It’s been a crazy week with a story about Harvard Geneticist George Church supposedly in his new book and in a magazine interview promoting the idea of cloning Neanderthals and possibly people too. I blogged about it here. The German Magazine Der Spiegel did interviewed Church (English version of interview is here) and many things […]
In the coming weeks and months, I am going to run a series of posts (some interviews, some guest posts) on human cloning, the reproductive type. This is the kind of cloning where you take a person (living or dead) such as, let’s say Lady GaGa or Jesus, and you try to make a duplicate
Series on scientific & bioethics leaders discussing human cloning Read More »
The University of California (UC), a truly wonderful organization, seems to have made a misstep with its new logo. Below on the left is the old logo and on the right is the new logo. I did a poll here that got a huge response on what people thought the new symbol represented. Just 2%
Have I got a stem cell for you! We hear a lot about the dangers of an increasing number of rogue stem cell clinics, but another critical trend has flown more under the radar: direct marketing of stem cells to doctors. This is big business and arguably one of the biggest threats to patients. In
Stem cell black market emerging in the U.S. Read More »
The field of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) has really shaken up science over the last half dozen years reversing our notion that differentiated cells are stuck in that fate, when in reality they are plastic and can “turn back the clock” to become embryonic stem cell-like cells. Now we have an iPSC paper in Nature,
Surprising human mosaicism means not all your cells have the same DNA Read More »
I predict by 2015 most major journals will have ended their hardcopy print versions and will be entirely digital. It just makes good sense from so many perspectives including financially and from an environmental view. This is a radical change from just a few decades ago. During my youngest childhood years, there were no personal
Digital prediction: the end of print science journals Read More »
Why are some scientists so inept socially and end up in struggles interacting with other people? Kindergarten! Yes, my theory is that many of the key events are traceable to kindergarten and more specifically to what future scientists failed to learn then even if they technically passed the class and moved on to first grade.
Is blogging for scientists a good idea? With my concise advice below, you should be ready to get started. I say, “Go for it!” I know there are quite a lot of people interested in starting to blog, but perhaps a bit uncertain or even intimidated by the idea. I think this is especially true
Top ten tips for blogging for scientists Read More »
Open access publishing is getting a lot of attention. Taxpayer supported government grants + scientists’ work = closed access publisher profits (derived from payments from taxpayers + scientists) This simple equation embodies all that is wrong with today’s predominant system of publishing. In fact, it is an indictment of closed access publishers. The profits of
The case for open access publishing embodied in a single equation Read More »
Why don’t professors blog and do social media? Why am I the only professor with a stem cell blog across the globe (if there are other please let me know)? Why do I do this blog? I’ve written before about why I blog and listed the numerous blogs about stem cells out there that I
Academia’s love-hate relationship with social media Read More »