How does grass grow in the extremely hot soils of Yellowstone National Park? The quest continues.
Read part I, part II, part III, and part IV to see how we got here.
And read onward ... Read more
I meant for this to be a three part series, but in part II, I learned that one more experiment had to be done. I had to know if the articles I found in PubMed Central were the same articles that I found in PubMed.
Part I and part III cover the background and ... Read more
This is the third, and last part in a three part series on finding free scientific papers. You can read the first part here: Part I: A day in the life of an English physician and the second part, where I compare different methods, here.
Today, I will show you how to use my new favorite method.
How to find free scientific publications ... Read more
This is the second part in a three part series on finding free scientific papers. You can read the first part here: Part I: A day in the life of an English physician
Today, we do an experiment with PubMed and PubMed Central to determine the best way to search for free articles.
The biggest problem that our doctor friend, from part I, faced, wasn ... Read more
This three part series covers the problem of finding scientific articles, compares results from a few different methods, and presents instructions for the best method.
A day in the life of an English physician
In April, I had the great fortune to attend (and speak at) a conference on scientific publishing sponsored by the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers. One of the first speakers was an English physician who described his trials and a typical ordeal in trying to use the medical literature. ... Read more
Quick synopsis: A type of grass grows in Yellowstone National Park in hot (65° C), unfriendly soil. How the plant manages this feat is a mystery. What we do know, is that the grass can only tolerate high temperatures if it's been infected by a fungus, and the fungus has to be infected by an RNA virus. In the paper describing this discovery, the researchers provided the GenBank accession numbers for the viral sequences. I decided to see if I could find out more about the proteins and what they do. Read ... Read more
Do you want to learn how to use some cool biotechnology and bioinformatics methods in your college or high school class?
If you're on the East coast, the best place to go is the Fralin Biotechnology Conference at Virignia Tech, July 18-21st.
(Yes, it's the same Virgina Tech, and that's why I waited to post this announcement).
There's something for everyone at this conference. For beginners, there's a pre-conference Biotech Boot camp where you can learn to run gels and clone genes. For instructors with more ... Read more
PZ's morning post about a bear killing a moose in someone's yard (they do live in Alaska, after all), reminded me that it's time to make an announcement about our upcoming course.
No, no, no! We're not going to kill any moose on the premises. We're going to learn about the moose and its food, not the moose as its food.
But, if you take the course that precedes ours, you might get to see some moose, and you might get to see some ... Read more
If you've ever looked at an evolutionary tree, contemplated phylogeny, cladistics, or the like, you're probably aware that Joe Felsenstein is one of the leaders of the pack.
And you will certainly enjoy, this interview that Blind Scientist has posted.
I wouldn't advise reading the interview to learn about doing phylogenetics, but you will learn a bit about the social anthropology of the field. Felsenstein does a wonderful job of supplying historical context to phylogenetic arguments and filling in the missing details ... Read more
It must be spring. Summer course announcements are popping up everywhere and this site is no exception.
Last Friday, I posted an announcement about our summer bioinformatics course in Alaska, June 27-29th.
This week, I have a couple more conferences to announce. Naturally, I'll be at both of them, leading hands-on workshops for college and high school teachers in using the technology.
Today, I want to tell you about the Bio-Link Summer Fellows Workshop, June 4th-8th Berkeley ... Read more
