On June 1st, I'll be hosting the next edition of Medicine 2.0, a carnival devoted to exploring the impacts of web 2.0 technologies on medicine and medical practice.
All topics that consider the impacts of web 2.0 on medicine and healthcare are fair game.
Are you talking with doctors about sexually transmitted diseases in Second Life?
Have you had your genome sequenced? Do your doctors send you e-mail?
Are you using web technologies to measure your food consumption and calorie burning?
Bill Gates, Eric Lander, Maynard Olson, Leena Peltonen, and George Church fielded questions last night at a fascinating panel discussion on personal genomics at the University of Washington.
We were fortunate to be in the audience. I'll share some of the questions and answers, in some cases shortened and paraphrased.
The room in Kane Hall at the UW was already warm when we arrived last night (yes, I do go to evening seminars). A student handed us cards and cute little pencils for writing our questions and we sat down. We fought the impulse to write "What's the air ... Read more
Things move off of our entry page pretty quick sometimes. If you missed this post from Bioephemera, go take a look.
She has great pictures and a fascinating story about one Seattle's favorite places.Read more
Bora had an enjoyable post yesterday on obsolete lab skills. I can empathize because I have a pretty good collection of obsolete lab skills myself. These days I'm rarely (okay, never) called upon to do rocket immunoelectrophoresis, take blood from a rat's tail, culture tumor cells in the anterior eye chamber of a frog, locate obscure parasites in solutions of liquid nitrogen, or inoculate Kalanchoe leaves with pathogenic bacteria.
(Wow! It sounds like I worked for ... Read more
Long ago, I worked in a large lab that was divided into several small rooms. For part of that time, I shared one of the small rooms with a graduate student from Taiwan. She was a wonderful person who taught me that many cultural norms are not normal in other cultures.
One moment stands out.
She sneezed.
"Gesundheit" I replied.
She stared at me, clearly puzzled. "What?"
"You know, it's a word we say when people sneeze. It keeps demons from running up your nose"
If she looked puzzled before, now, she was clearly alarmed. I could see her sneaking ... Read more
is coming home and flying into Seattle. I took these pictures with my phone (in Airplane Mode, of course).
In the first shot, you get to see Mt. St. Helen's and all the interesting geology around it.
Can you tell which way the volcano blew?
Mt. Rainier is in the background
Yesterday, I posted a memorial for Ron Mardigian, an enthusiastic champion of science education at Bio-Rad. Today, I scanned RPM's blog and what do I see?
A choir! Bio-Rad has produced a really funny music video. It reminds me of the music video from "We are the World," except some members of the choir are holding PCR machines and singing about the wonders of PCR! ... Read more
Usually, I wait until the end of December to take care of holiday-related shopping and shipping. This year, I've resolved to do better. This year, I'm hoping to ship holiday gifts before Christmas.
Fortunately, my SciBlings have come up with lots of great holiday recommendations to help you share science gifts with those you like and love.
I've compiled some of those suggestions here and I'll keep adding new ones as the month proceeds and people post them.http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2007 ... Read more
One of the greatest shocks when I started working in industry was the realization that the peer-reviewed paper, the most valuable form of currency in the academic world, was valued so little.
In academics, there is a well-established reward system for getting your work published in peer-reviewed journals. Whether or you not get hired, get money to do research, get to keep your job (i.e. get tenure), all depend on depend on your ability to get papers written and accepted by your peers. (Community colleges are an exception to this, there it's your teaching abilities ... Read more
