Nature, as in parts, bits, molecular and stuff
worldsfair | June 26, 2007Well, who would have thought?
RNA makes the cover of the Economist. Mind you, I don't think its importance is that surprising to folks already in the field, since RNA has always garnered a certain amount of respect as a macromolecule of note and curios.
This can, more or less, be boiled down to number of special points to consider:
Firstly, RNA is indeed a molecule composed of a 4 nucleotide code. In this respect, it has the same combinatorial ability as our stalwart DNA (you know, the Human Genome, etc), which is awesome for both its scope, but also in its inherent simplicity (just 4…
worldsfair | April 4, 2007I've talk about Pokemon before (in the context of biodiversity), but here's an interesting bit about how it sideline hundreds of kids, who happened to have watched an episode where the aggressive animation manage to mess with heads.
Here's how it panned out:
Anyway, the short version is that the animation in that particular episode led to somthing called "Photosensitive Epilepsy." The long version (i.e. a pdf of the first page of the scientific publication) can be found today at the SCQ.
If you're really dying to see the offending scene, you can actually check it out here.
worldsfair | February 27, 2007So basically, I've been hearing stuff about some new game show that pits adults against the sort of knowledge that a child in Grade 5 should know. It sounds like a pretty interesting concept, and has gotten me thinking about kids and science information generally.
Anyway with this in mind, today, I thought we could play around with a piece of free software that enables folks to look at three dimensional structures of a varety of biologically relevant molecules.
Because kids like video games right? And what could be more challenging to young inquiring hands than navigating the structure…
worldsfair | February 22, 2007
So:
The Police is starting their tour in Vancouver on May 28th and May 30th, and even though I'm more or less still a fan of Sting, I've just got to say that watching Stewart Copeland play those polyrhythmic drum beats at the Grammys was pretty impressive. Here, take a look yourself:
But how do drummers do that crazy syncopated, wierd off-phase stuff? Is there any biology behind this skill? Turns out there is.
In particular, if you PUBMED the term "polyrhythmic", you'll come across several publications, several of which look at off-phase motor skills, and a few, even, that looked at…
worldsfair | February 2, 2007So did anyone else see that Grey's Anatomy episode last night? You know, the one with the patient on chemotherapy, that had some sort of herbal supplement earlier in the day, and whammo, that strange mixture somehow led to (as they said in the show) a form of "neurotoxic" blood?
And by neurotoxic, we mean that when going under the knife, you had doctors dropping left and right, from some airborne element in the blood?
Because if you did, and especially if you are an M.D., I'd like some answers. Because this has everything to do with Radiohead.
Not that I believe for a second that those…
worldsfair | January 24, 2007Do I detect a tone of bitterness here? But, please, please - wouldn't it be great if textbooks were written like this?
worldsfair | December 5, 2006So like Vancouver had a major dump of snow last week, which is just not west coast at all. Predictably, all hell broke loose, and UBC even experienced a campus wide power outage at one point. Anyway, whilst looking for some things for the FILTER, I came across a really cool website that looked at snowflake morphology, called snowcrystals.com
It's pretty amazing really, how convoluted the categories are - and all, of course, are dictated by the hexagonal lattice that water crystallizes at. Essentially, due to the polar "V" like structure of H2O, the most energetically favorable way of…
worldsfair | October 27, 2006
At the beginning of this past week, I did a post on some of the science behind the aroma of coffee, so I thought it would be fitting to talk a bit about wine as well. Not because I'm a wine afinionado (not even close), but mainly because I had the opportunity to write a piece for Maisonneuve which looked closely at the burgeoning use of genomic technology in this otherwise tradition steep profession.
As well, the process behind this piece getting published was interesting in of itself, since this was one occasion where I really experienced how heavy handed the editing process can be.
Anyway…
worldsfair | October 24, 2006
So I see Ben has put up a post on the various reviews out there on Dawkins' book, and I noted one comment saying:
This is utterly ridiculous. The distilled argument here is that the discussion of religion and god(s) should include only believers. Perhaps you should think about that for 3 or 4 seconds.
I won't comment further on the post itself, since I happen to think Ben does a good job in raising a valid point, but I will say to the commenter to maybe lay off the coffee for a while (although I will note that he did weigh in again in a much calmer fashion).
Anyway, I bring this up more as…
worldsfair | October 17, 2006Well, didn't know about this, but quite interesting nevertheless. That's right folks - the Duckbill is getting the royal genomic treatment. Looks like the sequencing has been done (6X coverage), and now they're looking to piece those contigs together. (link)
I'd be curious to see what the creationist folks would say about this - the platypus being a favourite with them. Maybe some of the DNA sequences translates into scripture?
(Thanks to Joanne)
bcohen | October 9, 2006Another contribution to Science in the Public Disinterest (see last contribution, on nanotech and golfballs): this one tells us about "Cat Lovers Lining Up for No-Sneeze Kitties."
And I've got only one response: Yeeeeeeaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!!!!
By the by, Joseph at Corpus Callosum picked up on earlier reports of this, back in June, and it looks like "progress" is being made. I feel obliged to keep the desirous public in the know.
Allerca, a smalll California biotech company, is making headway:
Last month, an Allerca public relations consultant, Julie Chytrowsky, kept Joshua, an Allerca cat…
worldsfair | October 3, 2006Yesterday, I had the opportunity to have lunch with Jack Horner, a noted paleontologist, best known academically as the discoverer of the Maiasaura, a duck-billed dinosaur that proved that dinosaurs had parental instincts; and also an expert in the arena of dinosaur growth research (in particular concerning a number of recent T Rex findings, one of which is even bigger than Sue)
Of particular interest to me (as a molecular biologist), however, was that last year he had a paper come out in Science entitled, Soft-Tissue Vessels and Cellular Preservation in Tyrannosaurus rex, with the…
worldsfair | August 17, 2006I felt bad not putting up the answer to the Puzzle Fantastica in the previous post, so to compensate, I'm prepared to give out the answer to a previous question I had concerning a mysterious looking contraption. In fact, here it is at this link specifically, and as well, it pertains to this picture below.
Basically, it's an attempt to provide info on how to perform polymerase chain reactions, but on the cheap so to speak. Which involved building your own thermal cycler and fortuitously led to an opportunity to publish the article at MAKE (which BTW has thrilled my engineering colleagues to…
worldsfair | August 7, 2006I gave a talk to some folks at UBC's School of Music this past weekend, on biology, genetics and the odd reference to music. One of things I mentioned (with an auditary theme) was the interesting case of the use of Nude mice as vectors for the production of human ears (image below).
I usually talk about this, because it's a good example of how media can often coerse the reader/viewer to come to premature conclusions. You see, I find most of the audience will make one of two responses: either an "EEWWW" response, or a "THAT'S COOL" response. In any event, you would of gotten the sense from…
worldsfair | July 22, 2006I've been so busy writing about children's books, putting up silly lists, and presenting puzzles that I feel the need to write about one of the things I'm most comfortable with - that is, genetics:
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The price of cloning your beloved pet cat recently dropped from $50,000 to $32,000. If you're still undecided, it might help to know that this includes a free video.
Rodney Dangerfield sadly passed away before he was able to fully utilize the supposed human cloning techniques offered by the Raelians, a French Canadian love cult from outer space (or something like that).
A biotech company is…
worldsfair | July 11, 2006As eluded to earlier, the concept of snot holds a special place in my teaching armada. As well, it appears that scienceblogs has reached their 1,000,000th comment. Obviously, this is due to the hard work of our unpaid interns, which is why Ben and I have decided to waive their photocopying and massage duties today. Anyway, let's see if we can get a few more comments.
In particular, below are a number of ways to say the word snot. Would love to see some more.
worldsfair | July 7, 2006(RE: The new "Ask a Scienceblogger") If asked whether I think cloning has developed the way I thought it would, I think I'd have have a couple comments on that.
First, I would say that yes I am surprised in the sense that with molecular biology essentially taking such enormous leaps and bounds, I might have thought that mammalian cloning techniques would have come along a lot further then they have. I mean sure, we have cats, monkeys, cows, and the such, but it's still very much an immature game (although I guess it's all relative - you can after all already get gift certificates to go…
worldsfair | July 5, 2006...but I can't talk about it (yet). Bonus points if you can figure out what it is.
worldsfair | June 20, 2006In one of my talks, I sometimes put up an ad which suggests that one day, there will be the astrological-type divination of fate via genetics - instead of a horoscope, a geneticscope if you will. The ad reads:
But the truth is, is that in some respects, we're really not that far off. So for fun, discussion and debate, I'd like to present a series of posts culminating in a less than extensive list of traits - some unlikely, some intimidating, some just sort of bizarro - where it's clear that genetics is playing some type of role (NOTE: that links below lead to a pdf of the first page of the…