tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-192445512024-03-07T03:41:10.639-06:00Adaptive ComplexityOn The Road in Molecular BiologyAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474549004146223010noreply@blogger.comBlogger139125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19244551.post-62282958589944894452012-11-05T20:37:00.000-06:002012-11-05T20:37:54.731-06:00Where I blog now...If you are one of the occasional people who randomly encounter this blog, and are wondering what the hell happened to my blog, come drop by my current home at the science pub The Finch and Pea.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474549004146223010noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19244551.post-21613302326573736562008-03-22T17:18:00.004-05:002008-03-26T11:41:27.046-05:00Adaptive Complexity is Moving - Update your linksI'm completely moving this blog over to Scientific Blogging. If you follow this blog via RSS, the new link is: Adaptive Complexity. If you read this through the DNA Network, you'll see the new feed shortly.My Scientifc Blogging column is here.If you're waiting for the long-delayed next installment on the science in Pynchon's Against the Day, it will go up there (soon, I hope).Why am I moving? Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474549004146223010noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19244551.post-3734162643674890762008-03-07T10:40:00.003-06:002008-03-07T10:56:41.957-06:00Statisticians are verifiably insaneR is a great free statistical software package. I'm trying to use it frequently enough to get comfortable with the basic commands and data objects, so that I don't have to dig through the help manual every time I want to do some small thing. I'm trying to break my Excel habit - if you want real statistics, you don't use Excel, right?I'm writing my paper, and need to make a simple bar graph. TheAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474549004146223010noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19244551.post-10046891036412903022008-03-06T21:28:00.002-06:002008-03-06T21:41:18.107-06:00Bad Science Journalism: The Myth of the Oppressed UnderdogThere is a particular narrative about science that science journalists love to write about, and Americans love to hear. I call it the 'oppressed underdog' narrative, and it would be great except for the fact that it's usually wrong.The narrative goes like this:1. The famous, brilliant scientist So-and-so hypothesized that X was true.2. X, forever after, became dogma among scientists, simply by Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474549004146223010noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19244551.post-73270979296046894422008-03-06T20:40:00.004-06:002008-03-06T21:20:31.622-06:00This is not a real scientific conferenceI'm all for open debate over the genuine science behind global warming - researchers who have research results that don't jive with the IPCC's consensus report should be free to present their stuff at real scientific conferences and not be ostracized just because their results are different.But, as Real Climate points out, the Heartland Institute International Conference on Climate Change didn't Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474549004146223010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19244551.post-62780656721780706002008-02-27T17:00:00.002-06:002008-02-27T17:08:17.587-06:00Science Blogging: There are Plenty of Readers Out ThereThere is currently a blogging debate going on about the absence of science from science blogs (initiated over at bayblab). Why are the most popular science blogs full of religion, politics, and controversy?Larry at Sandwalk has also weighed in on the issue and notes that his posts devoted to geniune science get only a fraction of the readers that his more controversial posts get. There is no Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474549004146223010noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19244551.post-50664391149284423392008-02-24T16:53:00.002-06:002008-02-24T16:58:26.758-06:00Plug-And-Play Inside Your Cells: Signals and Side EffectsMy latest column is up on Scientific Blogging:If you've ever had a severe asthma attack or gone into premature labor, there is a good chance you were given the drug terbutaline. Terbutaline can relax your involuntary smooth muscle when it's causing problems: in constricted airways during an asthma attack, or in the uterus during contractions. But if you've taken terbutaline, you've probably also Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474549004146223010noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19244551.post-56402252982649658412008-02-20T17:20:00.002-06:002008-02-20T17:26:00.286-06:00Making Biology Easy Enough For EngineersNo, I'm not knocking the intelligence of engineers. But we're still not at the point where, in the words of synthetic biologist Drew Endy:...when I want to go build some new biotechnology, whether it makes a food that I can eat or a bio-fuel that I can use in my vehicle, or I have some disease I want to try and cure, I don't want that project to be a research project. I want it to be an Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474549004146223010noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19244551.post-54530178613424957382008-02-12T10:28:00.000-06:002008-02-12T10:42:15.361-06:00If Darwin Had A Web Browser, He Would Never Have Written The OriginI've got a post on Darwin and the pace of science today up at Scientific Blogging:How can today's wired, multitasking scientist ever compete with the great scientists of the past? One feature of Darwin's work as a scientists was that it proceeded slowly, very, very slowly. He wrote massive groundbreaking books, compiled huge amounts of data on orchids, barnacles, and Galapagos animals, but all Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474549004146223010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19244551.post-82465505587572582252008-02-10T20:08:00.000-06:002008-02-10T22:25:43.094-06:00Neil Shubin's Your Inner Fish and More on Darwin DayTuesday, Feb. 12 is the anniversary of Darwin's birthday, and has been dubbed Darwin Day. In celebration of Darwin's scientific achievement, many organizations are holding Darwin Day events.Over at Scientific Blogging, we're celebrating with a feature page chock full of Darwin Day articles, links to Darwin Day blogging around the web, and highlights of events around the country. If you have a Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474549004146223010noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19244551.post-30673998080278322782008-02-09T11:41:00.000-06:002008-02-09T11:48:52.189-06:00Looking for Darwin Day Writers!!Darwin Day is coming up Monday, and I'm sure a lot of you bloggers out there will be writing good stuff. Over at Scientific Blogging, we're organizing a last-minute Darwin Day Carnival. Download the badge here (keep in mind the page is still in the draft stage), put the badge in your post, and we'll provide an intro and link to your post.Scientific Blogging gets almost 600,000 visitors per monthAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474549004146223010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19244551.post-50283853187783764952008-02-05T21:45:00.000-06:002008-02-05T21:57:02.709-06:00Super Tuesday LinksI'm trying to find time to write a paper, and thus I've neglected my blog. But here are two interesting links:Super Tuesday and Science Debate 2008: The US National Academies of Sciences have joined in the call for a US Presidential Election Science Debate. The National Academies have offered to co-sponsor this event. If you haven't heard of this movement yet, go check it out.One of the pioneersAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474549004146223010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19244551.post-80158313820183828912008-01-30T15:47:00.000-06:002008-01-30T15:49:53.938-06:00Self-Organizing Metabolism and the Origins of LifeThe late Leslie Orgel, a pioneering researcher in pre-biotic evolution, has an interesting essay in the most recent issue of PLoS Biology. A long-running debate in origins-of-life research has been over what came first: genetic material or a self-organizing metabolism.The self-organizing metabolism theory has been most prominently argued by Stuart Kauffman. Orgel doesn't rebut Kauffman's Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474549004146223010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19244551.post-48726520996621509412008-01-28T22:20:00.000-06:002008-01-28T22:27:19.176-06:00Sequencing 1000 Human Genomes - How Many Do We Really Need?A group of the world's leading sequencing centers have announced plans to sequence 1000 human genomes. The cost of the first human genome project was about $3 billion; by comparison, the next 1000 will be a steal at possibly only $50 million dollars (and that's total cost, not per genome). But that's still a lot of money - why are we investing so much in sequencing genomes? It may be a lot up Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474549004146223010noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19244551.post-44254051981170510502008-01-12T14:34:00.000-06:002008-01-12T14:36:33.403-06:00Richard Feynman on Doubt[Fill in she instead of he as appropriate...]"The scientist has a lot of experience with ignorance and doubt and uncertainty, and this experience is of very great importance, I think. When a scientist doesn't know the answer to a problem, he is ignorant. When he has a hunch as to what the result is, he is uncertain. And when he is pretty damn sure of what the result is going to be, he is in some Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474549004146223010noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19244551.post-55585975722456933572008-01-12T14:26:00.000-06:002008-01-12T14:28:27.292-06:00An "Irrational Attachment to The Theory of Evolution"?In Gail Collins' NY Times column today, she says this:Huckabee seems to be a nice guy, but conservatives are afraid he’d break up the old evangelical-plutocrat Republican alliance and most liberals are restrained by their irrational attachment to the theory of evolution.Excuse me? I can't quite tell if Collins is being tongue-in-cheek (I frankly don't read her column enough to get where she's Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474549004146223010noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19244551.post-59391898646365296972008-01-10T22:24:00.000-06:002008-01-10T22:31:31.673-06:00What Next Generation DNA Sequencing Means For YouOf all the 'Greatest Scientific Breakthroughs' of 2007 heralded in the pages of various newspapers and magazines this past month, perhaps the most unsung one is the entrance of next-generation DNA sequencing onto the stage of serious research. Prior to this year, the latest sequencing technologies were limited in their usefulness and accessibility due to their cost and a steep technical learning Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474549004146223010noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19244551.post-63950546382760615092008-01-10T14:53:00.001-06:002008-01-10T14:53:53.894-06:00Real Science vs Intelligent DesignIf Intelligent Design advocates are so insistent that most of the human genome is functional, why aren't they doing any research like this? Eric Lander's group at MIT devised a way to test whether the thousands of non-conserved, putative protein-coding genes are likely to be spurious or true protein-producing genes.From the paper, here is their rationale:The three most widely used human gene Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474549004146223010noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19244551.post-1576918201492655052008-01-09T21:48:00.000-06:002008-01-09T21:55:19.477-06:00Scientific American and Web 2.0What are blogs, wikis, and networking sites doing for science? Scientific American has an upcoming feature article about science and the Web 2.0. And in the spirit of Web 2.0, they're inviting your comments, so go check it out.It's a fascinating topic, and I'll have more to say about it soon.Thanks to Jean-Claude Bradley over at Scientific Blogging for mentioning this.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474549004146223010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19244551.post-83414131018902503972008-01-09T14:23:00.000-06:002008-01-09T14:24:29.408-06:00Nature comments on creationismTomorrow's Nature issue has an editorial (subscription only) praising the latest NAS book on evolution/creationism. The editorial goes on to suggest that: "Between now and the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth on 12 February 2009, every science academy and society with a stake in the credibility of evolution should summarize evidence for it on their website and take every opportunity toAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474549004146223010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19244551.post-48467256991338694362008-01-08T15:36:00.000-06:002008-01-08T15:37:03.635-06:00PNAS Evolution EditorialIf you can get journal access, check out this editorial by creation/evolution veteran Francisco Ayala in the latest edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of SciencesAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474549004146223010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19244551.post-47008938634542989022008-01-07T14:14:00.000-06:002008-01-07T14:22:15.503-06:00Yes, you do have to be a genius to read this blog...Although if the blog is that incomprehensible, I'm not sure what that implies about the writer.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474549004146223010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19244551.post-6715029702118522202008-01-06T21:32:00.000-06:002008-01-06T21:37:03.010-06:00What Genes Did We Lose to Become Human?When we think of the genetic changes that to take place during our evolutionary history, we typically think of changes that resulted in a gain of function, like genetic changes that resulted in a larger and more sophisticated brain, improved teeth for our changing prehistoric diet, better bone anatomy for bipedalism, better throat anatomy for speech, and so on. In many cases however, we have lostAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474549004146223010noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19244551.post-29124133208125382712008-01-04T16:44:00.000-06:002008-01-04T16:46:32.839-06:00A Science Debate in the US Presidential Election?It's a long shot, but a worthwhile cause. If you care about science issues in the upcoming US election, consider signing up to support Science Debate 2008.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474549004146223010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19244551.post-66085415353437873012008-01-04T16:37:00.000-06:002008-01-04T16:38:15.604-06:00Check out this bookThe National Academy of Sciences has revised this classic book on Evolution and Creationism. (It's free online.)Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474549004146223010noreply@blogger.com0