It happens ever so rarely: an otherwise trifling experience early - something seen, heard or read - makes the entire day.
Making my day is a reminder of this Richard Feynman quote (via Coturnix):
“Science is a lot like sex. Sometimes something useful comes of it, but that’s not the reason we’re doing it.”
…..is awarded for discovery of gene-knockout technologies in mice. Recipients are Drs Mario R. Capecchi (University of Utah), Martin J. Evans (Cardiff University ) and Oliver Smithies (UNC - my former stomping ground!).
This is a discovery that would have won the award sooner or later. Genetically modified mice are now an indispensable part of research [...]
My post at Scientific Curiosity, which was criminally long overdue. Discusses how Web 2.0-style portals might change paradigms in scientific communications.
An article by Ajit Balakrishnan (CEO of Rediff) in Business Standard has kicked up bit of a storm in the desi blog-circles. The original article talks about difficulties Mr Balakishnan encountered while attempting to start an industry-academia collaboration with a professor of computer science at the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai (IITB), Soumen Chakrabarti.
Landing [...]
Not the one that you eat, you glutton ..today celebrates the mathematical symbol Pi. Only in the American system of writing dates though.
Go here to see the pie drop and other celebrations.
[Cross-posted from here. ]
In an interview with New York Times, Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen offers some radical proposals to improve the US health care system (link via).
Prof Christensen believes that the current system is woefully inefficient in terms of affordability and accessibility. His basic premise is that with advances in medical diagnoses and [...]
My first post on the group-blog, Scientific Curiosity is up. It is about a protein that can emit green color and how it has revolutionized modern cell biology.
The blog itself is a really cool attempt by several really smart people (yes it does make you wonder why they let me in) to convey the beauty [...]
….goes to Roger Kornberg of Stanford University for "for his studies of the molecular basis of eukaryotic transcription".
(Note: A slightly expanded version of this post is now up at Desicritics.org)
Those who are familiar with the field of Molecular Biology might hesitate (as I did early this morning) for a second and think - ‘hasn’t this [...]
….was announced today and the winners are, quite appropriately in my humble opinion, Andrew Z Fire and Craig C. Mello for their discovery of the mechanism of "RNA interference – gene silencing by double-stranded RNA".
It is always very exciting when a scientific technique that you are familiar with and is routinely used in your [...]
Perhaps most of you know about this, but still worth posting: Anousheh Ansari, the first woman ’space tourist’ (also the first Iranian and a host of other ‘firsts’ 
visiting the International Space Station, is blogging about her experiences
It is a nice a cozy feeling. As you may know, the station makes an complete orbit [...]
Wired magazine has an article on how the traditional ‘peer-review’ process for publishing scholarly scientific article is undergoing a gradual change, both through pressure from as well as to maximize the benefits of a digitally connected age.
“Peer review was brilliant when distribution was a problem and you had to be selective about what you could [...]
Lazy bum that I am - I love this ‘link to funnier/more interesting stuff with short comments’ system.
Anyway, got this in the e-mail from a colleague. Anybody who has struggled to get regular high-school/college course-related laboratory physics (or any other science) experiments to work using antiquated, partially functioning instruments will definitely sympathise with this. [...]
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