art, food, music, citylife and other mental stimuli
apalazzo | March 9, 2008Friday night we came down to the city to get our regular dose of stimulation. Yesterday we were at the Whitney Museum for the Biennial. This year we were also able to catch the extra exhibits at the Park Ave Armory. For the first time at the Biennial, I was swallowed up by the video installations. Three that stood out -
Javier Tellez - Letter on the Blind For the Use of Those Who See The blind and an elephant. Beautiful images of blind patients in contact with an elephant. Incredible details of the elephant skin and hypnotizing narration from the participants.
Omar Fast - The Casting. On the…
apalazzo | February 26, 2008I'll try to be there this time. From Corie:
Hi everyone,
The next Nature Network Boston-hosted pub night for local
scientists/researchers will be:
Thursday, February 28, 2008 at 6:30pm
Location:
Middlesex Lounge, 315 Mass. Ave, near Central Square on the Red Line
(also on the route of the M2 shuttle from Longwood)
For those of you new to NNB (http://network.nature.com/boston), the
networking website for Boston researchers, we host monthly informal
gatherings at a local pub for Boston-area scientists (including a few
Nature editors from Nature's Boston office) to meet, chat, and have a
drink…
apalazzo | February 20, 2008Last night I rediscovered James Burke's Connections. Here is episode one.
(PS Yes there is a strange inadvertent 9/11 subtext - from the Twin Towers, danger in NYC, technology traps, the end of civilization, to even a potential airliner crash, which incidentally is flight 911, what else???? But since this series was aired in 1978, it is safe to say that these were all coincidences.) Below the fold you'll find the next five parts of this episode.
apalazzo | January 27, 2008Well we are happy about last night.
This afternoon I'm taking off for northern Idaho. I'll somewhere in the mountains for about a week. Between the meeting, skiing and working on the grant I don't know how much blogging I'll be able to do. For the past two week's songs from Radiohead's new album have been bouncing inside my skull. I'll leave you with three songs that Thom Yorke recorded "in the basement"
Here is Down is the New Up:
Next, is the last song from In Rainbows, Videotape
Finally we have Last Flowers
See you next week.
apalazzo | January 23, 2008Hello world. It's been about a week now that I've given up bench work for the pen. Instead of commuting to the lab, I've been anchored to my chair writing this longish compilation of past results, inconsistencies in the literature, and my little addition to the confusion that exists in my field of study. On top of that I need to prepare a talk for the upcoming Keystone symposia on "Translational Regulatory Mechanisms". So much to do, so little time.
Intersperse between my thoughts are visits from family and friends through instant messaging. "how are you? what have you been up to? it's your…
apalazzo | January 12, 2008
What a beautiful day. We just got back from a walk in Mt Auburn Cemetery where we randomly came across Richard Buckminster Fuller's grave. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera. Fortunately we live in the time of the internet where information and photos can be acquired within seconds. (The photo on the left was ripped off of Wikipedia.) In addition we saw William Morton's grave. He's the guy who discovered that either could be used as an anaesthetic. The site was marked by a monument erected "by the citizens of Boston".
Getting back to this idea, of how we are living in a revolutionary…
apalazzo | January 5, 2008For anyone who hasn't seen this yet - a Youtube clip (if a 52 minute video can be called a clip) of Radiohead performing the entire In Rainbows Album
apalazzo | December 27, 2007Yesterday we arrived back in Boston. The 4 previous day my wife and I were celebrating Christmas up in Montreal with my giant "Italo-Canadese" family. Here are some pics of each night's festivities:
Night 1: My Parents host my father's side of the family. Lots of people, lots of food.
Here's a pic of most people in attendance taken by my wife. The kids' table is not visible. I'm on the left playing the part of waiter.
Night 2: My brother and his girlfriend host a dinner. Not as many people as the night before, but just as much food including our first turkey for this holiday season.
Night 3…
apalazzo | December 10, 2007From Corie:
You're invited to a pub night for Boston-based scientists, hosted by Nature Network Boston ... the last one for 2007! (For newcomers to NNB, we host monthly, informal events at local pubs for Boston scientists to hang out, have a beer and chat.) It's a great opportunity to meet colleagues from down the road and across the river.
Bring your lab, labmates and scientist-friends. Forward this email along and let's make this event the biggest turnout yet!
When: Thursday, December 13, 6:30pm
Where: Middlesex Lounge, 315 Mass. Ave in Cambridge. Near Central Square on the Red Line. On…
apalazzo | November 13, 2007
Friday, after Bora's visit, my wife calls me up and informs me that we are off to NYC for the weekend. So we spent Saturday and Sunday roaming around our old stomping ground, looking for stimulation (Soho, PS1, some off-off Broadway theatre, Central Park ...) Fortunately Terri and Matt, had made reservations about the much talked about WD-50. Just last week it was featured in the New York Time's Science Section. Yes this is haute cuisine for geeks.
The joint is the brainchild of Wylie Dufresne (hence WD) located on 50 Clinton street (explaining the 50) in NY's lower east side. And yes I'm…
apalazzo | October 28, 2007Some beautiful images taken by my good friend Jan Schmorandzer are being displayed at the M.W. Offit Gallery in the Gottesman Library at Columbia's Teacher's College.
For more information visit: www.CellPortraits.blogsplot.com www.CellPortraits.blogspot.com
(The blog includes a cool video of Jan preparing his samples.)
apalazzo | September 18, 2007Let's face it, you are probably procrastinating right now.
I'll begin by stating that this post was inspired by Hsien-Hsien Lei's new facebook community.
Lets start off with a video on how to procrastinate:
One of the greatest effects of the Internet: procrastination. As we've advanced to web2.0, procrastinators now can produce junk as well as consume it. (Yes blogs too.) To read one blogger's daily procrastination routine, visit David Bradley's longish essay on How to get Nothing Done.
Want to cut down on procrastination, go read this website produced by California Polytechnic State…
apalazzo | August 24, 2007Nature Network Boston is having another pub night on Tuesday. From Corie:
It will be next Tuesday, August 28 at 6pm at the Middlesex Lounge in Cambridge (315 Mass Ave, near Central Square/MIT). Come out and meet other members of Boston's scientific community.
We're doing something a little different this time. Starting at 6pm, we're holding a brief, informal discussion about Nature Precedings (http://precedings.nature.com), Nature's new website where biologists, chemists, clinical researchers, and earth scientists can post pre-publication manuscripts, presentations and other documents. The…
apalazzo | August 6, 2007Some items I'd like to mention:
- before scifoo, there was a meetup of bloggers in the Bay Area. I finally placed some flesh over my electronic friends and got to meet some other bloggers. Andreas Engvig over at Sharpbrains has a photo. Bora has some more photos.
- one of the best conversations I had was after scifoo. On the train into SF, I sat next to Christopher Clark who studies how large wales whales communicate over long distances. If this sounds interesting, click here.
- here's a picture of Martin Rees, Freeman Dyson and me (it's really me, I swear!) ... and some other half hidden guy…
apalazzo | August 6, 2007Our session on Scientific Communication and Young Scientists, the Culture of Fear, was great. Many bigwigs in the scientific publishing industry were present and a lot of ideas were pitched around. I would also like to thank Andrew Walkinshaw who co-hosted the session, Eric Lander for encouraging us to pursue this discussion, Pam Silver for giving a nice perspective on the whole issue, and all the other participants for giving their views.
Now someone had asked that we vlog the session, we actually tried to set it up but we didn't have the time. In retrospect I'm glad we didn't. This became…
apalazzo | August 4, 2007I'm now having coffee with Bora and Prof. Steve Steve at the Googleplex. Want proof?
And here is a close up. (Just in case you can't read it).
apalazzo | August 3, 2007Yesterday I met up with a few sciblings including Bora, Josh and Chris and some science bloggers like Attila. Today I arrived at "the Googleplex". Right now it's 2:30AM on the west coast, and I'm exhausted. Here's just a couple of highlights from this evening's activities at scifoo ... we learned about space tourism, energy flux on planet earth and how to convey energy issues to youngsters, custom biology and of course open access. In fact, I spent quite a while talking to several conference attendees (over wine) about how outfits like PLoS One and JoVE are performing. Tomorrow Bora will lead…
apalazzo | July 25, 2007Corie from NNB is organizing a meetup tonight at the Mission Bar & Grill (724 Huntington, right off of Brigham Circle). It starts at 6PM. There will be at least one free round of drinks ... so if you live or work near the Harvard Medical School (i.e. Longwood) area, I encourage you to join us. Click here for details.
apalazzo | July 20, 2007 Corie sent me the info on Nature Network Boston's second pub night:
We are all about connecting scientists in the Boston area, both on the Web and in person.
The drinks night will be next Wednesday, July 25, 2007 at 6:00pm at the Mission Bar and Grill (http://www.themissionbar.com/index.html) located at 724 Huntington Avenue, Boston. It's on the Green E line, right by the Longwood medical area.
Come meet fellow scientists, other members of the NNB community (including some of our bloggers) and people from Nature's Boston office, in a very informal setting over drinks!
The first 20 or so…