Category: Past Articles

Wisconsin & Writing

Grad School, Past Articles

Today I ran a bunch of errands around the UW Campus. I got my student ID, got my bus pass, set up a bank account, got groceries, found my classes etc. According to my Mom my ID picture makes me look homeless. I guess its a winner. Today was my family’s last full day here, they leave for the airport tomorrow at 4pm. I’m really glad they came out here to help me get settled but I think it will be good for me to just wander around a little by myself to get my bearings.

Tomorrow my article on genome wide association studies and technologies for finding rare variants is due for BioTechniques. I’m still waiting on one last interview, so fingers crossed that will come through tomorrow morning. Otherwise, I’m not sure what I’ll do, quote from papers probably. I did get four other interviews so its not terrible, but they asked for five so I’d really like to deliver. Its not my best work, but given that I only had two weeks, and that I moved and have been with my family non-stop for one week of that I’m proud of myself for the progress I’ve made.

In other science writing news, Harvard recently found Marc Hauser guilty of misconduct. I mentioned in an earlier post that the New York Times had reported on the alleged misconduct. I thought their reporting on the case was relatively balanced, so I figured it was worth mentioning.

Hard At Work

BioTechnology, Genetics, Past Articles,

I spent all day today working on a new article for BioTechniques. The editor in chief of the journal offered me a freelance job, which is awesome, but the stipulation was that I had to get it done in two weeks. We’re now at the one week mark, and I’ve now got a working draft, so I’m happy with that progress.

I got to interview David Goldstein from Duke University today for the article, which was pretty cool… even if he only gave me 15 minutes. The article is about the hunt for rare variants and how genome wide association studies were never intended to find rare variants, only common ones. Its slated to run in BioTechniques print edition in October. It still needs a few more sources, and some editing so hopefully in between moving (tomorrow!) and settling in Wisconsin I’ll have the time to do more interviews… I better find the time.

Science Writing Highlights

Genetics, Past Articles

For the last year (2009-2010) I’ve been writing for the journal BioTechniques. In that time I’ve written way to many articles to post here, but here are a few favorites from Spring/Summer 2010:

“Ending cell line contamination by cutting off researchers” is my most recent piece, about how the biological research community can end the widespread use of contaminated cell lines for published (and peer reviewed) research. New York Times bestselling author Rebecca Skloot (who literally wrote the book on HeLa cell contamination) posted a link to the article on her Twitter.

“Fastest case of adaptation documented in Tibetans” reported on (what I think is) a really interesting development in the study of human genetic adaptation to environmental conditions. Basically, Tibetans adapted rapidly from Han Chinese to thrive in low-oxygen environments.

“The sequencing race: the home stretch” was a follow up to an article that I wrote that appeared in the February 2010 print edition of BioTechniques. The whole suite of articles reports of the progress that has been made (and is anticipated) in the field of genome sequencing technologies.

“Plant biology blasts off: shuttle missions explore biofuels” reported on experiments featured on the last few NASA shuttle missions exploring the affects of zero-gravity on possible new biofuels.

“Facial expressions quantify pain in lab mice” is about a method to quantify whether or not laboratory mice are experiencing pain due to their role in an experiment based on the way the features of their face change, indicating pain. It raised some important issues about animal rights, specifically what constitutes suffering and whether the animals are aware of what is happening to them.