <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">TWOP</span> has been doing a fine job with that, but just want to offer some commentary on what's known, unknown and the minor annoyances this show has brought me, as a geneticist.</p></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Where we've been</span></strong><br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;">Up to this point most of the episodes have focused the phrase, that I feel compelled to whisper <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">every time</span> I even <em>think</em> about watching an episode of Heroes, "Save the Cheerleader, Save the World!" It was totally creepy when Future-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">Hiro</span> first announced it to a stunned Peter <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">Petrelli</span> in the frozen NYC subway. (For the record, Peter totally got the evil subway eye from <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">Mohinder</span> for spouting that "but didn't you see him? I mean time just STOPPED, and there way this guy with a sword" crap) And now? Peter has saved the cheerleader, but based on the last 5 minutes of last night's show, he's the bomb (or <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">da</span> bomb!). Which is odd since we've already met Radioactive man, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">Sprague</span>, who melted his house and gave his wife cancer. Tim <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">Kring</span> has also stated in a <a href="http://www.tvguide.com/News-Views/Interviews-Features/Article/default.aspx?posting={6D0C6401-84BA-43AC-8212-45653B68E469}">TV Guide Interview</a> that "we'll posit another theory that [the nuclear bomb] is Peter [Milo <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">Ventimiglia</span>]." so it's not entirely clear to me whether it's really Peter or <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">Sprague</span> who's <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">da</span> bomb...</span> <span style="font-family:arial;">though Peter's definitely hotter</span><br /></span><br /><p><span style="font-family:arial;">One refreshing attribute of Heroes remains the transparency with which the shows actors and creators relate to fans and the media. From Greg <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">Grunberg's</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">spoilery</span> <a href="http://www.tvguide.com/News-Views/Columnists/Ausiello.aspx">interview </a>with Michael <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">Ausiello</span> (follow the link and see video links on the right) to Tim <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">Kring</span> sitting down to talk to various news sources, it's clear that the Heroes writers and cast don't mind revealing plot points ahead of the episode's air date. That keeps the fans (the same ones who are <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">snarkily</span> posting that Lost writers have no direction) happy. Hopefully <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">Kring</span> and cast will continue this practice, since, even though I'm not a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">snarky</span> fan, it makes me happy too!</p></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">What we still don't know</span></strong><br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;">The great thing about Heroes so far is that they're wrapping up some mysteries (<a href="http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com/articles/content/a12680/">Six Months Earlier</a> is a good example) while they introduce others (like who was <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">HRG</span> taking his "marching orders" to keep <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">Sylar</span> alive from?). Also falling into the column of "what we don't know" would be why <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">Sylar</span> didn't immediately break out of his holding cell at the Make-Believe Paper Company. Why did he wait until Eden came to kill him? Did self-preservation motivate him to be super-duper powerful or was he just toying with them all along? Also, why does the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">Haitian</span> want to keep Claire's memories intact? Does he know that the s**t is going to hit the fan in the form of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">da</span> bomb or is he just tired of being <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">HMG's</span> mind wipe bitch? Needless to say, there are still plenty of mysteries to be unraveled when the show returns on January 22<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_25" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">nd</span>.<br /></span><br /></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Minor annoyances</span></strong><br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;">The geneticist in me (yes, the one that loves fruit flies laying <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">eggs</span> on pennies) has trouble buying the premise that based on mutation(s) in the Heroes' DNA Dr. Chandra <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_27" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">Suresh</span> is able to track the heroes down geographically. First of all, this sort of tracking would require access to a massive database containing the sequence of every individual in the world's DNA (or at least a sample of it). No such database currently exists, and even if it did, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_28" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">Suresh</span> would have to obtain prior informed consent from the individuals <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_29">whose</span> DNA he tests in order to test for the presence of the mutation(s). I might add that such prior informed consent would probably be easy to obtain from <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_30" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">Sylar</span> who was determined to be different and special but would likely be difficult to obtain from such reluctant heroes as Nathan <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_31" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">Petrelli</span>, Claire Bennett and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_32" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">Sylar's</span> first victim (the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_33">telekinetic</span> guy who wanted to get rid of his power to avoid hurting anyone - yea, that didn't turn out so well). The whole question of privacy and mining of DNA databases is a huge ethical issue that policy makers both in the U.S. at NIH and through international organizations such as <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_34" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">OECD</span> and WHO are wresting with. It might be interesting for Heroes to give <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_35" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">Mohinder</span> a plot line where he has to convince some international organization that free and open access to genetic databases is necessary to preserve the world. At any rate, it would give him something to do besides the annoying <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_36" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">voiceovers</span>.</span><br /><br /><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Finally, just a quick eulogy for Eden. <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0954253/">Nora <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_37" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">Zehetner</span></a> brought Eden (aka <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_38" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">Stinkerbell</span>) from a girl who had defined her own morality through mind control, convincing cops to eat doughnuts rather than arrest her to the hero who helped Issac recover from his heroine addiction and who made the ultimate sacrifice by taking her own life so that <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_39" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">Sylar</span> could not obtain her power of persuasion. We'll see you in flashbacks, Eden.</span></p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBy_4Qyah1teSw6mHtCvjoho6q_ZHywl2HdhCczgdcc8Gx5nv7l_uYKRtRxMPQut3ltzLgDquSPHYgSxL4lFleI_sOfTgjGhH2KXDGN05dXbFjWny7RId-wLVuJ6BlU5Qrp5Qy-g/s1600-h/tombstone.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5005054227887812226" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBy_4Qyah1teSw6mHtCvjoho6q_ZHywl2HdhCczgdcc8Gx5nv7l_uYKRtRxMPQut3ltzLgDquSPHYgSxL4lFleI_sOfTgjGhH2KXDGN05dXbFjWny7RId-wLVuJ6BlU5Qrp5Qy-g/s320/tombstone.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><p><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></p><br /><p><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">Courtesy of <a href="http://www.jjchandler.com/tombstone/">Tombstone Generator</a></p></span><br /><br /><br /></span>Flygalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13097501675484646396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30214901.post-71823443745979937972006-12-04T04:45:00.000-08:002006-12-04T13:44:32.946-08:00Would you like coffee with your Evil Subway Eye?<span style="font-family:arial;">On a recent morning as my train crossed the Manhattan Bridge and I gleefully anticipated filling the seat my mark was about to <a href="http://flygal76.blogspot.com/2006/11/commuter-profiling.html">vacate</a>, a small subway drama unfolded across the car.<br /><br />To set the scene, I was at the end of the car, facing a very "local" man sitting down in the right seat of a two-seater next to the train door. A young hipster was standing next to him drinking a cup of coffee.<br /><br />I was reading my New Yorker across the car when I suddenly heard the local man exclaim, "Whaddaya think this is a f***ing cafeteria?" The hipster looked like he very much thought that this was definitely not a cafeteria, and that he was about to get his ass kicked. He apologized softly as the local guy mopped the 5 drops of coffee off his shirt. The local guy continued to grumble about how the hipster ruined his shirt (which if you ask me, the coffee stain was an improvement) and flashed the uncomfortable looking hipster the evil subway eye.<br /><br />You may think at this point that I'm extremely uncaring about the plight of the working man and am an advocate for hipster rights, but you're wrong. I think that hipsters are a next step in the evolution of the annoying girls with big bangs with whom I went to middle school who became the annoying partiers I went to college with who drunkenly pulled the fire alarm at 3 AM on a Sunday morning. I'm a big fan of local Brooklynites, especially the ones who have been there since before Brooklyn became "hip." I love listening in on their conversations at the local laundromat. Their lives are so different from mine, somehow more "real" and less plastic than my own burgeoning yuppie existence.<br /><br />But in this case, I had to pity the hipster and turn my evil subway eye to the local guy. I mean, really, it's 8:00 in the morning, and we're all a bit annoyed to be schlepping into work. Could you cut the guy some slack? And the subway looks in no way like a cafeteria! I mean is that really the best disparaging remark he could come up with? And seriously, his shirt looked like it was purchased circa 1985 and, as I mentioned above, the coffee was really an improvement.<br /><br />In my view, you've gotta feel bad to the hipster trying desperately to get his morning caffeine boost so that he can face another day of his youth, knowing all the while that 25 looms like a large gray cloud over his head. That one day, dressing in corduroy pants, plaid shirts, jaunty hats, slouching and badly needing a haircut will no longer be a viable option. That he'll have to grow up, get a haircut and perhaps do something more productive with his Saturday afternoons than hanging out in Williamsburg discussing the greatness of Iron and Wine and experiencing the existential angst that only comes from wearing a jaunty hat and sipping over-priced microbrews.<br /><br />Though perhaps equally angsty and yet ultimately thrilling was the hipster's nearly-averted early morning ass kicking drama that I observed. Ah, commuting! still better than the Metro red line in DC.<br /><br /></span>Flygalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13097501675484646396noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30214901.post-53653995157628339542006-12-01T13:32:00.000-08:002006-12-01T14:46:17.152-08:00Fix That Data!<span style="font-family:arial;">Ironically, in the </span><a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/content/vol314/issue5804/"><span style="font-family:arial;">same issue </span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">of <em>Science</em> magazine where editor-in-chief Donald Kennedy summarized actions taken by <em>Science</em> to improve its editorial process in the wake of the Korean Human Cloning Scandal, a new scandal has been reported. This time scientists in a Missouri lab allegedly falsified data published in the February 17<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">th</span> issue of <em>Science</em> where they claimed that key cell fate decisions made in the early mouse embryo occur at the very first cell division. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">Mah</span>, you may say, so what? So plenty! The determination of anterior-posterior polarity in the embryo is, frankly, what keeps your head out of your ass. Those individuals who choose to realign their body plans later... well that's a personal choice.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The key observation in the February 17<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">th</span> paper was that one of the cells produced in the first cell division of a fertilized mouse egg expresses higher levels of the <em><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">Cdx</span>2</em> transcription factor (a class of protein that controls the expression of other proteins) than the other. This initial difference could help explain why certain cells in the mouse embryo are better for generating clones than others.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">And now? Not so much. It turns out that the observation that <em><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">Cdx</span>2</em> is higher in one mouse cell than the other is fairly easy to fake using <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">Photoshop</span>, or <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">Correl</span> Draw or any of the other common tools embryologists use to prepare their microscopic images for publication.</span> <span style="font-family:arial;">This is</span> <span style="font-family:Arial;">not only unrepresentative of the actual data but also tantamount to lying about the results.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Falsification of data is wrong. It's also pretty dumb since the first thing that competing labs do once a paper is published is to try to replicate the results. If they can't get the experiment to work, and they're a hot shot lab themselves, the fraud will be uncovered pretty quickly.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">But even if uncovered expeditiously, the cost of fraud is great: in the time of the reviewers, the time of the journal editors, the time of the scientists both perpetrating the fraud and uncovering the fraud. And when you're an academic researcher, the tax payers are footing the bill for all of that time.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">So who bears the responsibility for scientific misconduct, as the policy wonks are calling it? With the exception of Woo <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">Suk</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">Hwang's</span> very public denouncement by the global scientific community, it's generally not the lab head, or as they are called on grants, the Principle Investigator (PI). Generally, the blame falls on lower level scientists, often postdoctoral fellows (PhD scientists in an apprenticeship position with the PI) or in some cases the graduate student pursuing a PhD with the PI.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">These lower level scientists often carry out the experimentation and are in direct contact with the data. However, a <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">laboratory</span> is led by the PI and there should be some accountability by the management of the lab for transgressions that happen within it. The <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">PI's</span> name is on <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">the</span> grants and is generally <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">the</span> last author on the peer-reviewed publications, and thus should be held accountable. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">So why is this not a common practice?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">It's no secret that <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">PI's</span> are given little, if any guidance on how to run a lab. Most are thrust from their <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">positions</span> as postdoctoral fellows directly into positions as a lab heads. They receive little mentoring, and no management training as if running a lab were as instinctive as flying south for the winter. Some inroads have been made to this problem, such as the Howard Hughes Medical Institute <a href="http://www.hhmi.org/resources/labmanagement/">Guide to Scientific <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">Management</span></a> and the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">UC</span> Davis <a href="http://www.research.ucdavis.edu/home.cfm?id=OVC,14,1488">Laboratory Management Institute</a> but management training should become a more <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">mainstream</span> part of scientists career development. (If you think that ANY career development would be an improvement over what they've got now, I'm with ya!)</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Perhaps with better management practices in place, including frequent meetings and structured oversight of lower level scientists, misconduct would be less easily hidden from the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">PI's</span>. And perhaps fewer <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">PI's</span> would suffer from the anterior-posterior realignment to which I <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">referred</span> earlier.</span>Flygalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13097501675484646396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30214901.post-81127166946011422442006-11-28T12:58:00.000-08:002006-12-21T20:49:14.912-08:00Commuter Profiling<span style="font-family:arial;">As a rider of the D train from Brooklyn to Manhattan, I am faced with a daily dilemma: will I find a seat or will my feet fall off by the time I get to work? It's not that I wear uncomfortable shoes, I'm basically a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">Dansko</span>/<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">Aerosoles</span> (especially now that they have cute styles) wearing freak, yet even for the most comfortable shoes standing for the entirety of my 45 minute commute is something of a challenge.<br /><br />Being the creative problem solver that I am, I've found that the best way to find a seat is to engage in the much-maligned practice of racial profiling. I don't feel good about it, yet, my feet thank me daily for doing it.<br /><br />This profiling begins when I transfer to the D at Atlantic/Pacific Street in Brooklyn. As I board the train, I glance purposefully at those seated... and if I'm lucky, I find a unassuming Asian man or women, usually frumpy - not hip, to stand in front of. One subway stop later, if I've guessed correctly, these targeted riders abandon their seats disembarking at Grand Street in Chinatown.<br /><br />Over the past four months since I began this commute, I've become better at recognizing who gets off at Grand Street than those who <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">disembark</span>! One morning I tagged a small Asian man as a likely Grand Street <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">disembarker</span> and was surprised when he failed to get off there. However, one stop later at Broadway/Lafayette he looked up, confused, and got off the train. Perhaps I should just start nudging the riders I think should get off... they'll probably thank me, or just give me the evil subway eye*.<br /><br />*The "evil subway eye" refers to that look given by one subway rider to another that says, "die mother***er." The ESE is commonly given for stealing a seat in which another rider intended to sit, for talking loudly, for playing an <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)">iPod</span> loudly, or for just being a tourist.<br /><br /></span>Flygalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13097501675484646396noreply@blogger.com0