Tag Archives: BioTechniques

The Latest in Protein Folding: Video Games?

I wanted to highlight this BioTechniques article (yes, finally showing off something from BTN that I didn’t write lol) by Ariel Elghanayan about an new online video game for protein folding.

The online video game is called Foldit, and was developed by a group from the University of Washington. Recently debuted in a paper in Nature, the game challenges players to compete to manipulate the structure of proteins to create the most stable model. I thought it was an interesting way to make science more fun and approachable, but also to help people understand how proteins fold and re-fold, which is a topic that can be difficult to explain to someone who doesn’t have a science background.

Yale Lab Heist Story Continues

Over the summer I reported on a story out of Yale University about a researcher who was accused of stealing laboratory equipment as part of his divorce proceedings. The New Haven Register originally reported the story, and it was slanted at best because they only based their story on public record (police reports, the divorce proceedings) and the opinion of the researcher’s ex-wife.

I did a follow up to the Register story, and got the researcher to comment easily. He replied to my email right away and thanked me for the opportunity to get his side of the story. According to him, no other news source had ever contacted him directly for an interview. So I find the Register and The Yale Daily’s News’ claims that he didn’t return repeated requests for an interview sort of suspect. I think they tried to contact him… but his Yale contacts are long defunct. His gmail is available on the web very easily if you search his name.

But anyway, the Yale Daily News did a follow up on the story based on the Register and they do mention BioTechniques and a quote that the researcher gave me, so that is sort of cool.

The Yale Daily News:
http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/university-news/2010/08/27/yale-scientist-suspected-stealing-lab-equipment/

The New Haven Register:
http://www.nhregister.com/articles/2010/06/29/news/new_haven/aa1_tue_nelars062910.txt

My BioTechniques Story:
http://www.biotechniques.com/news/22K-worth-of-lab-equipment-seized-from-former-Yale-researchers-home/biotechniques-299798.html?autnID=288841

Hard At Work

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.