Curtis's story links

This article is from June, but I had missed it. It's a very in depth article about what makes a good mentor. It's a bit of a long read, but it has lots of good information to think about.

Here's a new review about the functions of p53 mutations that also discusses the role of genetic background and cell type on the outcome of certain mutations. This review really exposes the complexity of p53 biology. I wonder if this much complexity is unique to p53 or just known about p53 because there have been so many studies?

The Economist has an article about "Health 2.0". They discuss online forums for discussion of health issues.

This link references quite a few studies about intelligence and sex. In short, smart and dumb people have less sex. The article discusses the possible reasons, both obvious and not so obvious.

On another note, the NY Times has an article about 237 reasons to have sex.

Here's a very nice article about p53 and aging. This group has crossed a mouse with 3 copies of p53 to a mouse with 3 copies of p14ARF. This enhances p53 signaling but maintains normal regulation. These mice have less cancer and an extended life span, possible through reduced ROS. It's a very thorough and extensive piece of work.

The scientist has a short editorial about tenure that has generated a lot of comments from readers. Do you think that tenure needs to change?

The Open Library just launched! This is a free and open library project brought to us by the people from Internet Archive. This is a very ambitious project to make books freely available online. Check it out.

This blog made me aware of a nice resource for cancer researchers. This NCI site lets you search for funding opportunities but also lets you search for grants that are already funded. For example, find out who has been funded to study breast cancer prevention.

I'm a strong proponent of electronic lab notebooks. I'm sorry that I missed this when it first came out, but the Nature editorial recently promoted the utility of electronic lab notebooks. Now all we need is one that is usable for academic labs.

A new study finds that oldest children have higher IQ's than their younger siblings. The article gets into some interesting details of the analysis.

What is your birth order?

I'm the younger of 2, so I don't necessarily agree with this study.

The CDC just released a tool to track diseases throughout the world, and it uses a Google Maps interface. The bbgm blog is where I found out about this site. EpiSPIDER tracks reports of diseases from all over the globe and puts them on a user-friendly interface. It's a nice example of the power of the internet.

The New Scientist has an article about a new technique to use nanoparticles to image tumors and then kill them. The nanoparticles can reflect some IR radiation but absorb the rest as heat. The same particles can be used to visualize and heat-kill the tumors. The particles are localized to tumor due to the leaky vasculature in the tumor. This looks like a great use of nanoparticles.

Google is building up their health care expertise. This link is to a post on the Google blog from a physician who works at Google. I'm looking forward to seeing what they will do in this sector.

A new study suggests that laughter can improve breast milk. In a study of babies with mild eczema, having the mother watch a Charlie Chaplin movie before breast feeding reduced the baby's reaction to allergens later. Seriously, this is what they report. Laughter is good for breast milk.

The New Scientist has an article, with an interactive Google map, about the last places on earth in a whole bunch of categories.

Nature has a news article about a paper in their latest issue. The paper is from the ENCODE consortium and is attempting to map functional elements of the genome. The problem is that their assumptions didn't prove true. Functional elements weren't necessarily conserved and conserved regions weren't necessarily functional. There are a number of possible reasons for this that the news article gets into. I expect that this paper will be discussed for quite a while, so it's probably worth a read.

IBM is getting involved the modeling the spread of infectious diseases. They have just released a new version of open source modeling software, STEM. This could be great for researchers that a powerful company like IBM is releasing open source software to help them.

Many of you probably have fond memories of learning science from Mr. Wizard. I do.
Sadly, he passed away today from bone cancer.

"He really taught kids how to use the thinking skills of a scientist," said former colleague Steve Jacobs.

Finally a society with the goal of protecting children has said that kids need to get out and play, even if they get hurt. In fact, this group is arguing that kids need to get hurt so that they learn where their limits are. Bring back the merry-go-round!

Here's an interesting NY Times article about the costs and benefits of certain aspects of health care.

This is a very interesting article for anyone who likes sports. Some scientists have been studying how athletes get a "field sense". They are beginning to understand what the "field sense" is and are finding way to teach it.

I just wanted to let everyone know that I am going to start blogging frequently on JeffsBench. The motivation behind this is to discuss the future of biomedical research with an emphasis on how technology can be used to improve the research enterprise. The theme will be Science 2.0.
I will also happily take contributions from anyone who has an idea they want to share or discuss. Please check out my first post, Science 2.0.

The Gotham Prize is breaking the mold for funding. It's $1 million of private money for the best idea grant about cancer research. The best part is that the grants will be posted online for prior to the award. The goal is to have other scientists and the authors discuss the ideas before the award is given out. What a great new idea for peer-review! This is one way to embrace web 2.0 for the sciences.

I love it when science is applied to new areas. A group calculated the optimal nights to see "moonbows" over Yosemite falls in CA. Fantastic.

This paper adds to the debate about what is really regulating senescence. They argue that mitochondria can regulate telomere length.