Discovering Biology in a Digital World

Genes and thinking: a cool series of workshops for teachers

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 12:13:39 -0500

If you have a little time, the Dolan DNA Learning Center at Cold Spring Harbor will be presenting some really interesting workshops on neuroscience and genetics.

The dates are:

Nov. 5, 2009: Inside Cancer - workshop on teaching cancer; Raritan
Valley Community College, Somerville, NJ

Nov. 6, 2009: Genes To Cognition - workshop on teaching neuroscience;
Raritan Valley Community College, Somerville, NJ

Nov. 21, 2009: Inside Cancer - workshop on teaching cancer; Great Bay
Community College, Portsmouth, NH

Nov. 20, 2009: Genes To Cognition - workshop on teaching neuroscience;
Great Bay Community College, Portsmouth, NH

And the registration info is here: http://www.dnalc.org/programs/teacher_training.html

You can also find the info on the Fan wall at our Bio-Link Facebook Fan page.

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Community science at Puget Sound beaches

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 11:11:27 -0500

We always see interesting creatures whenever we walk on the beach. Now, a new program from the University of Washington and the state department of Fish and Wildlife is seeking to enlist beach walkers in a community science project where they can help monitor biodiversity.

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Afterthoughts on the Life Sciences Summit

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 15:36:29 -0500

This morning I attended the Fifth Annual WBBA Governor's Life Sciences Summit. The breakfast was great; the talks were okay.

I do enjoy the stories about people who's lives were saved because of biotechnology and I agree that the focus of the summit, research and discovery are important, but I can't help thinking about the missing piece.

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It wasn't a snake on a plane, but still ...

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 21:00:50 -0500

How did it get between the windows?

Maybe this is why the flight attendant kept asking us to close the shades.

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How NOT to encourage diversity in the scientific community

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 00:20:00 -0500

This summer, I had the good fortune to attend three (or was it four?) conferences on science education. One of the most inspirational conferences was one on Vision and Change in Biology Education. This conference was co-sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the AAAS. It was a call to action for biology educators and many of the points and findings resonated deep in my bones.

Then, I read the press release from the AAAS.

And right there in the middle, I found this statement from the AAAS CEO, Alan Leshner.

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Next Generation DNA Sequencing does more than sequence DNA

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 18:24:16 -0500

You might think the coolest thing about the Next Generation DNA Sequencing technologies is that we can use them to sequence long-dead mammoths, entire populations of microbes, or bits of bone from Neanderthals.

But you would be wrong.

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Magpie day #1: interesting links to science careers

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 00:52:42 -0500

I've just returned from two conferences that focused on educating students for careers in science and technology and what do I find here at the home fort? There's Chad writing a very nice series on science careers!

I was a little puzzled by PNAS acryonym in his titles since to me, PNAS stands for "Proceedings of the National Academy of Scientists" and is a high impact scientific journal. But then I realized that Chad is a physicist and he might not know this. It's quite possible that PNAS isn't as big in the physics community as it is in biology.

Anyway, this is a very nice series, so way to go Chad!

And teachers and career counselors pay attention! These kinds of jobs are great and you should have your students reading Chad's interviews.

Here are some of my favs.

PNAS: Pam Korda, Medical Device Developer

You may not know this, but many kinds of things are considered medical devices. To give a brief definition, medical devices are things that are not drugs. They do not alter your body's metabolism. Many kinds f diagnostic tests, like the pregnancy tests you can get at the drug store, are medical devices.

PNAS: Dennis Lee, Biotech Researcher

PNAS: Nicole Leuke, Science Teacher

PNAS: Sandra Ulbrich Almazan, Enzyme Scientist

PNAS: Patricia Crotwell, Sanford Genetics Lab

Figure 1. You can make things like this with a two year degree from a community college.

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Bioinformatics Summit proceedings and Next Generation DNA sequencing

Sun, 26 Jul 2009 21:56:46 -0500

Last spring, I gave my first hands-on workshop in working with Next Generation Sequencing data at the Eighth Annual UT-ORNL-KBRIN Bioinformatics Summit at Fall Creek Falls State Park in Tennessee. The proceedings from that conference are now on-line at BMC Bioinformatics and it's fun to look back and reflect on all that I learned at the conference and all that's happened since.

Figure 1. Fall Creek Falls State Park, TN

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Plasma physics on the table

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 17:11:21 -0500

I don't remember learning about plasma when I took physics, but it's amazing stuff. Last week at the Hi-Tec conference in Arizona, I got to learn how an electromagnetic field can be used to push plasma around a tube. Community college students get to play with the coolest toys!

Here's some plasma contained in a small area.

Figure 1. Plasma on the table.

Here's some plasma getting pushed around a tube.

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Nanotechnology: let's get small!

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 15:00:25 -0500

Liveblogging from the Hi-Tec conference

I'm currently at the Hi-Tec conference in Scottsdale, Arizona. (If you follow me on Twitter - www.twitter.com/@digitalbio - you may have seen me complaining about the temperature). It's an interesting conference, so I'm going to share some of the things that I'm learning.

Dr. Travis Benanti and Dr. Steve Fonash from Penn State University are presenting an interesting session this morning on nanotechnology.

Luckily, you don't have to know anything about nanotechnology to find the session fascinating.

If you're interested in learning about nanotechnology or teaching about this, they have free modules and courses available at their web site, www.nano4me.org , and they will also post the slides from this morning's talk.

What is nanotechnology?

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14 year old girl discovers new supernova

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 21:51:19 -0500

There aren't many reports of 14 year-olds making scientific contributions. Even in the field of astronomy, Caroline Moore, the youngest person to discover a supernova, is a bit unusual.

This supernova comes from Astronomy Picture of the day. Photo credits: High-Z Supernova Search Team, HST, NASA

HT: National Science Foundation
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See the Antarctic through GrrlScientist's eyes

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 20:39:48 -0500

One of my all time favorite books is South: The Last Antarctic Expedition of Shackleton and the Endurance (The Explorers Club Classic) . It's an amazing adventure and an incredible story. It's a comfort to know that any challenges I face will be easier than those conquered by Shackleton.

Luckily, traveling to Antarctica these days is far less hazardous. And we're glad of that because we'd really to send one of our favorite bloggers there as our surrogate eyes and ears.

We're also glad because the we won't have to worry about her getting eaten by polar bears.

Help send Grrl to the far south, go vote!

Portage Glacier, AK. This is not Antarctica, but there is snow.

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Educating students for a career in the workforce or a place in society: why do not both?

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 13:01:38 -0500

For those of you who may have been wondering where I've been, these past few weeks have seen me grading final projects, writing a chapter on analyzing Next Gen DNA sequencing data for the Current Protocols series, and flying back and forth between Seattle and various meetings elsewhere in the U.S. It will probably take years of bike commuting to make up for my carbon credits, but most meetings I attend don't have viable alternatives in venues like Second Life or World of Warcraft. Anyway, as I sit writing on an airplane, I think I could revise the title for Dr. Seuss' famous book to "Oh the places I've been."

Inside the tropical house at the Missouri Botanical Garden

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Why don't we finish the human genome first?

Fri, 08 May 2009 08:00:18 -0500

One of the interesting things I learned today was that many people are calling for the genome sequences of the chimps and Macaques to be finished.

This is especially amusing because the human genome isn't quite done. We're primates, too! Why not finish our genome?

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Teen-age children as experimental subjects

Wed, 06 May 2009 08:00:04 -0500

We always enjoy home science experiments and it was fun the other night to learn about a new experiment we could try with our teenage daughter and an iPhone.

As it turned out, the joke was on us.

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