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Friday Fabulous Flower - Miniature holly
A favorite small shrub in our glasshouse is this week's Friday fabulous flower, commonly called "minerature holly" (Malpighia coccigera) because of the glossy, spiny margined leaves. Like many members...
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DNA! Lots and lots of lovely GFAJ-1 DNA!
OK, I finally have conditions where GFAJ-1 cells grow reproducibly in medium containing 40 mM sodium arsenate: tightly sealed screw-cap glass tubes or bottles, half-full, gently rocking at 37 °C....
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Are microbes evolving to escape vaccination?
What if all those vaccines - those ones that work really well - all stopped working? Imagine if the viruses and bacteria from which they are trying to protect you against, evolved and adapted to life...
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In search of violations
This week high-energy physics published some interesting results for our fundamental knowledge of the universe. On 14th November, LHCb published the preliminar analysis about a possible CP-violation in...
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Recycle plastic pots
A local green action organization is having a recycle everything you didn't think could be recycled day, and one of the things that can be recycled are plastic pots. The Phactor knew that if he saved...
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History of Scarlet Fever : Dancing fever, Civil War and a Revolutionary...
Once upon a time, there was a wicked and vain queen with a strong desire to murder her stepdaughter. However, through a convoluted series of events involving a huntsman, seven dwarves and a handsome...
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Paramecium, nice to meet you
How many of you recall one of the first cool science related thing you experienced? I bet if you think about it, even if you no longer give a rat's ass about science, you can come up with something...
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Petunias finally encounter the Grim Reaper
The petunias in the window boxes outside our front bedroom windows after producing a pink cascade for at least 5 months died two nights ago. This is not so surprising actually since petunias are not...
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Who benefits from giving advice about résumé writing?
Interesting little commentary on how (not) to do a résumé: Final Cut: Words to Strike from Your Resume.I don't have a résumé, 'cause in science that isn't expected. I have a CV, and the difference is...
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Thoughts on cars and toasters
While many people act, and drive, as if their automotive vehicle (aka car) is an extension of them selves, a statement about their personality and immaturity, cars hold no particular fascination for...
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Chronic fatigue syndrome researcher arrested
A brief update today: I've written twice before about the mistaken hypothesis that chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is caused by a virus known as XMRV. After many followup studies failed to replicate the...
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Cooking cookies with a biologist
So here's the situation, the hydrogenated Glycine max oil had been creamed together with crystallized, purified vacuolar sap from Saccharum, two sterile ovules of the domesticated Asian jungle fowl,...
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I'm a Synesthete. Is Something Wrong with Me?
Like victims of catastrophic head injuries, people with synesthesia often appear in neuroscience papers identified only by their initials to illustrate the mysteries of the brain. But synesthesia's not...
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Religious diversity linked to unhappiness
Most people - certainly most atheists - would say that one of the biggest problems with religion is that conflict you get when religion divides people who share a particular part of the world. Of...
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Redescription of a Nearly Complete Skull of Plateosaurus from the Late...
Prieto-Márquez, A., and M. A. Norell. 2011. Redescription of a nearly complete skull of Plateosaurus (Dinosauria: Sauropodomorpha) from the Late Triassic of Trossingen (Germany). American Museum...
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Tetragraptines
Colonies of Tetragraptus quadribrachiatus, from the University of Oslo. In preparation for this post, I have been attempting to develop an understanding of graptolite branching patterns. This is not...
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Reproductive species vs. ecological species
Why are two breeds of dogs who can't mate without human assistance the same species, while two fish species, which can and do have fertile offspring, but which are intermediate in size and therefore...
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Partial progress on the H. influenzae front
As well as growing GFAJ-1 and making DNA I've been doing competence assays on Haemophilus influenzae strains. This is old-fashioned microbiology, and I seem to be the lab wizard at these assays (able...
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Nocturnal orchid
Nocturnal flowering is rather uncommon even in the tropics. Quite a few flowers open in the evening, for example, nutmegs, but the flowers remain open through the next day at least. And of course there...
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Variant and recombinant competence phenotypes
One of the projects the post-doc has developed is to identify the genetic differences responsible for the very low competence of a clinical strain of H. influenzae. This strain (86-028NP, 'NP' for...
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