Why do people have such a big brain compared to other animals? Vertebrate embryonic development is a highly conserved process, particularly in the earliest phases. (note: you may find this September 2020 post on regulation of bee brain size to be interesting.) A wide variety of vertebrate animals including humans start out with embryonic body plans […]
Why is the human brain super-sized? Read More »
I’ve now been blogging about stem cells here on The Niche for nearly 2 years, but why do I keep doing it? I’m by no means the only one who blogs about stem cells, but it is just that professors still are reluctant in the stem cell field to blog. Two outstanding blogs that tied
Why I am still blogging here on The Niche Read More »
How should we all handle cyber safety issues? Could someone be stealing your work-related or personal data while you travel? If you have recently traveled outside the U.S., particularly to China or Russia, I have bad news for you because you may have already been hacked. Check out this article in the NY Times about how dangerous
Helpful cyber safety tips for trips Read More »
My family is excited about the Grammys. Some members like the Oscars. We are not so into the Tonys, but millions of Americans are into them. We need an awards ceremony, maybe even a show for scientists. Scientists will never be the stars that artistic performers are, but it is sad and arguably a sign
We need an annual American awards ceremony for scientists Read More »
They say politics makes strange bedfellows….remember the Witherspoon Council? These are the fellows who are the BFFs of the two scientists suing to stop federal funding of human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research. They also wrote a large, very stodgy tome about stem cell research, in which they mentioned me and this blog…kinda implying we
Witherspoon Council, Komen, and Fox News Read More »
The Susan G. Komen Foundation has done so much good over the years in its fight against breast cancer that it is particularly disturbing to learn that they have betrayed women. Betray is a strong word and I don’t use it lightly, but I think it is appropriate in this case. To me the pink
Komen Foundation Betrays Women Read More »
When I make the argument as I have repeatedly on this blog and in other contexts that as a whole the Republican Party and its leadership are anti-science, one of the counter arguments fired back at me is that Obama is himself anti-science. My initial reaction to this “Obama is anti-science” argument is somewhat visceral,
Is Obama anti-science? Read More »
What’s the Witherspoon Institute? Most of you know about the 2 scientists who for their own reasons want to kill embryonic stem cell (ESC) research and with it the hopes for millions of people. Relatively new on most of our radar screens, however, is an extremist right-wing “think tank” called The Witherspoon Institute, which I
Secrets of the Witherspoon Gang Read More »
CIRM, the California stem cell agency, has funded hundreds of grants during its relatively short existence. You can do searches of these grants through a handy dandy web portal that CIRM has made available–it’s a very cool tool and I commend CIRM for making it available. I wish the tool had more options however including
Word Cloud of Every CIRM-funded grant yields some surprising insights Read More »
What’s it like living with cancer? Exactly two years ago today, I was lying in a hospital bed literally across the street from lab here at UC Davis. It seems unreal in a way, but painfully real it was and still is. On November 30, 2009, I had surgery for prostate cancer. Two years ago,
My 2 years living with cancer, what I learned from Steve Jobs Read More »