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February 27, 2011
work
My advisor gets a nod during an episode of TWIV (-56:50) last year.
Posted by azileretsis at 09:24 PM | Comments (0)
February 25, 2011
housing
Freddie Mac's loss is what happens when the government is left holding the bag. It is also a moral tale in prudence. Even as someone who doesn't own a house, I see how owning a house is a result of the American dream.
Posted by azileretsis at 02:15 PM | Comments (0)
February 17, 2011
trust
I was recently listening to a podcast about two scientists who have been friends over the years. Even in my short time in the academic world, I see how rare that can be. If you can't work and trust someone in the workplace, how do you expect a friendship to arise from that relationship?
Coming from an IT and business background, I see that barriers to good relationships in science are pride especially over knowledge and sometimes, competitiveness. Here's to hoping that I have great relationships in the science world that I have in my other arenas.
On a connected topic, I'm currently reading short essays in Science commemorating 10th anniversary of Human Genome project.
This essay, Famine in the Presence of the Genomic Data Feast, reminded me of a thought I recently had at a seminar. The last generation of researchers emphasize functional studies while a new generation of research analysts see the wonder in the patterns that we find in analysis. We need researchers who want to be observational scientists rather than experimental scientists. Otherwise, our understanding of the data will bottleneck.
Posted by azileretsis at 02:37 PM | Comments (0)
February 16, 2011
drugs
I want a huge print out of this poster, top drugs and their forms.
Posted by azileretsis at 05:39 PM | Comments (0)
February 13, 2011
fool
Great and timely article about the Chinese market. Investment in Asia is done at one's own peril. Chinese businesses do not work on the same laws and regulations that companies that file at the SEC have to abide. The Chinese government's goal has not been to make companies more transparent. They are still working out their property law system.
Even those who know a little more about Chinese business tactics tread carefully. I wonder how much international investment in China is more speculative than substantial.
In other news, in case you were wondering how Huffington Post works. In case you were wondering if you can tell my political slant from what I read, my first news source these days is Google News.
Prayer for Egypt. I think we can forget that chaos follows a revolution. The best example is the French Revolution. Worst case scenario is the Afghanistan revolution.
Posted by azileretsis at 11:35 PM | Comments (0)
February 11, 2011
frustrations
I have just wasted half a day trying to do something for which there is already a web tool. So, for the next person doing PCR cloning:
To create primers:
Invitrogen's Primer Design
DNAstar PrimerSelect (paid)
To look at protein motifs:
Motif
Or, just use "Identify Conserved Domains" link on NCBI
To test your primers for possible other products:
PrimerBlast
Or, better yet, get your advisor to pay for a new version of DNAstar instead trying to use workarounds around old software.
Also, stupid things you might do: forget to check the reading frame. However, if you are using PrimerSelect, the program automatically selects based on the first reading frame.
Posted by azileretsis at 04:48 PM | Comments (0)
February 10, 2011
community
Two weeks ago, I visited two local schools to judge high school science fairs. Both schools were public schools: one in a rich suburban area and the other, an inner-city school. In the evening, at the suburban school, we had at least ten science teachers and 20 judges looking at 300 science fair projects. Not all projects were the same but some of the top ones were worthy of graduate school level quality though maybe not in effort. At the inner-city school, it was during the day so we had approximately ten judges for 200 projects and one science teacher.
I should disclose that I went to a suburban public school and I do believe that my school system was a really good one. I believe in public schools and especially local community involvement in those schools. However, my experience at the inner-city school was eye-opening.
Though far from my first experience in the inner-city, I had never step into an inner-city school during school hours. It would be safe to say that there was a culture shock from both sides, mine and the students'. As I judged the posters, the students had many good ideas but there were more deficiencies when it came to using the scientific method to carry out an experiment. However, the problems did not end there. The posters reflected these students were learning their language skills from the short communications like texting and netspeak. They were learning but learning from the wrong sources. Also, their secondary education seem to all come from TV.
If people are for more local community intervention for public schools, these inner-city schools might be in more trouble. How could such a stark contrast exist between schools that are only 45 miles apart? Is the community failing these students' educational requirements to be a functional citizen in society?
Education is not a new problem. Yet, we ignore it at our own detriment.
Posted by azileretsis at 05:55 PM | Comments (0)
February 02, 2011
prayer
For those who have ever lived at or near sea level during hurricane season and realized that higher altitudes were more than three hours away. Prayer for Queensland.
Stewart said it was "really unfortunate" that the group had ignored repeated earlier requests to evacuate, and said they had been advised to shelter on the second storey of their apartment block in the hope this would be high enough to escape surges from the ocean.
....
Although the night was long, dark and filled with anxiety, Australians also greeted the threat of the cyclone with black humour and defiance: on the plywood sealing up the front of the Hog's Breath Café in Cairns, were sprayed the words: "Kiss my Yasi". - Guardian
Posted by azileretsis at 03:08 PM | Comments (0)
February 01, 2011
outdated
So, it only took me 30min to figure out how to copy and paste text from an outdated PrimerSelect program. I miss working with not even just cutting edge but just current software. The sad thing is that this software was not the version given to me; it's much newer than the one given to me.
Posted by azileretsis at 06:13 PM | Comments (0)
storm
Google has a crisis response page for Cyclone Yasi and the Australian Floods. The cyclone should hit Queensland sometime overnight into tomorrow (US EST).
Posted by azileretsis at 03:34 PM | Comments (0)