Lab break in San Fran

As most of you know I went last weekend to the ASCB meeting in San Francisco.
My only other time where I went to such a big gathering of nerds was with Otakon, and I have to say I'm a bit disappointed at the ASCB people as I saw NO cosplay whatsoever. Otakon was way better on that front.

Anyways the trip started quite ok with a new and improved Indy airport.


there was a stop at Minnapolis where they had this amusing projector:



When I got to San Fran I was received by Stynky and Sis-in who took me to the Coit tower for a better view of San Fran... once we climbed a couple of stairs >.>




We also walk a lot around and saw ice skating, giant spiders, free bread etc. All in all, a good day. The best part was the great advice from Stynk, as he pointed out how close was the playstation store to the Moscone center :D
I did however had to restrain myself of going there the next day, as I had to be a salesman for ASCB in order to get my money back for registration (which I'm still waiting)
T-shirt selling was ok, I guess, a short visit from Chippy made it better.
Once I was done I went to gather as much free swag as possible, as always free stuff is nice yet it would've been niceR if I had won the Wii from the SABioscience seminar. After months of constantly buying their primers and staying at the moscone center till 8:30pm, I was betrayed by them as they handed the Wii to a random Berkeley student. GRRRRR
He probably already has one and will be selling this one on eBay GRRRRRR
Life is so unfair!.

So, no Wii, guess I'll spend most of the time at the Playstation store,
or the apple store,
or the lush store... erh... that one was only for a min though :P

Anyways gel is about to finish run, so other honorable mentions for the trip goes to Chippy and her taqueria tour in San Fran, Sis-in for the amazing soupand BDBioscience for my new poster tube.
I'll be uploading some pics where appropriately.

Of LHC and Doomsday

http://www.stuff.co.nz//blogs/toonedin/2008/09/09/collider-scope/

Recently if you visit digg or reddit, several stories will pop up about the Large Hadron Collider.
Even PhDComics is running an special of it.

Those having the most fun are the half-life fans with their found "coincidences". (Freeman at site. G-man at site. Headcrabs at site)

Several comments seem to be tired about the doomsday jokes, but thank the flying spaghetti monster for them; It is because of this that now I know the biggest particle accelerator now exists near Geneva thanks to the European Organization of Nuclear Research, (CERN, acronym must make sense in one of those languages) and that it has been one day since the first beam was fired and we are all alive and well.
It will be on October 21 when the world will come to an end when the first high-energy collisions is planned. It matches my Prelim defense date, therefore I feel a certain grim dystopian future is coming on such a date.

I will be checking here for regular updates on the status of the world.
And to learn more about it I will play here when time allows.

SPORE on National Geographic

Damn you NGC for not giving me a quick code to embed your video.

The greatly anticipated SPORE game (that I've managed to avoid pre-ordering given its annoying copy-protection rules) will get some air time on National Geographic.

Or you could get the Galactic edition, but I don't think it will be worth it.

Dan Dennett on evolution of virulent ideas

Ignore the strange intro of the TED site. Once he starts speaking it is quite interesting.

Edit: Oh also don't get distracted at the beginning thinking about Resident Evil 4.
Zombie by parasites

2 years later.

It is done:
Dimerization of the Papillomavirus E2 Protein Is Required for Efficient Mitotic Chromosome Association and Brd4 Binding

And the only figure that actually has a result I remember recording, is the last one of microscopy...all the gels are from Jon.

At this pace my next paper would be in 7 years >.>

Oh well, such is the price of biology non reproducible, incomprehensible, anti-P.I-hypothesis results

NuMArt

Nope I was not looking through a telescope, but through a microscope.

How do I copy right this picture as mine?

EEK

"the Academy" also pointed out that exclusion of children from drug studies was more unethical than clinical testing, and could lead to devastating results.

The antibiotic chloramphenicol was released in the 1950s without adequate testing in infants and children. As use of the drug became more common, reports of a serious and often fatal reaction called the Grey Baby Syndrome surfaced. This reaction was related to slow clearance of the drug in infants as compared to adults, due to deficiency in hepatic glucuronyl transferase in infants. Similarly, though less devastating, widespread use of tetracycline in children was subsequently shown to be associated with dental dysplasia.

OH the one I've heard

Death on Gene Therapy Trial

In the fall of 1999, 18-year-old Jesse Gelsinger died as a result of his participation in a gene transfer trial. Jesse had a rare metabolic disorder, ornithine transcarbamylase deficiency syndrome (OTC) that was being controlled by medication and diet. Researchers were testing an innovative technique using adenovirus gene transfer. Shortly after treatment Jesse Gelsinger experienced multiple organ failure and subsequently died. This case catapulted research with human subjects into the national media. Serious concerns related to conflict of interest, data safety monitoring, and informed consent have made the Gelsinger case a contemporary illustration of continued doubts about the ethical integrity of research with human subjects. This case has instigated deliberations on all these controversial topics at the national level. The outcome of the discussions has yet to be determined.

Hmm wikipedia has more info than the crappy citi test I'm taking

Random trash talk: "Stynky you really want to keep eating herbicide fill, genetically modified animals and plants?"

Obedience to Authority Study (Milgram Study)

The purpose of this study was to determine response to authority in normal humans. The researchers told recruited volunteers that the purpose was to study learning and memory. Each subject was told to teach a "student" and to punish the students' errors by administering increasing levels of electric shocks. The "student" was a confederate of the researcher who pretended to be a poor learner and mimicked pain and even unconsciousness as the subject increased the levels of electric shock. 63% of the subjects administered lethal shocks; some even after the "student" claimed to have heart disease. Some of the subjects, after being "debriefed" from the study experienced serious emotional crises.

Ethical Problems: deception, unanticipated psychological harms.







OK, no idea or references on this one... but kind of funny... hmm... guess I shouldn't be a scientist.

To be just... in research

OK, so I haven't read all of this, but it is kind of funny what I just read.
"Who ought to receive the benefits of research and bear its burdens? This is a question of justice ... conceiving the principle of justice is that equals ought to be treated equally. However, this statement requires explication. Who is equal and who is unequal?"

ON the plus side... now I want to keep reading instead of cheating and press next to see what weird things I find :P

Edit one:
My MDs during my history
The first century physician Celsus justified experiments on condemned criminals in Egypt using wording that became a classic defense for hazardous experimentation: "It is not cruel to inflict on a few criminals sufferings which may benefit multitudes of innocent people through all centuries."
Brady, Joseph V. and Jonsen, Albert R. "The Evolution of Regulatory Influences on Research with Human Subjects." Human Subjects Research - A Handbook for Institutional Review Boards. Ed. Greenwald, Robert A. et al. New York: Plenum Press, 1982. 3 - 18

Just digging for the pic

This story is on digg

Would be cool to work on that, dunno much about it, but the pic is too cute. So I'm posting it.