Guest Post: Choosing the Nobel Prize winners is not an exact science

Some time back, commenter HI won a guest post by predicting the Nobel laureates in Medicine. He sent me the text a little while ago, and I’ve finally gotten around to posting it (things have been crazy around here): Since Chad gave me the right to guest blog as a prize for correctly predicting the… Continue reading Guest Post: Choosing the Nobel Prize winners is not an exact science

Silly Poll: Scary Creatures

SteelyKid has a fever, and can’t go to day care, so I’m staying home with her. This pretty much rules out significant serious blogging, so here’s a poll to keep you amused: Which of these threats is most threatening?(survey) Choose only one.

Congratulations to Ramakrishnan, Steitz, Yonath, and Curious Wavefunction

The 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Thomas A. Steitz and Ada E. Yonath “for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome.” I know just about enough to recognize this as something biochemical, but I’m sure there will be plenty of commentary about this around science blogdom. “Curious… Continue reading Congratulations to Ramakrishnan, Steitz, Yonath, and Curious Wavefunction

DonorsChoose: Now That’s a Noble Cause

We’re currently in the early stages of the annual DonorsChoose fundraiser, helping to raise money for educational projects. This is especially important in the current economic climate– even before things went south, many schools and classrooms were strapped for cash, but now it’s even worse. But I can understand if that’s not a noble enough… Continue reading DonorsChoose: Now That’s a Noble Cause

CSI: Ambiguous Sentences

The New York Times yesterday had a story with the dramatic headline DNA Evidence Can Be Fabricated, Scientists Show, explaining that, well, there are nefarious tricks you can pull to falsify DNA evidence, provided you have access to a high-quality biochemical laboratory. The story is a great boon to conspiracy theorists everywhere, especially with this… Continue reading CSI: Ambiguous Sentences

What You Might Not Know About (Biomedical) Journals

Via I-no-longer-remember-who (the tab’s been open for several days), there’s a list of What You Might Not Know About Scientific Journals, outlining some of the facts about scientific publication. There’s some good stuff, but as you can tell from my title, a lot of it is fairly specific to biomedical journals, and doesn’t really apply… Continue reading What You Might Not Know About (Biomedical) Journals

PNAS: Alric, Veterinary Pathologist

(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This… Continue reading PNAS: Alric, Veterinary Pathologist

PNAS: David Syzdek, Wildlife Biologist

(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This… Continue reading PNAS: David Syzdek, Wildlife Biologist