How do you use Twitter as a scientist? If you know how to Tweet (posting things on Twitter), you have a new avenue for interacting with the world including colleagues, students, editors, etc. Twitter can be a very powerful tool for scientists. If you, as a scientist, don’t use it you are putting yourself at a …
Want to win $50 and become a published author? Enter the Knoepfler Lab Stem Cell Blog Essay Contest. The challenge? Write a no more than 500 word, convincing, non-fiction essay on stem cells thinking entirely outside the box. Otherwise, the angle you take is totally up to you. Surprise me. Make me think. There will …
Stem Cell Essay Contest: $50 prize & essay is published Read More »
Many folks believe that if you can kill or otherwise inactivate cancer stem cells, you’ve gone a long way to curing many types of cancer. However the cells have remained elusive. Now, Mick Bhatia’s lab has found that the antipsychotic drug, Thioridazine, has activity against cancer stem cells. The work, published in Cell (read paper …
I wish I was a field scientist sometimes so maybe after 20+ years I’d like to escape the lab at times to do science outdoors. However, occasionally science comes to you, giving you a surprising, fun experience. Note that you may enjoy my Scientist in the Garden series. That happened to me today. After walking …
The fun when science comes knocking at your door: a real Mothra Read More »
Just about exactly two and a half years ago I had surgery for prostate cancer, a serious prostate cancer that could not be watched. I could not be waiting. It changed my life. How was my prostate cancer diagnosed at age 42, an age when no one told me I should even be thinking about …
Throwing the baby out with the bathwater on PSA testing & prostate cancer Read More »
Yesterday I put up a poll asking scientists how happy they are or more simply “is science still fun?” I myself really find science fun despite all the challenges and headaches, but I wasn’t sure how my colleagues would respond as a lot of people seem stressed and/or depressed. It was thus great to see …
Scientists still finding fun and excitement in their work: poll results Read More »
I was at a faculty meeting the other day and one colleague, with a bleak look on the face, announced grimly: “I realized that science is not fun anymore”. Is science still fun for you? Many of us got into science in the first place because it gave us joy and we had a passion …
TGIF It’s been a wild week on this blog with many thoughts going out to the future of stem cells in Texas. What about stem cell headlines of the week? Some wildness there too and lots of discussion of translational applications, which is exciting. This week let’s start in reverse order with the ugly and …
TGIF: good, bad, ugly stem cell headlines of week of May 25 Read More »
On Monday, I made a big stink about Texas GOP Governor Rick Perry visiting a lab (that of Jeanne Loring) at Scripps Research Institute here in California because the lab in question is a leading group doing human embryonic stem cell (HESC) and Perry is a strong opponent of such research. I thought the visit …
Great letter on Guv Perry’s California visit video from the artist Read More »
Here is the second installment in my “elephant in the lab” series, which addresses controversial or even taboo topics in laboratories and the sciences. The first segment was on taboo topics in the iPS cell field. People loved the honesty of that post. Today I am talking about how sometimes scientists kill each other’s papers …
Dirty dozen easy steps to killing a paper during review: elephant in the lab series Read More »