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Saint Candles for Scientists
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Jul. 3rd, 2008 @ 02:53 pm
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Jul. 3rd, 2008 @ 01:32 pm
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its embarrassing being the idiot child in your social group. |
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Jul. 3rd, 2008 @ 10:43 am
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The tanuki, or raccoon dog, has very large testes.
"According to evolutionary biologists, the Tanuki's scrotum is large because of fierce competition among Tanuki males for females. Phrased differently, Tanuki copulate frequently, and those Tanuki with larger testes size have a greater chance of getting their genes into the next generation."
"It is often confused with the badger (ana-guma) and the racoon (arai-guma). It is neither -- it is an atypical species of dog that can grow up to 60 cm. in length, with distinctive stripes of black fur under its eyes. The Tanuki is reportedly native to Japan, southeastern Siberia and Manchuria."
[http://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/tanuki.shtml]
( pictures! ) |
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the rain is gone
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Jul. 2nd, 2008 @ 11:21 am
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So, I had my first dr's appointment and we're having a.....worm.
I can't wait until the unltrasound where it actually looks like a baby. We saw a better picture on the monitor, but the baby moved before the took the picture.
My next appointment is the 22nd. I think we should be able to hear the heart beat by then.
Morning sickness still sucks. I got some medicine for it, and it works okay. Makes me tired as hell though. |
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Jul. 2nd, 2008 @ 11:55 am
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Jul. 2nd, 2008 @ 11:28 am
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it seems that this journal has been temporarily taken over by the nature channel.
pistol shrimp
Current Music: boom de ada |
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Okay, I'm Pissed
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Jul. 1st, 2008 @ 11:42 pm
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I don't know how many of you read Newsweek but I just got the July 14th issue with Lincoln vs. Darwin on the cover and have started on the feature article. Maybe I'm misinterpreting this but it seems the article writer, Malcolm Jones, just took a cheap and generally untrue shot at us science-types by saying the following:
"And Darwin, at least at the outset, was hardly even a scientist in the sense that we understand the term--a highly trained specialist whose professional vocabulary is so arcane that he or she can talk only to other scientists."
Excuse me but, WTF? I'm a scientist and I could explain most of the concepts I understand to a kid without using any ten-dollar words. I think most good professionals can do this. |
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Article help :)
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Jul. 1st, 2008 @ 06:50 pm
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Evolutionary and taxonomic implications of conserved structural motifs between picornaviruses and insect picorna-like viruses
Journal Archives of Virology
Publisher Springer Wien
ISSN 0304-8608 (Print) 1432-8798 (Online)
Issue Volume 147, Number 1 / January, 2002
DOI 10.1007/s705-002-8303-1
Pages 59-84
Lookin for this one. I really do hate Springer. I can't get any of their stuff here.
If anyone has it handy.. janarock at gmail dot com :)
Thanks mucho |
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Jul. 1st, 2008 @ 04:00 pm
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i lied.
but look!
The long-nosed Chimaera. An ancient, deep-ocean relative of sharks and rays. The spine on the back is highly toxic.
if i met one of these things in the ocean i would not have believed my eyes. so. cool. |
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Jul. 1st, 2008 @ 03:07 pm
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last post, i promise. work safe.
learn more about insects. |
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Jul. 1st, 2008 @ 02:06 pm
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Ants that commit explosive suicides
"Ladies and gentlemen allow me to present camponotus saundersi. Native to Malaysia, this average looking ant has a unique structure giving it an even more unique behavior when threatened.
Running the length of its little body are two mandibular glands full of toxins. That’s bad enough, as any critter that decides to try a bite will get a mouthful of foul-tasting, maybe even deadly, venom, but what sets this ant apart from others is what happens when it gets pushed into a corner.
By clamping down on a special set of muscles, these ants can commit violent and, yes, explosive suicide: taking out any nearby threat with a hail of nasty poisons. It’s certainly a dramatic way to go but you can bet that anything or anyone threatening its colony will get a shock it won’t soon forget."
[http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2008/06/exploding-lake-other-weird-natural.html] |
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Jul. 1st, 2008 @ 01:10 pm
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Grover Cleveland
"The only American president to serve two nonconsecutive terms also carried out two executions while sheriff in Buffalo, New York. He hanged a man that stabbed his own mother and a few months later hanged a murderer. During the 1884 elections his rivals called him “Buffalo’s Hangman” and tried to use the executions against him. Neither the allegations that he had a child out of wedlock, nor the nickname hurt his candidacy. In fact, some historians believe that personally executing criminals made him appear tough on crime."
[http://ty.rannosaur.us/7-famous-executioners/]
Pope Julius III
"The pope that funded Michelangelo also took a 13-year-old beggar named Innocenzo under his wing after seeing him fight off a pet ape in the streets. He kept their relationship a secret by calling him his “nephew” until he became pope, at which point he elevated the illiterate boy to the position of cardinal and made him the highest paid man in Europe. They both hosted orgies with other young cardinals until Julius III passed, at which point Innocenzo was whisked away to various monasteries on murder charges."
[http://ty.rannosaur.us/8-historic-figures-that-were-pederasts/]
Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
"Speaking of masochism, the term originated from the last name of the 19th century Austrian romance novelist. Born into nobility, he discovered that he enjoyed being humiliated by strong women that wore furs through his aunt, Countess Zenobia. As the story goes, one day she asked him to help take off her furs and as he was undressing her he found himself kissing her feet. She responded by kicking the young boy away with a sinister laugh. He enjoyed this so much that he spent the rest of his life trying to replicate it. Not surprisingly, he had a collection of things that he wanted his lovers to hurt him with: chains, whips, and razors. Sacher-Masoch couldn’t get aroused without fur and owned numerous cats that he kept with him as he wrote."
[http://ty.rannosaur.us/5-more-famous-authors-that-were-perverts/] |
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Jul. 1st, 2008 @ 11:45 am
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picture of the day:
less than a month till assateague and wild horses. i spoke to my mom last night about stealing some of their excess kitchen wares for the new place and she told me that she's actually going to be in ocean city with her best friend that same weekend and could she come by? *bangs head* never. ever. tell your parents what's going on in your life. they will want to be a part of it. so i might have to take time away to have a bite with her sometime that weekend.
i think eric are going to christen the new place with pizza and wine (for me) this evening. (and then see what develops).
also, my new glasses are in. come tomorrow i'll be able to see less horribly. |
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Jul. 1st, 2008 @ 10:59 am
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strange tales from metro: #3487
when metro-ing home from club saturday night jess and i got on a car with a group of about 7 guys and this really loud, drunk/drugged chick sitting on one of the guys' lap. we first start to notice them when the girl stands up to reveal that she's not wearing any pants--just white boyshorts. she starts ranting on about her clit and how someone needs to suck it, well, alternating between that and "where's my bag?!!" "where'd my bag go?!!" this guy from across the aisle starts taking pictures of her then leans in and starts fingering her while she's still sitting on the other guy's lap.
then one of the guys goes up to some girl sitting by herself and starts trying to hit her up and take her photo and/or video (he has both a camera and video camera). intelligently she goes, "oh, this is my stop" and runs off the train.
jessica and i are trying really hard not to draw attention to ourselves. pretend to sleep? no, might get molested. try to look really scary? that'll do.
as we're walking down the platform i go, "wow, how classy is it for you to buy a hooker, drug her up, and take her home on metro to gang bang her and record it." jessica says, "exactly." |
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Jul. 1st, 2008 @ 09:15 am
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For Canada Day, I did some poses with my Pride/Canada flag:
( Read more... ) |
Stolen from my dear ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) st_fred, under threat of smoting
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Jun. 30th, 2008 @ 10:55 pm
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Jun. 30th, 2008 @ 08:17 pm
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Hello scientists! I wonder if you can give me some suggestions...
I am trying to make fractions from a pool of fragmented DNA based on fragment size. The fractions I want would be roughly <500 bp, 500 bp - 2 kb, 2 - 10 kb, and >10 kb. My approach so far has basically been to run out the pool on a low melt agarose gel, cut the fractions I want, digest the agarose, and then do a phenol/CHCl3 extraction.
I won't go into all the details, but basically these steps are introducing too many variables into my experiment...and the ways I've tried to modify the procedure to control these things just make the whole procedure a big pain in the butt.
Can you think of any other ways I might make these fractions? I'm fond of the Millipore amicon/microcon columns, but the cutoffs of these membranes are too small (I could only find increments from 10-125bp). Do you know of any other columns like these but with larger pores?
I'm really drawing a blank! Thank you for your help :) |
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Jun. 30th, 2008 @ 03:23 pm
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in order to lease the apartment i had to print out my pay stubs to prove my income. i was looking at them today and all i could think was "shit, that's all i make." it really made me anxious/depressed me. i hate quantifying my worth. i hate caring about how much i make (or lack thereof). it hurts. i would like to say that i'm just feeling off today/tired/stressed--something, but it's been there for the better part of a year (the worser part of a year?).
i don't belong here. i don't want this to be my life. this is not the path i chose or dreamed or mapped out. it is not normal to cry about life every two weeks.
i'm not ambitious or terribly motivated. i don't want to have a big house, and lots of money, and cars, and a husband, and kids. i just want to be. to work at something i'm good at and enjoy. to make those around me happier and improve the quality of their lives.
how the fuck did i get here and how do i fix it?Current Mood:  can i has not to cry? |
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What do you do?
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Jun. 30th, 2008 @ 08:34 am
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I really enjoy reading everyone's posts on this journal as it's a mixed bag of careers and/or research in science. I'm curious though as many times I'm lost on individual posts about what you're doing.
What does everyone do or what are you working towards doing?
Myself: I'm a 29yr old with a BA in psych., who should have stuck with her medical dreams but just wanted to get a degree and live in the real world all to fast. I coordinate medical education programs for a corporation that is considered one of the 10 worst managed companies in America. If there was ever a sign to go back to following a science inspired path rather than this corporate shit, it's now. Oh, and I also take post-grad science classes here and there till everything is sorted out at UCLA at night. Immunology is the current class.
Looking forward to hearing what you all do! :)Current Mood:  blank |
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Isolation of totalRNA and miRNA from blood
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Jun. 30th, 2008 @ 01:28 pm
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Have any of you guys any experience with isolating both RNA and miRNA from blood in PAXgene tubes? If you know any protocols which does this successfully I would really appreciate if you shared them with me 
cheers!Current Mood:  curious |
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amused