I’ve been writing a lot the past couple of weeks (for a proposal, not here, unfortunately), but I came across this bit about when you know you’ve been in the lab too long, and thought it was a lot of fun. Some of them are DEFINITELY true — I particularly love #1, #8, #33 and #50,…
Last week, San Diego enjoyed its yearly deluge of science-fiction, fantasy, and pop-culture during its yearly Comic-Con convention. And to be sure, there were thousands of attendees, lots of costumes and plenty of news about upcoming film and TV projects. I’ve never attended (the long lines just don’t seem worth it to me) but I…
In a scene of the film A River Runs Through It young Norman writes an essay for his father. His father reads it, marks it up some, and then says, `Now make it half as long.’ Deflated, Norman leaves but later returns with a new essay. The father reads it, marks it again, and says,…
Something that likely went under most peoples’ radar this past week was that the FDA announced the approval of a new drug for multiple sclerosis, Tecfidera, from Biogen Idec. That’s pretty good news for a disease that generally doesn’t have a lot of good news associated with it. Here’s some disease-progression data for it compared…
Last week, I was blissfully unaware that a giant sinkhole could open up underneath my house and kill me while I was watching tv. But does that mean that I was blissfully ignorant of danger? Not at all. Last week, I was thinking about the possibility that something from the sky could crash into my…
When I was cutting my teeth in the pharmaceutical industry, I worked a lot in Infectious Disease. It was a great therapeutic area to be in — working on antibacterials had a real “Us vs. Them” dynamic that you could embrace, as opposed to working in oncology, which has a “you vs. screwed-up you” downer…
So, last Tuesday was a pretty big day around The Aerie. Naturally, the election was big news (although actually the race for our Congressional seat is still going on – that is still being tallied, it’s that close), but I also had the surgery for the basal cell carcinoma that I had on the top…
It probably went under your radar, but this week is National Chemistry Week and today (October 23rd) is Mole Day. Practically Mardi Gras among the scoopula & round-bottom flask crowd, don’cha know. The Beloved pointed out a blog challenge posted by @SeeArOh at Just Like Cooking called the Chem Coach Carnival in which chemists pass…
Anyone that spends time on the internet realizes pretty quickly that there is an inordinate proportion of it is dedicated to pictures of baby animals. Why? Who knows why? But clearly, there are a lot of people that like to look at pictures of cute animals. Most people, I think, would view them as harmless…
There’s a scene in every version of Frankenstein where Dr. Frankenstein seeks to animate his creation. In the Kenneth Branagh version from the 1990s, he has an inanimate Robert De Niro in a big metal tube, which he then floods with fluid and electricity. And, of course, eventually De Niro starts kicking. The spark of…
Stevil 