Hackers are trying to take over this blog, probably even as you read this post. I’ve heard about people trying to take over websites, but I wasn’t aware of the magnitude of the problem until I installed a little widget on my blog to measure such activities. After about a week of the widget monitoring […]
Freaking hackers trying to take over my blog: the startling data Read More »
Scientists are sinners? Yep. Here’s our series of articles on the seven deadline sins of science (note so far only the first 5 sins have been covered). Failure to Cite Paper or grant killing Need for Speed Hype Snobbery To be announced To be announced
Sins of Scientists series Read More »
I’m discussing the seamier side of science in a seven part series on what I call scientific sinning or the “seven sins of scientists”. The first four pieces in this series really stoked a great deal of interest and debate, covering Failure to Cite, Paper or grant killing, Need for Speed, and hype. Today in the fifth installment
Seven sins of scientists part 5: snobbery Read More »
Medulloblastoma is the most common pediatric brain tumor. However, treatments for children who are diagnosed with so-called medullos have not evolved much over the years and are largely similar to treatments given to adults for other brain tumors. One frequent event in certain medullos is amplification of two members of the MYC family of oncogenes
New medulloblastoma paper suggests novel avenues to treat this childhood cancer Read More »
Yesterday I was kind of harsh on the microbiome researchers whose work has been so widely discussed in the NY Times and elsewhere. I went so far as to call it “fatally flawed” because the researchers picked their research subjects for “normalcy” and went so far as to manipulate the subjects by requiring that 80%
Fecal yogurt and more microbiome musings Read More »
The pursuit of “normalcy” has seriously led some scientists astray and there is no better example than the recent microbiome studies that have drawn great attention in the media. I found one aspect of their study design profoundly disturbing. First to my core question. Is there even such as thing as a normal person? As
I have an ongoing poll on people’s impressions of the big annual stem cell meeting, ISSCR 2012. I myself have been wishing I was in Japan for that meeting so I remain surprised at the trending of the poll toward the negative. By far the most common response has been a surprisingly ho-hum “so-so” evaluation
Wish list from 2012 attendees for ISSCR 2013: some crankiness Read More »
Why do professors leave one institution and go to another? The reasons why say a lot about academia. This is kind of a taboo topic in science, but very important. Once upon a time…. Two decades ago when I was a technician in the Pathology Department at UCSD School of Medicine and then still when
Why professors leave: elephant in the lab series Read More »
How often do our preconceived notions make us miss new discoveries as scientists? I fear this happens very often. What got me thinking about closed and open minds was of course inspired by my dog, Elvis. I was walking her very early one morning last week as I often do out here in Davis, CA
Mystery sculpture: how the brain eats up new things Read More »
What’s the deal with ISSCR 2012? I’ve always enjoyed the ISSCR meetings myself, but there was some grumbling last year that the meeting was as one reader told me “boring” and that people were presenting too much already published data. I decided since I wasn’t at this year’s meeting to do a poll on attendees’
Surprising lack of enthusiasm for ISSCR 2012 Read More »