Life of Nick
scientificactivist | October 16, 2006I think I can finally call myself a legitimate scientist (whatever that means), since last week one of the papers I worked on during my undergrad at Texas A&M University was published in The Journal of Cell Biology (JCB). I'm the fourth author on the paper, meaning that I was only peripherally involved (and made a much smaller contribution than the first author, Dr. Brian Saunders, and my advisor, Dr. George Davis, among others). Regardless, this is my first appearance in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, and since I (not surprisingly) find the subject of this paper incredibly…
scientificactivist | September 25, 2006Since I've gone over a week without any blogging, I feel that I owe my readers an explanation. Basically, I've just been incredibly busy in the lab. I've had a lot of time on the NMR machines, and I've been trying to make the most of it. On top of that, and in addition to my other work around the lab, I've been filling in the gaps between expermiments with quite a bit of thinking and reading of the literature (instead of blogging), trying to determine the future direction of my Ph.D. project. This week looks like it's going to be more of the same, but hopefully I'll be able to squeeze in…
scientificactivist | September 11, 2006When I was a freshman in college, at Texas A&M University, on Tuesday and Thursday mornings I had two classes back-to-back in the same lecture hall. Because of a weird scheduling fluke, these classes were about 45 minutes apart, though. During that break, sometimes I would go eat breakfast, other times I would do something else, and occasionally I would just stay in the room and study.
On this particular day, I had decided to catch up on some reading for class, and, as usual, there were a few other students in the room as well. A few minutes after the first class ended, maybe about 9:…
scientificactivist | September 6, 2006...my internet connection, that is.
So, it looks like, after a month-long saga involving many many many angry phone calls to BT, I finally have internet access in my home sweet home. Let the blogging resume in full force! Yay!
scientificactivist | September 5, 2006OK, bad news first. Although I was told I would have internet in my house today, I still don't, despite the militaristic tactics I've resorted to using with BT. However, BT tells me I should be online tomorrow. We'll see. Once that happens, I should be able to get back to some actual serious blogging, unlike what's been going on here lately....
The good news is that I got my copy of Chris Mooney's The Republican War on Science today, so expect a review shortly. In fact, publishers have been sending me books like crazy lately (Is it the sudden hotness?), so you can actually look forward…
scientificactivist | September 5, 2006Yes, that's right, you're looking right at him (on the sidebar, at least).
No?
Go down a bit...
...a little bit more....
There you go.
According to the blog Flags and Lollipops, yours truly is the third hottest science blogger (and the hottest male science blogger) on the internet. Yes, screw Nature and its Top Five Whatever.... This is much better.
Here are the top five:
Shelley of Retrospectacle
Karmen of Chaotic Utopia
Nick of The Scientific Activist
PZ Myers of Pharyngula
Roland of Notes from the Biomass
I notice that four out of the top five are at ScienceBlogs.com. Hmmm... it…
scientificactivist | August 23, 2006Lines were drawn in the sand, artillery stood armed and ready, and tensions ran high. Neither side was willing to budge, and despite the seemingly endless conflict having already tested the resolve of both sides, it looked like things were only just beginning to get rough. The whole scenario was regrettable--war always is--but it felt inevitable at the time.
Besides, how else was I going to get internet access in my house?
Wars are fought for a variety of reasons: for power or territory, for religions or ideologies, for oil, and so on. I had never counted the internet among those, but in…
scientificactivist | August 20, 2006I don't make it to the movies too often in the UK. To start with, they're prohibitively expensive, and I'm often seeing them months after my friends back home. When you then consider the fact that the popcorn here tastes like salty styrofoam (it's called butter, people! Look into it!), there really isn't much of a draw.
However, after completing my transfer viva Thursday, I needed to kick back this weekend. Since you can only go to the pub so many times before people start to call you an alcoholic (people back home, at least), I joined some friends at the movies. On Friday we saw Nacho…
scientificactivist | August 20, 2006This announcement is a couple of days late, so please accept my apologies, although I can blame it in part on a lack of internet access.
Anyways, as of 15:30 GMT last Thursday (August 17th), after enduring what was surely the longest transfer viva in the history of man (two and a half hours--hell, they should have gone ahead and given me my degree right then and there), I am now an official Oxford D.Phil. student. (The D.Phil. is Oxford's archaic equivalent of the Ph.D.) That means I can look forward to another 2+ years of hardcore science here in the Department of Biochemistry. Yes!
So,…
scientificactivist | August 16, 2006...of not having internet access!
So, it turns out that the internet is pretty fundamental to this whole blogging endeavor. Who would have thought?
I don't have internet access in my "new" house yet, and I probably won't have any for another couple of weeks, so please bear with me. I'm finding time to squeeze in some posts now and then when I'm in the lab, but the current situation is slowing me down a bit.
In addition, I have my transfer viva this Thursday. A transfer viva is where, at the end of my first year, a couple of assessors from my department will determine whether I'm cut out…
scientificactivist | August 7, 2006I know that I just got back from vacation, but I have family visiting this week, so I'll be out of town again until next week. Have no fear, though, because as usual you can expect plenty of posts from Ye Olde Archives. I haven't written too much about global warming or the environment since I moved to ScienceBlogs.com, so the rest of the posts this week will be on climate science. Enjoy!
scientificactivist | August 7, 2006On the weekend of July 28th-30th, about 150 NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) scientists from the UK and Europe (and a few from the US) gathered in Ambleside for the Sixth Annual Collaborative Computing Project for NMR (CCPN) Meeting. The topic of the meeting was "Efficient and Rapid Structure Determination by NMR", and it included presentations by twelve NMR scientists, a demonstration of the CCPN software, and about thirty research posters on various NMR talks.
Note: for more background on NMR, check out my previous post on the topic.
Biomolecular NMR is a rapidly growing field, one that…
scientificactivist | July 31, 2006After over two weeks on planes, trains, and automobiles (actually, more like planes, buses, and boats)--on a trip that involved a wild weekend in Newcastle, a relaxing week and a half on a small island in the Norwegian fjords, and an informative three-day NMR conference in the Lake District--I'm finally back in Oxford. I can't wait to get back into the swing of things around here at The Scientific Activist, but things might be a bit slow for the next week or two. I'm moving apartments this week, showing family around England next, and in between all of that, struggling to make at least some…
scientificactivist | July 14, 2006By the time you read this, I'll already be on a bus bound for Newcastle, where I'll spend the weekend before heading off to Bergen, Norway, for some much needed relaxation. I'm going to be gone for a couple of weeks, but have no fear! I won't be here physically, but I will be here in spirit and, thanks to this newfangled technology stuff, the blogging will continue anyways. I'll be posting from my "Best of The Scientific Activist Collection" so make sure you keep coming back to see what I'm finding in the archives that day. Also, don't forget about the rest of the great blogging going on…
scientificactivist | June 19, 2006This week, Seed asks its ScienceBloggers:
How is it that all the PIs (Tara, PZ, Orac et al.), various grad students, post-docs, etc. find time to fulfill their primary objectives (day jobs) and blog so prolifically?...
As you probably know, I find myself in the grad student demographic, and as such I have a very busy but flexible schedule. When I first started blogging in January, I had only recently started by Ph.D. in biochemistry, and it seemed like I was going to have quite a bit of free time on my hands. It was kind of like working a nine-to-five job, but with more flexible hours, and…
scientificactivist | June 13, 2006"Ph.D. programs don't really attract the most exceptional students," he said. I was having dinner with a few professors and graduate students from the Oxford Department of Biochemistry last night when one of the professors made that assertion. The topic of conversation was why so many graduate students in our program seem to lack a broad knowledge of areas of biochemistry outside of their specific area of research.
Feeling slightly offended, and fueled by the copious quantities of wine we had consumed, I pointedly asked, "Have you actually seen any figures that would back that up?" He hadn…
scientificactivist | June 11, 2006Each week, Seed magazine poses a question to all of its ScienceBloggers. This week's question, from reader Jake Bryan, is:
Assuming that time and money were not obstacles, what area of scientific research, outside of your own discipline, would you most like to explore? Why?
My current work is in protein structure, but there are plenty of other scientific areas that I'd like to explore. Based solely on scientific interest, I would have to go with behavioral genetics. The field of genetics really came into its own in the second half of the 20th Century and captured the imaginations of people…