We've been fans of the Molecule of the Month series by David Goodsell, for many years. Not only is Dr. Goodsell a talented artist but he writes very clear descriptions of the ways molecules like proteins, RNA, and DNA work together and function inside a cell.
To learn about proteins and their activities, I like to go directly to the Molecule of the Month page, where I can find a list of articles organized by molecule type and name. Many of these articles can also be downloaded in a PDF format.
A really nice of his articles is that he includes PDB IDs ... Read more
Something interesting happened in 2014. The total number of databases that Nucleic Acids Research (NAR) tracks dropped by three databases! What happened? Did people quit making databases? No. This year, the "dead" databases (links no longer valid) outnumber the new ones. To celebrate Digital World Biology's release of ... Read more
Wired Campus shared an interesting story this morning about a career site for female science / engineering professionals. The site is called ASU CareerWISE and its mission is to help women with problem solving.
I like the idea and I like that they built the site in Drupal, since I've become a big Drupal fan over the past year, but I think they've missed the point in a big ... Read more
Jonathan Eisen (@phylogenomics) shared this wonderful Lady Gaga lab spoof on Twitter the other day. It rocks.
And, it makes me wonder if my pals who've been thinking about getting students interested in careers by having scientists talk on camera might be going at this the wrong way. Sure, videos of scientists talking are totally fascinating (yawn..) and...
Oh right, where was I?
Well, here's the thing. If you want to get kids interested in something, you have to use something that interests them. Your strategy isn't going ... Read more
Next Saturday afternoon, at ScienceOnline2010, the science goddess, the chemspider, and I will be presenting a workshop on getting students involved in citizen science.
In preparation, I'm compiling a set of links to projects that involve students in citizen science. If you know of any good citizen science efforts, please share them in the comments.
Here we go!
Before I start listing links, I am limiting this list to projects that ... Read more
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 ... Read more
We'll have a blast, I promise! But there's one little thing we need to discuss first...
I want to explain why I'm going to use nucleotide sequences for the blast search. (I used protein the other day). It's not just because someone told me too, there is a solid rational reason for this.
The reason is the redundancy in the genetic code.
Okay, that probably didn't make any sense to those of you who didn't already know the answer. Here it is. ... Read more
This is a video that a friend made that shows, very clearly, how to pour an agarose gel, load the samples and run it. I especially like the way he used a bit of time lapse photography to show the dyes separating as the gel ran.
My husband brought this fantastic book home from the ASHG* that I think many of you will find interesting.
The book is: Making the Right Moves A Practical Guide to Scientific Management for Postdocs and New Faculty, published in 2006 by the Burroughs Wellcome Fund and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
You can download the book for free at the HHMI site and there's even a video of Tom Cech.
In fact, this book has such great information, that if it weren't for the interesting discussions in the comment ... Read more
