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RSSScience Quote of the Week #7
Feb 09
science quote of the week No Comments
Funny Science Videos
Feb 08
SciencegeekGirl recently compiled a list of all sorts of science geek resources. On her list is Biocompare’s Funniest Science Videos. I suggest checking these funny and informative videos out when you have a minute.
My personal favorite is this GTCA song from BioRad
If you have trouble viewing these videos, you can also see a complete list of videos on Biocompare’s YouTube Channel.
Share your favorite science video with us!
Revisiting ‘Autism, Vaccines, and The Oprah Effect’
Feb 06
In June I commented on the autism – vaccine controversy and the role that Oprah had in promoting it. Seven moths later, I am revisiting this issue. 12 years ago, Andrew Wakefield and his colleagues first published his findings in The Lancet providing ‘evidence’ suggesting they had tracked down a shocking cause of autism – that being the MMR Vaccine. Last week The Lancet published a retraction of Wakefield’s paper stating that “it has become clear that several elements of the 1998 paper by Wakefield et al are incorrect.”
Steven Novella of Science Based Medicine has a detailed article about this which I highly recommend reading. I can only agree with Novella’s conclusion: “I applaud the Lancet for finally retracting the Wakefield study and removing it from the published record. It should not, however, have taken this long.”
Got to wonder what Jenny McCarthy and her pal, Oprah have to say about this.
Andrew Wakefield’s 1998 Paper:
MURCH, S., ANTHONY, A., LINNELL, J., CASSON, D., MALIK, M., BERELOWITZ, M., DHILLON, A., THOMSON, M., x%x HARVEY, P. (1998). Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children The Lancet, 351 (9103), 637-641 DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(97)11096-0
The Lancet’s Retraction of Andrew Wakefield’s 1998 Paper:
The Editors of The Lancet, . (2010). Retraction—Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children The Lancet, 375 (9713), 445-445 DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(10)60175-4
Science Quote of the Week #6
Feb 03
science quote of the week No Comments
This week’s quote comes from Wernher Von Braun.
“Research is what I’m doing when I don’t know what I’m doing.”
Tips for Editing Laboratory Reports
Feb 02
John Bochardt recently posted tips for editing laboratory reports in the Lab Manager blog. In the article he quite correctly points out that many laboratory professionals have difficulty in writing reports and that the process often takes longer than it should with the result being a poorly written report.
As scientists we have “scientific methodology” ingrained in our blood. This has provided us with a rigorously structured approach to science and has given us a formula for working towards success. Unfortunately, scientific methodology has also created an insular environment that has enabled us to hide behind scientific jargon and poorly written pieces of literature. One area that we can focus on to improve on our written work is the area of context. Context is the way we organize disparate pieces of information and random thoughts into fully developed ideas that flow. Context has become increasingly important in the scientific community. Years ago, biologists would often focus on their favorite gene and perform a million and a half different experiments to define the gene’s transcriptional and translational activities. While this was very useful in creating publishable results it was quickly discovered that it is much more effective to study a gene in context of it’s biological surroundings than in isolation. This gave rise to the field of genomics and proteomics and to the advent of microarrays, multiplex bead arrays and various other differential display technologies. Everyone now understands that while protein X may behave a certain way under one condition (i.e. acidic, basic etc) it likely behaves very differently under a different set of conditions and that the interplay between the multitude of biological materials (DNA, RNA, Proteins etc) is the key to our biological responses.
Just as we have discovered the importance of studying of our favorite gene in the appropriate biological “context,” we must define the organization of our experimental methodology and results in their appropriate “context.” This will provide us with more clarity and assist us formulating our written thoughts in the same structured manner that we approach scientific experimentation.
