World's Fair
Lithuanian Biophysics: Small Rooms, Big Science
Posted by Vince LiCata on June 28, 2012 I recently spent a week in Lithuania visiting biophysical laboratories and giving a couple of seminars. My host was Daumantas Matulis of the Institute of Biotechnology at Vilnius University, where they have an EU grant that includes funds for bringing in visiting scientists from other countries (thank you EU!). Although my sampling of the science…
An Open Letter to Victor Frankenstein
Posted by Vince LiCata on June 13, 2012 I recently saw the beautiful (and beautifully ugly) National Theatre production of Frankenstein – written by Nick Dear and directed by Danny Boyle, and projected into cinemas around the world (just like opera simulcasts). Here is a review of the play, written as an open letter to Dr. Frankenstein: Dear Victor, I just saw the…
Science Consulting for the Movies
Posted by Vince LiCata on April 9, 2012 I recently read David Kirby’s new book on science film consulting. This book is an absolute must-read for anyone even remotely or subconsciously interested in being a science consultant for the next Iron Man or Transformers, or smaller budget real-life dramas with real-life science in them. His book is both easy and interesting to read…
Hands Off Introductory Biology
Posted by Vince LiCata on January 30, 2012 A news story in ScienceNOW this week describes how City University of New York is planning to rearrange its “General Education” requirements so that non-majors who take science don’t have to take lab courses anymore. Scientists at CUNY are, predictably, annoyed and upset. Even non-majors should get to muck around in lab with their own…
DNA Repair and Thermodynamics – Paper Up
Posted by Vince LiCata on September 23, 2011 Yanling Yang, who just graduated with a Ph.D. from my lab, has a paper in the just published November issue of Biophysical Chemistry. The entire issue of the journal celebrates the 25th Anniversary of a conference called “The Gibbs Conference on Biothermodynamics”, and each of the papers is from the laboratory of one of the…
It’s official! I’m blogging again! …
Posted by David Ng on September 13, 2011 …but actually somewhere else… So what’s going on? The short version is that this is a goodbye post. The long version goes a little like this: 1. For a while now, I’ve been using twitter, primarily as a place to highlight interesting things. It has more or less replaced my blogging output. These tweets are…
Dance Your Ph.D. -2011
Posted by Vince LiCata on September 4, 2011 The “Dance Your Ph.D.” contest is on again for 2011. This unusual and highly interesting experiment in science outreach continues to be shepherded by John Bohannon, and continues to attract new sponsors — this years sponsor is TEDx Brussels. So what is this? Basically: you create an interpretive dance that “explains” your Ph.D. research and…
Ape Culture and Science Culture on the Planet of the Apes
Posted by Vince LiCata on August 14, 2011 Even in the small theater where I saw Rise of the Planet of the Apes, it was clear that this is, to some degree, a father and son movie – there were several father and son pairs in the audience – more than I’ve seen in any other movie. “Yes, son, now you will see…
The Fine Art of Reblogitation and Going Ape for Miss USA
Posted by Vince LiCata on June 23, 2011 Reblogitation (pronounced with a “j” sound for the “g”, of course): the blogospheric phenomenon of reposting, and re-reposting, and re-re-reposting the information from the “apparent first” or “most snarky” report (or blog post) about a news item. Mother-post: the “apparent first” or “most snarky” report of an item, that then provides “the facts” for most…
Should everyone have access to life saving medicines?
Posted by David Ng on June 8, 2011 (You can follow Dave on twitter @dnghub) 30 MINUTES, 70 FATES. You don’t know it, but as I write this piece, there is some serious procrastination going on. My attention span is weak and sidetracked constantly by a variety of diversions, and if you must know, it’s taken me close to half an hour to…