Game of Clones

A friend pointed this out today and thought it was worth sharing as it combines biology with Game of Thrones in a somewhat weird Biotech promotion.

I guess it's not a bad idea given that researchers probably have a higher proportion of Game of Thrones book/TV fans than the general populace.
It's not just for the pun and the above banner though. They go into far more detail. Each tool from their catalogue is placed within a "house" which comes with its own coat of arms and even a motto. If you can't be bothered with the link here is an example:

I think Renly would be inclined to take up the offer in house peptide ;)

The person responsible deserves a pat on the back for such an effort! Any american researchers should try and buy something if they can.

Science Songs

Inspired by this morning's wasted journey into the lab. Looking at the lyrics closely I can't help but wonder if Trent Reznor worked in research at some stage.

"it didn't turn out the way you wanted it to
but it didn't turn out the way you wanted it to
it didn't turn out quite the way that you wanted it

now you know
this is what it feels like"

Name the Biologist

This time we have two scientists with a connection in discovering something useful (they discovered other useful things but this one was a joint effort)

As for last week the mystery biologist was Alfred Russel Wallace who also came up with the theory of evolution via natural selection and was published papers alongside Darwin. The bizarre thing is that he was a major celebrity at the time but has been largely forgotten. Maybe a weird case of memetic survival of the fittest? Anyway these two articles do a pretty good job of analysing the man and why he has been forgotten. What can we learn from Wallace? 

•  If you want to be remembered you need to bring out a populist book rather than publish high impact papers - something that is probably very true of this era's "memorable" scientists.
•  Rushing your paper through when you realise someone else has scooped you always helps. 
• Being honourable and polite can often lead to you being forgotten.

Name the Biologist

This one is interesting as I'd never heard of the man before this week. It seems a classic case of writing a book gets you a lot more mainstream attention than publishing a paper.

As for the last instalment - the biologists were John Kendrew and Max Perutz who shared the 1962 Nobel prize for chemistry for their work on discovering the structure of heme-containing proteins. Perutz is the main reason I chose them for the quiz as he was (as far as I know) the first person to crystalise a large protein for X-ray crystallography and thus discover the structure.
I say "large" as is it was only in my digging around that I discovered the original developer of protein crystallography was actually Dorothy Hodgkin. She was a true pioneer in the developing the field (along with her John Desmond Bernal) and won the nobel prize in 1964 for solving the structure of vitamin B12 using X-ray Crystallography. I think I'll cheat and retroactively add her to the previous quiz.
Anyway the point is that X-ray Crystallography is an essential tool in the field of Biology and without it we wouldn't have a lot of major discoveries such as the structure of DNA and a lot of information on how drugs bind proteins or how viruses attach to cells. It still seems like magic to me so I salute those who understand it and especially those who developed it for use with proteins.

Pseudo-science, maybe.

I'm not a Quantum Physicist (and neither is Lanza) and I'd never heard of biocentrism but based on this article in the Independent about Professor Robert Lanza I'd say it has much to do with science as the spaghetti monster. What is annoying is that it uses his reputation in another scientific field and throws scientific elements into the discussion to give weight to his pondering.
The quotes in the article, "Death is a mere figment of our consciousness" and "the inescapable-life-matrix"  sound far more like philosophy or hokey dialogue from a science-fiction film.  There's a time and place for that but not in an article claiming a connection between science and the afterlife.
If he wants to be scientific about this the Professor needs to pose a question/hypothesis and design an experiment in which the results can be interpreted into statistically significant and reproducible answers. All this article provides is an hypothesis with thought "experiments" - things which we can all conduct in the pub late on a Friday night.

I'd also like to point out that being a well respected scientist in one field means your thoughts on another should be automatically excepted. From what I can gather the book is written by a biologist and an astronomer.
If I teamed up with an architect I shouldn't be taken seriously when writing a book on the language of dinosaurs.

I'd be interested to see how Quantum Physicists feel about the use of aspects of their branch of science. Surely there must be limits to it? Especially with the branch that considers infinite space or universes (I think the key is it's not universally accepted). An infinite universe/s is/are license to spout any crackpot theory because infinite is infinite. There are mes out there who will think I'm in the heaven and hell and limbo of all established faith systems. I'm also Batman somewhere out there and writing this very article upside down in the body of a chicken-fish, drinking wood whilst eating happiness and sitting on the back of a giant helium atom.

In fairness, I'm sure Lanza is fully aware of this and his book is not supposed to be a scientific document but treatise on an idea and maybe in the foreword of the book he explains he isn't presenting experimentally proven ideas.

Biology in Entertainment

I watched a recent episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D that dealt with a virus that resulted in a person exploding in an EMP blast. Obviously that's a bit far fetched but there were some fairly decent examples of biology (for a TV show).

• They held a Gilson Pipette correctly
• They tested a cure on infected mice first
• They didn't try and use antibiotics! (I'm looking at you "Walking Dead")
• In an almost Sesame Street fashion they taught the viewers that you can't treat a viral infection with a vaccine but with an antiserum - the antibodies from a host that has been exposed to said virus.

They also used a centrifuge but they lose points for trying to make it more sexy with flashing lights (although I'd like one of those for a lab disco). They also removed the sample (which may or may not have been balanced) and then inverted several times which would make the centrifugation a little pointless.

Anyway I give this episode an overall thumbs up for Biology. I suspect physicists would not be so happy with how the skydiving scene could have ever happened.

Dance your PhD

An important aspect of Science is communication. We tend to do it via papers, presentations and posters but what about the medium of dance? Well here is a selection of brave and inventive souls who have tried to dance their PhDs. I'll let them explain themselves but a good effort and remember you can vote for your favourite.
I'm pleased this didn't exist while I was writing my PhD because while I can't dance to save myself it would have been just the kind of distraction from actual writing I needed. Not sure how I'd choreograph the role of Cdc2 kinase in acentrosomal spindle formation. Maybe after a lot of drinks at a science-related party we'd find out?