Category: Science

The Scientific Journal of Failure

Science is riddled with failure
Really, it’s all over the place.  It’s built right into the scientific method.  You make a hypothesis, with a firm understanding that anything could happen to disprove your faulty notions.  Sometimes it works and you see what you expected, and sometimes it doesn’t.  And some of the most interesting discoveries of [...]

Friday July 31st, 2009 in Commentary, Science | Comments

Become a Research Subject

Admit it.  You like science.  You thrive on the unknown.  You seek adventure and mystery.  You enjoy being enclosed in absurd magnetic fields while grad students sit safely in the room next door.  Or maybe I’m alone there.  But at least you like money.
Most universities with research programs have science.  And that science sometimes needs [...]

Friday July 24th, 2009 in Science | Comments

Google has a problem with DNA analysis

About a year ago, my roommate started a little DNA analysis journal club here at Berkeley. It was just meant to be a group of like-minded students discussing recent advances in analytical DNA technologies.  He tried creating a Google group for that club, not expecting the fairly judgmental response he received…
Note that Google’s skilled text [...]

Wednesday July 22nd, 2009 in Science, Technology | Comments

Zotero is magic for saving, organizing, and sharing documents on the web

The Citation Management Problem
Most of you probably recall the disproportionately large emphasis elementary and secondary education often placed on “the bibliography.”  A significant amount of time was spent teaching you just how to cite someone else’s work in the right way.  Where does the author’s name go?  The edition?  The page numbers?  …Who cares?  Now [...]

What is Bioengineering?

It’s the first day of summer, and it’s high time I finally joined the big conversation happening on the internet.  Sure, I’ve been participating semi-passively through google reader, facebook, friendfeed, twitter, etc. for a while now.  I have alpha and beta accounts with just about every newfangled web service in existence.  But now I’d like [...]

Sunday June 21st, 2009 in Productivity, Science | Comments