Ultrasounds...

...are really cool. We saw the baby this morning. The quality of the images has improved tremendously from the fuzzy pictures we got with our first child. We even saw a little hand with fingers and thumb. Saw the heart beating. You could count the vertebrae in the spine if you wanted to.

Very cool. I fell in love with the baby. Not that I didn't already love it at some level already. Life is wonderful.





No, we didn't find out the gender. Didn't want to. It's going to be a surprise for everyone.

I'm baaaaaccckkk!

I'm sure my loyal fan base (both of them) are wondering why the silence here for the last week or so. Well, I spent a few days in scenic Salt Lake City at the 50th Annual Biophysical Society Meeting. Five thousand or so of the geekiest science geeks descended like flies upon the city of Mormons. Just think of the possibilities for clashes between these two exceedingly different cultures!

There weren't any. Interculture clashes that is. At least not that I saw. Interesting place though. It's a(n unnaturally) clean, very modern city with wide streets and rather striking architecture. Although the city itself is quite flat, it is surrounded by very beautiful mountains. The people are friendly, in a somewhat plastic way. Despite the common perception, alcohol is readily available (trust me, if it weren't the meeting wouldn't have been held there). Oh, and my room-mate determined that there was plenty of porn available on the hotel TV. No, we didn't watch any - he had a bet with his wife over whether or not Mormons allowed porn. She lost. And they have homeless people just like any other US city. How the homeless survive the cold is beyond me - I'm not sure it really got above freezing while I was there.

The meeting itself? I enjoyed it. The talks were almost uniformly abysmal, with just a couple of exceptions. However, the schmoozing went well. And that, after all, is why we go to these things. I may even have picked up a new collaboration (a good thing). All in all a successful trip.

And now I'm back.

Oh worms!

I guess it was inevitable. So now the Mac OS has a worm of it's very own. Still, you'd have to be pretty stooooopid to fall for this one and, of course, we Mac users generally don't fall into that category. :-)

Now it's time to get my smug self a coffee.

Shadow dance

You know those Apple iPod ads where someone is walking along the street listening to their iPod and their shadow is dancing wildly?

Now my shadow can dance too.

Okay, so not earthshattering news, but I'm a happy fellow.

The really not quite so super Super Bowl

For the first time in quite a while I managed to sit and watch the Super Bowl. It was not impressive...

The Game:
Neither team played all that well really, and the officiating was at times unbelievably bad. The two calls in the second half that moved the SeaHawks from the Steelers 1yd line to almost mid-field were well beyond appalling.

The Commercials:
There's this hype about the commercials every year. Maybe the fact that there wasn't nearly so much hype this year should have been a big hint... This years commercials were at best ho-hum. IMHO the Bud baby horse pulling the Bud cart was the best, and only because of a high cute factor. The "life comes at you fast" series was not only predictable, but also just plain bad. The "Stunt City" ad for whatever deodorant it was was a waste of what was probably a very, very large amount of money. And so on.

The Half-Time Show:
Okay, so I'm probably going to annoy some hard core Stones fans here, but guys, it's time they hung it up. They should get out while people still think they're good.... The Stones just couldn't hold it together last night. Yes, I know it's probably really hard to play in that kind of venue and that they probably couldn't hear what they were playing all that clearly, but frankly, the Stones were not that good. All I could think while they were playing was I really, really hope Keith Richards doesn't have a wardrobe malfunction...

Woo hoo!

After three desolate days, my email is back!

Alas, all that extra nonsense Big State U puts us through to keep the administrative types looking busy and important came back with the email...

Sigh, I guess you can't have it all.

Isn't it ironic...

...that the President who has done his best to isolate this country from the rest of the world, indeed has alienated many our traditional allies, can stand up in front of the country and make statements like:

"In a complex and challenging time, the road of isolationism and protectionism may seem broad and inviting, yet it ends in danger and decline."

"America rejects the false comfort of isolationism."

"Isolationism would not only tie our hands in fighting enemies; it would keep us from helping our friends in desperate need."




Where's a sick bag when you really need one?

Alas dear email, I knew ye well

The email system here at Big State U has now been down for 24 hours. I've developed a twitch in my right eye, my hands are shaking and I'm sweating uncontrollably... I think I'm going into withdrawal...


Oh where, oh where has my email gone?
Oh where, oh where can it be?
With its spam and junk,
And its mail for me,
Oh where, oh where can it beeeeeeeeeeeee?





This (hopefully) temporary insanity is brought to you courtesy of the Big State U IT department.

I'd hate to be him...

A BIG oops...

To Nobel or not to Nobel...

In the comments to my previous post, my good friend Milo pointed out that I seem to be lusting for the Nobel prize. As he is no doubt well aware, my previous posts on winning a Nobel (here and here) were written with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek. I honestly cannot imagine ever being in the running for a Nobel. In my post on how you win a Nobel I left out one essential criterion - knowing the right people. Many (not all) Nobels are won with not just great science, but also a large amount of schmoozing... Unfortunately for any Nobel aspirations I might have, I am not much of a schmoozer. C'est la vie.

However, I am just like any other scientist in that there is some small part of me that enjoys, even craves, recognition for the work I do. Scientists are people, and just like everyone else, have egos that like to be stroked. I'm certainly no exception. It is gratifying when your work is acknowledged in a positive manner. It can even be gratifying when some well-known individual in the field, who possesses a significant god-complex*, is publically negative about something you've done (at least when you know you're right and they're wrong).** Everyone likes to be told they're doing a good job. For scientists this generally comes in the form of citations in published papers (the authors refer to your work) and sometimes in talks where the speaker points out something you've done. I'll readily admit to being delighted when hearing someone mention my work in a talk. And I'm something of a ISI Web of Knowledge junkie (this is a web site that let's you look up how many times your papers have been cited - only available to people at institutions who pay the hefty subscription fees). I like to see who is citing my work and in what context. And I honestly don't believe I'm any different from my peers in that regard. All scientists care at some level about how they are perceived.

So, do I want a Nobel? I certainly wouldn't turn one down if it were offered. But I'm also not making that a life goal. Or a goal of any sort. My only real goal with my work is to keep doing the stuff that fascinates me, and hopefully manage to keep others fascinated too.




* Someone with a god-complex thinks they are one.

** That sounded rather arrogant, but I WAS right. Really I was.

Who are those people?

This weekend my wife and I had an hour or so to ourselves (ie no kids!) and we found ourselves sitting in a coffee shop watching the world go by. While there I overheard the barista telling a customer all about some friend of a friend who got this job with a web site design company and how he was sent off to live in Aspen, Colorado, and how he got to go skiing every weekend and how his life was one big party... I got to pondering, isn't it funny how it's always someone else who gets to live the dream life? I don't mean someone other than me*, but rather how it's always a friend of a friend, or a cousin's second cousin, or an aunt's step-father's daughter's son... Does anyone really know one of these people? Do they really exist, or are they some kind of collective urban myth created subconsciously to assuage feelings of shortcomings in our own lives?


More importantly, why wasn't the barista making my latte rather than carrying on about some mythical skiing party dude?



* I actually think I am living the dream life - a wonderful wife, two great kids (and a third on the way!), good friends, a job I love. What more could I want?

Stockholm? Not yet apparently...

I've finished reading Peter Doherty's "The Beginners Guide to Winning the Nobel Prize." (Okay, so it's taken a while...) It was an interesting read. Covered Doherty's career, his ideas on religion and science, science funding etc. I would recommend it to anyone in science or interested in science. As I noted before, he rambles, and writing a book like this is clearly not his forte. Still, a good read.

He saved the "how to win a Nobel" bit until the last chapter. Bugger me if I'm not already doing (or have done) pretty much everything he recommends!

1) Get good training at good institutions.

Okay so my undergraduate and graduate degrees aren't from a world-reknowned institution. They are however from an institution with a good reputation for solid training. And the place can (now) claim two resident Nobelists. I did do my postdoctoral training at high profile institutions that have spawned, and have resident, multiple Nobel prize winners. So I think I've got this criteria covered, more or less.

2) Work at a high profile institution.

This is the one where I'm somewhat deficient. Big State U is known for stellar athletics, not academics... However, the department I'm in is ranked in the top 20 for a public university in the US, so it's not all bad.

3) Work on something really important.

I've got this one down. My area of study, protein folding, is widely considered to be one of the more important areas in modern biology. If you're interested, you can get brief introductions to protein folding here and here (the latter focuses too much on "misfolding" diseases in my opinion).

4) Work on something the Nobel committees care about.

Again, got it covered. The study of protein folding has lead to Nobel prizes in the past.

5) Be open to explanations/discoveries outside the accepted "norm".

I try to be. In fact I think I'm somewhat successful at that, even if I do say so myself.

6) Don't piss off your peers.

Obvious really. The Nobel committees ask distinguished scientists and past winners to nominate people for Nobels. And this is all done in a very secretive manner, so you have no idea who's been asked to nominate and who's been nominated. If you piss people off, you probably won't be nominated. I'll try to be nice...

I have it covered then. But still no trip to Stockholm...

Fraud in science

Fraud in science, at least "major" fraud, is very rare. Any kind of falsification of results is very, very wrong, but I can imagine it's possible to get away with a tweak or two to data to make it look better. Outright falsification though is virtually impossible to get away with. The reason for that is that science is built around an extensive system of checks and balances. Important experiments will be repeated by scientists other than the one who did the original work. Although we scientists are a trusting bunch, we do like to make sure we can get relevant experiments to work in our own labs. If you can't get an experiment to work, you contact the original scientist and try to work out why. If no one can repeat the work, then falsification begins to look like a real possibility... If you do important science, someone will check up on your work. The more important/high profile your science, the more people will attempt to replicate it. Sir Peter Medawar, in his classic book "Advice to a Young Scientist" advocates that all scientists should work on something important. Some important science may seem esoteric to the public, such as perhaps my work on protein structure. Other science has spent some time in the spotlight, such as stem cell research, and is generally considered important in one way or another. I suspect most scientists believe what they're doing is important in some sense.

So one wonders, WHAT WAS HE THINKING????

Letterman 1 Big Fat Liar 0

The other night Dave Letterman really let Bill O'Reilly (obnoxious right-wing demagogue) know what he thought. I think 60% was something of an underestimate though...

Want to see something really, really scary? I mean REALLY scary? Click here. Don't say I didn't warn you...

Emulate the innocence

This morning at breakfast my five-and-a-half year old told me that she loves everyone in the whole wide world.
Everyone.
There should be more five-and-a-half year olds in this world.
Five-and-a-half year olds don't preach hatred and intolerance.
Five-and-a-half year olds don't shoot you because you don't look like they do.
Five-and-a-half year olds don't drop bombs on you because you practise a different religion.
Five-and-a-half year olds don't invade your country because they don't like your system of government.
Five-and-a-half year olds just are.
We should all listen to the wisdom of five-and-a-half year olds.

I'm going to be rich!

I'm back from spending Hannukah with the in-laws (who are truly wonderful). My daughters were given Bella Dancerella Pop Star Home Studio as a present to share (along with many other presents...). This consists of a plastic mat with a central star surrounded by numbers, a plastic head set and a video or DVD. The video features an overly enthusiastic teenager, Bella, who teaches the watcher how to dance "like a pop star". Basically you stand on the mat and follow instructions ("kick, step, touch number five!"). My daughters love it. While watching them I had this idea - I could repackage this thing and sell it to male college students! How many male college students have you met who could dance? Not many I bet. And yet female college students seem to be all about dancing (well, at least some of the time). So here's the marketing strategy - "Learn how to dance and get lucky!" It's sure to be a big seller. I could have infomercials timed to come on after bars/nightclubs have closed so they catch the hapless, lonely (and drunk!) students surfing the channels while bitching about how that hottie at the bar who went home with that guy who could dance and not them! Soon I could have entire frat houses prancing about on their little plastic mats!

It gets better! Obviously selling Bella Dancerella kits themselves could make me wealthy. What would make me fabulously rich though would be the new reality TV show I would produce shortly after they came on the market. A tentative title is "College Boys Dancing Like Preteen Girls: The Lonely Get Lonelier, Ridiculed And Beaten Up."

It's going to be a great year.

Happy/Merry/Jolly...

... Non-Denominational Festive Season to All!

Tomorrow we're off to the in-laws to celebrate Hannukah etc. It's likely that I won't post again until the New Year. So, to all my readers (both of you) have a great festive season and here's wishing for a wonderful New Year!



And for those who get upset with people like me who won't go around wishing everyone a Merry Xmas... Get over it. It's been decades since this season has really had anything to do with a major religious event. Heck, churches around here (including a mega-church) have even decided to not hold any services Christmas day. And I'm in the so-called Bible Belt. Before you get upset with others, perhaps you should set your own houses right.

See you in the New Year!

Google and plagiarism

Educators today are well aware of how easy it is for students to plagiarise. There are even web sites out there set up so that students can buy papers and assignments... What students don't seem to be aware of is how easy the internet has made it for educators to catch them. Find a suspicious phrase/sentence/paragraph? Type some of it into Google, press return and, ta-daa!, the original source pops up.




A graduate student found that out today. The hard way. During his dissertation defense.

Stockholm here I come!

No, no. No big, Nobel-winning breakthroughs. Yet.

I'm reading "The Beginner's Guide to Winning the Nobel Prize" by Peter Doherty. He's an Australian who won the 1996 Prize in Medicine or Physiology for his work in immunology. My older, piratical brother gave it to me. I think he's trying to give me some kind of hint... Anyway, it's not the best written book - Doherty tends to ramble - but it is a fascinating look at science as a career. I can't wait to get to the part where he tells you how to win the Nobel Prize... I only hope I get to that part before too many other people do. Otherwise I might end up with too many people on the waiting list before me and the Nobel can't be given posthumously. Who'd want it when they're dead anyway?

Life is good

There are lot of reasons to be pessimistic at work nowadays. My department is in danger of having five faculty not make tenure over the next three years. That's a lot, which will make us look really bad and probably lead to a fall from favor with the administration. The department chair is thinking of retiring in a year or so, but Big State U. here doesn't have the money to recruit a new chair. We may well end up with a current member of the department as the new chair. The problem with that is that the people who would be good at the job don't want it, while the ones that want it would be disasters. On top of that the US government, in its infinite wisdom, has decided to cut back on science funding at the NIH and NSF. This is not so much in the form of cuts, but rather increases so low that just maintaining current commitments chews up almost the entire budgets of the two institutions. (I won't go into a discussion of the wisdom of cutting programs that benefit society at this point in time.) This level of funding has lead to extremely low success rates for people submitting grants. Single digit success rates. And it looks like this will continue for a few years. That means even less chance for our struggling five faculty to obtain tenure. Also less chance that the rest of us will be able to renew our current funding, leading to some labs struggling to stay afloat. And less money for the department (and Big State U.), leading to increased financial problems...

And yet, life is good. I remain curiously optimistic. In part this is fueled by the fact that my own laboratory is pushing ahead and being very productive. In part it's fueled by the peculiar euphoria that comes only from discovery. This euphoria is, I believe, unique to those who pursue discovery, such as scientists. My current euphoric state has come about because I think I know the answer to a big part of the major problem I'm studying. Don't get me wrong, I haven't proven anything (yet), and I'm not about to go out and buy an expensive bottle champagne for when the Nobel committee calls. I have a long, and no doubt hard, road ahead of me, but I think I know where that road leads. I study protein structure, and in particular how proteins adopt their various structures. This is important because protein structure leads to protein function, and protein function leads to life (DNA isn't all it's made out to be). I don't know how proteins get to their various structures (we call that folding). I do however think I know where they start (unfolded proteins). I think I know what unfolded proteins look like. That won't mean much to most people, but I think it's pretty damn cool. I'm excited and will continue to be until I manage to prove myself wrong, I can demonstrate to everyone else that I'm right, or someone else beats me to either of those outcomes. Now I must off to the lab to work out the crucial experiments...



But first, another cup of coffee.