Clik here to view.
Color of spring
Several of these witch-hazels (Hamamelis x intermedia 'Arnold Promise' (probably)) greeted TPP this morning by the gate to my university's quad. The bright yellow flowers look quite cheerful against...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Three reasons why nobody should be surprised by junk DNA
Science writer Carl Zimmer just wrote an article in the New York Times about the junk DNA wars and it's worth a read. Zimmer presents conflicting expert opinions about the definition of 'junk' and the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The thought crime of global warming
"Florida Minitrue is taking doubleplusuncold for crimethinking words "climate change,” "global warming”, "sea-level rise" or "sutainability." The Governor, Rick Scott, says he "was not a scientist"...
View ArticleClik here to view.
No new candidate mutants (sigh...)
As I planned here, I pooled the CmR colonies resulting from transformation with EMS-mutagenized CmR murE+ DNA, and grew them to log phase (OD600 ~ 0.1). The murE+ cells in the pool should have been...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Shells tell the Truth: Molluscs, some Stratigraphic Order and early...
"He was painter, and he used his art to vividly depict his own concepts. So he depicts on the frontispiece the spirit of observation who, climbing on a mountain on which ground are spread marine...
View ArticleClik here to view.
SCOTUS to decide case: Partisan Hackery vs. Obvious Intent
Once again Tom Tomorrow depicts the USA's real exceptionalism, which isn't partisan politics above the best interests of citizens, but is actually the cartoon itself. The only thing that keeps TPP from...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Best new plant species of 2014
Don't know how you rank the best new species of plant for a year, any year, but for 2014 it's a Dracaena from Thailand, a damned big, rare Dracaena. There are only about 2500 of them alive. How does...
View ArticleClik here to view.
FieldNotes: Golden Mean, polite middle-ground, and optimal numbers of legs.
Image: Olena Shmahalo/Quanta MagazineBirdwatchers, Hunters Train Their Scopes on Conservation by Caren Cooper at SA Guest Blog: Sparked by Richard Louv’s book on Nature-Deficit Disorder, many...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Riemann zeta function's fractal
#arXiv #abstract on #zetafunction and #fractals via imgurThe quadratic Mandelbrot set has been referred to as the most complex and beautiful object in mathematics and the Riemann Zeta function takes...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Mutagenesis plans
(I'll add some explanations later.) 1. Mutagenize more RR805 DNA, using a range of high EMS doses (10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 40 min in 50 mM). Transform this DNA directly into competent KW20 (without EMS...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Memo to chemists: Move away from the molecule
Derek's latest post on the 'end of synthesis' reminded me of this perspicacious essay by George Whitesides which I had blogged about on Scientific American last year. I am reposting the piece...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Molecules, software and function: Why synthesis is no longer chemistry's...
R B Woodward and his followers have solved the general problem of organic synthesis. We need to solve the general problem of design and function.Yesterday's post by Derek titled 'The End of Synthesis'...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Pi day: Zilienski, Wallis and the square
http://t.co/SopVLuLJHM by @ulaulaman #piday A good pi day to all readers! I hope that the following post, that I cannot review after the first writing, could be interesting to all! The technique used...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Geology of the Mountains of Madness
“[]…we expected to unearth a quite unprecedented amount of material – especially in the pre-Cambrian strata of which so narrow a range of antarctic specimens had previously been secured. We wished also...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Pi Day - Something nerdy for you
Actually TPP missed it. Pi day was yesterday, but it's a special Pi day because it's 2015, so 3/14/15 gives you 2 more decimal places, 3.1415. This is very useful if you want to know the ratio of a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Ant-like Ichneumons
Female Gelis, copyright Krister Hall.The ichneumons are one of the best-known groups of parasitoid wasps. The most familiar ichneumons are relatively large for parasitoid wasps, and sometimes even for...
View ArticleClik here to view.
To Make a Willow Weep
Pair of spotted willow leaf beetles Chrysomela vigintipunctata, copyright P. V. Romantsov.As noted in an earlier post, the leaf beetles of the Chrysomelidae include some very attractive...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Forensic Geology and the Murder-case of Aldo Moro
Rome, March 16, 1678 a car of the type Fiat 128 suddenly braked midst of the street, prompting the following cars to crash onto it. A series of shots from a machine-gun followed, killing all of the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A true fountain-of-youth drug combo?
This is really, really interesting. Can we alleviate the effects of aging by getting rid of "bad" cells in the body?A new study from the Mayo Clinic and the Scripps Research Institute reports that a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Sensitivity of the PhD student's planned analysis
The PhD student is proposing to use Illumina sequencing of input and recovered-after-uptake DNAs to detect possible biases in uptake of DNA by bacteria other than H. influenzae. (This is a simplified...
View Article