LucasLaursen.com/Blog

Cellular 'puncture repair kit' may minimize brain trauma

2008-06-30T18:54:00.001+01:00

Researchers have devised a treatment that mechanically repairs burst cell membranes in the brain, somewhat like puncture sealants used in bicycle tyres, and could therefore help to avert brain damage after serious head injuries.

Read the rest of the story here (subscription required) or here (pdf).

Creativity and Persistence Overcome Failure

2008-06-28T12:54:00.001+01:00

Tony Kouzarides tells the story of his early career as a comedy of errors. He started his Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge in the U.K. in 1981 studying the cancer-inducing potential of human cytomegalovirus. After a year of inserting virus DNA into target cells, the cells showed almost no signs of cancer. He couldn't rule out that other parts of the virus might do it, but he also couldn't publish his early results. On the strength of that record, he deadpans, he unsuccessfully applied to lead his own research group.

Read the whole story here or in pdf format here.

Eye-damaged mice lose sight of the time

2008-06-11T19:37:00.001+01:00

Mice with specific light-sensing cells removed from their retinas can see perfectly well but can't tune their body clock, scientists have shown. The discovery provides more evidence that light detection by the retina is crucial for mammals to stay on a 24-hour circadian cycle.

Read the whole story here.

Smokers' Choice

2008-06-03T21:17:00.004+01:00

Smokers tend to resist antismoking efforts that rely on "rational" approaches like taxes, and researchers have pointed to confounding influences, including social factors and addiction. But differences in smokers' decision-making processes may also be at play.

Read the rest of the story here. (Subscription required while this issue is current.)

New Science Careers stories get their own page

2008-05-27T14:51:00.002+01:00

I've begun a new page to archive my increasingly regular contributions to Science Careers here. Here are snippets from my two latest stories:

Rumors Fly Online When Jobs Are At Stake

Originally started by physicists of various obscure stripes, job-rumor Web sites now cover more than a dozen disciplines from anthropology to zoology. Some of these Web sites have a Webmaster who (sometimes) vets and posts rumors about postdoc and faculty jobs, whereas other sites take the form of wikis, which individual users can update. The sites offer varying levels of information, but all of them make water-cooler job rumors available to the world.

Read the whole story here.

Young Swedish Scientist Reveals Fast-Track Career Secrets

Thomas Helleday was precocious long before he started supervising Ph.D. students as he finished his own doctorate. His mother, a banker, bought him his first stock at age 7. At age 16, the Swedish native volunteered in a cancer ward with his older brother and "was terrified" by the harsh side effects of radiation therapy he saw there. Vowing to do something about it, potentially in the pharmaceutical industry, Helleday studied business and molecular biology as an undergraduate.

Read the whole story here.

Watery Echoes Give Clues to the Past and Future of the Seas

2008-04-17T22:33:00.002+01:00

Last spring, Katy Sheen listened to the sounds of the ocean from a ship off the coast of Spain. A relaxing vacation? Hardly. Sheen, a graduate student at the University of Cambridge in the U.K., is one of a handful of scientists adapting a technique called seismic profiling to oceanography. By observing the changing speeds of sound waves propagating through water, geophysicists and oceanographers hope to extract information about the ocean's temperature, salinity, and velocity.

Check out the whole story on the Science website (requires subscription) or on my site.

I'm especially proud of this story because I discovered it not via the usual suspects (press releases and journal articles) but by talking to an actual scientist. Moral: attend more formal dinners at Cambridge colleges?

Generation Y Workforce segment

2008-04-11T16:42:00.004+01:00

This week, Science Careers takes a look at Generation Y scientists to make sense of this new workforce and the workplace that Generation Y-ers are entering.

The Generation Y Workforce segment, which I helped script and voice, starts at 24:43 in the 41 minute podcast here. Or you can read the excerpted transcript here.

Altared State: The Russian Church Reborn

2008-04-01T20:20:00.004+01:00

Bell-ringing has a glorious tradition in Russia. Bells toll for prayers and festivals, and give rhythm to daily life. It can take three years to learn to play them, and one bell-ringing monk calls them "a part of the Russian soul." So the planned return of St Daniel's historic bells from America this August, after eight decades of exile at Harvard University, is big news.

See Click Magazine, the in-flight magazine of Click Air, for the rest of the story this month, or look for it at lucaslaursen.com/travel next month.

Plants Gone Alpine

2008-04-01T19:11:00.004+01:00

These days, it seems like everyone is into fast-and-light alpine climbing--even plants. Now, according to researchers based in Germany, valley plants are racing up the flanks of the Bernina Alps, Switzerland. The range is home to Piz Palu (12,812 feet) and the Biancograt (AD) on Piz Bernina (13,284 feet), the easternmost of the 4000-meter peaks in the Alps.

See Climbing Magazine (print only) for the rest of the story this month, or look for it at lucaslaursen.com/science next month.

Robot fliers in commando competition

2008-03-10T19:32:00.004Z

Robots inspired by moths, locusts, flies and swifts will take to the sky this week in an international competition for micro aerial vehicles in Agra, India. Teams will vie for the title--as well as up to US$600,000 in funding--for their tiny flying machines.

The rest of the story is at Nature News.