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« Previous Entries7 Random Things About A Meme Newbie
Wednesday, December 12th, 2007Sandra Porter at Discovering Biology in a Digital World (excellent blog) has decided to tag Epigenetics News with a meme. With this being the first meme at the site, I should probably explain what a meme is. From Wikipedia:
A meme, as defined within memetic theory, constitutes a theoretical unit of cultural information, the building block [...]
Bringing Your Research Lab’s Web Site into the 21st Century
Friday, November 9th, 2007I have been asked by enough people for advice on making their lab web site “better” for various reasons, so I decided to put together a list of things that will have a tremendous impact on a researcher’s ability to provide readers with the information they’re looking for, convey a professional effort in its appearance, [...]
Putting the "Re” in Research
Sunday, November 4th, 2007Long-time readers may remember a time at which I mentioned that I was working on writing my first peer-reviewed research publication. Since then, I don’t think that I’ve mentioned it again. Well, to make a long story short, that work was put on the back burner, but is about to begin again, after repeating a [...]
5 Tips for Getting the Most Out of Undergraduate Research Positions
Tuesday, October 16th, 2007While in the past I’ve provided some tips for getting into a good lab as an undergraduate, and ways to save time once you’re working at the bench, I haven’t yet described the best things to focus on during those few years that you have before heading on to graduate school or your professional career. [...]
Fall Semester and the Hunt for Graduate School Begin
Wednesday, August 22nd, 2007It has been a very busy and hectic late summer, and the blog activity reflects that.
On a brighter note, I just started my final year of undergraduate work at Washington State University. This semester I am taking Biochemistry, Perspectives in Biotechnology, Bioinformatics, and Human Genetics. The course load is about average, and after attending the [...]
Summer Vacation in the Canadian Rockies
Sunday, July 8th, 2007The week-long trip to British Columbia, Canada is now complete. The family and I had a great time sightseeing, kayaking, and spotting black bears, elk, and plenty of deer.In the meantime, it looks like I missed plenty of new epigenetics research that was published over the past week or two. I’ll be trying to catch [...]
Odd Ways to Find Us Through a Search Engine
Saturday, May 12th, 2007I am always amazed when I browse through the statistics package for Epigenetics News and see the long list of keyphrases that were used to reach the site. There’s always the obvious ones, like “epigenetics” and “what is epigenetics”, but there’s also plenty of unusual ones that I can hardly remember ever writing. I figured [...]
Top 5 Ways to Get F—- Up at Work
Tuesday, May 8th, 2007Everyone knows that after weeks, months, and years of the same old, same old at your job, it tends to get repetitive and boring, and it gets difficult to remain as highly motivated as you were when you first started.
So, you’ve got to give yourself a boost to get you going again. Whether it’s in [...]
How Often is the Word ‘Epigenetics’ Used? More Than Ever.
Thursday, April 26th, 2007There has been some discussion as of late concerning the increasing use of the words “epigenetic” and “epigenetics.” For starters, amnestic at Gene Expression wrote an excellent two-part series on epigenetics and memory (part 1, part 2) that included a review of definitions of epigenetics and some discussion concerning use of the word.Earlier this month, [...]
Grant Writing: Does It Get Any Better?
Monday, April 23rd, 2007I’ve been taking a graduate course this semester, “Molecular and Cellular Reproduction,” that aims to provide a comprehensive overview of all of the most relevant areas of reproductive biology from a physological, molecular, and cellular perspective. It’s been informative and fascinating, and as an undergraduate taking a completely unrequired course, it’s been challenging at times [...]
Sympathy for the Virginia Tech Community
Tuesday, April 17th, 2007After a day to let the news sink in, the shootings on the campus of Virginia Tech University in Blacksboro, Virginia are on the minds of myself and many of my co-workers and fellow students at Washington State University. There is plenty of coverage of the tragedy online, including up-to-the-minite details available at CNN. The [...]
Epigenetics in Focus at Nature Reviews Genetics
Monday, March 26th, 2007Following closely on the heels of the special issue of Cell on epigenetics, Nature Reviews Genetics today published its own focus issue on epigenetics (April 2007), with reviews from some of the most prominent experts in several sub-disciplines within epigenetics, including stem cell research, cancer epigenomics, and environmental epigenetics. The editors of the journal open [...]
Agenda for March 2007 SACGHS Meeting Now Available
Friday, March 23rd, 2007The final agenda is now available online for the 12th meeting of the Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Genetics, Health, and Society, which will be held Monday, March 26th and Tuesday, March 27th in Adelphi, MD. This is the committee that earlier this year completed its report on the viability of a large population cohort study [...]
Attending Northwest Reproductive Sciences Symposium
Friday, March 23rd, 2007Today I am attending the 9th Annual Northwest Reproductive Sciences Symposium in Moscow, ID, hosted by the Center for Reproductive Biology at Washington State University and University of Idaho. I have just returned from attending the keynote presentation by Dr. Peter Donovan of the University of California, Irvine entitled “Making Stem Cells from Germ Cells [...]
10 Best Ways to Save Time at the Lab Bench
Tuesday, March 20th, 2007I’ve been working in research labs for the past 3+ years now. During that time, I’ve picked up on some great ways to save time when working at the bench. Here’s my 10 best tips:
1. Don’t Make It, Steal It. If you don’t have a reagent already made for your procedure, “borrow” it from the [...]
