As a fan of neuroscience in general, which coincidentally is a hot topic in the bookstores (along with evolution), I do enjoy a good read on the topic.  The above review is of both of Jonah Lehrer's fabulous books, Proust was a Neuroscientist and How We Decide, which I happened to listen to on audio. He also has a fabulous blog called The Frontal Cortex if you are curious.He is editor of SEED magazine,which I also happen to love, love, love!

FYI, I am currently listening to Krakatoa by Simon Winchester on audio as a reminder of what I had read back about five or six years ago. It is pretty much the seminal book about geography out there, at least in popular book format

Back to the video, if you can't quite see it well, I pasted a pic of Jonah onto Malibu Ken to be the object of my doll's affections. She's playing her diva self and making shoe comments--And Jonah is being such a good sport about it all!

I have maybe seen four episodes of America's Next Top Model, and those were while I was getting a pedicure or some such thing, not on purpose. Intriguing.  At least people can see some of the ridiculous things they put models through. And don't I know it: bikinis in ice plants, ski wear in 90 degree heat at major shipping ports are just a couple of the more extreme things I endured personally. I guess the nice way to put it is "creative".

NOVAScience NOW is a very good program and most certainly would be my choice over ANTM.

I have a lot going on, not one bit of it lucrative, so I've been a bit neglectful of my website.  I promise to get back into the swing of things shortly, which will include the book list from my students from this spring semester.

Until next time,

Kindly, Joanne

I drove to Ohio State University (five hours there and five hours back, sun in my eyes both ways!) to the Injury Biomechanics Symposium in order to hear Mary Roach speak about the use of cadavers (rather, Post-mortem human subjects or PMHS) in research, as she had learned a lot about them during the writing of her book, Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers.  I also managed an interview with her, but before I continue, let me tell you a little about this day.

At the same hotel was the 2009 Ohio Tactical Officer's Association Training Conference open to Law Enforcement, Military and Corrections Special Training personnel.  Much like in the world of modeling*, here I saw a fantastic example of form following function: Each of these guys were built almost exactly the same. Without a doubt, they were physically fit and muscular (on the ready to fire on assailants, carry gear and take down the bad guys in hand to hand combat with ease).  They all were about the same height (maybe 5'8"- 6' ish as I guess that too tall makes you too much of a target. They all had very close hair cuts and primarily fine features (for wearing head and face gear, I suppose a large schnoz would not work so well) I will add, at the risk of sounding man crazy, that every last one of them was handsome. Maybe it was the overabundance of testosterone in such a small area overpowering me and playing tricks on me, but hey, it is merely an observation, subjective as it is. Mary did note that she felt very safe in the hotel. I believe we were!

At some point, despite me being quite enthralled with all areas of science and especially appreciating bioengineering, Mary and I thought it would be fun to see what this collection of men were doing at the hotel.  We learned they were there to be kept up to date on strategies and tactics of controlling various situations (that SWAT teams would control I suppose) including those specifically in tube-shaped vehicles with no lateral motion like buses, planes and subways (who knew, right??).  We also learned that, darn! we missed the weapons and gear displays the day before. We were also invited to their get together the next day--twice! (Thanks, guys, for the invite--another time, maybe!)

Back to the Injury Biomechanics Symposium.  At these things, we inevitably have one quite inquisitive and opinionated researcher who makes his opinion known about every presentation...without fail.  At one point when Dr. Inquisitive stood up, the director coincidentally got up to leave and I turned to Mary and said "He's going to get the Ohio Tactical guys to come take him down!" and that got Mary giggling during the session. So enjoyable was this observation to her that she stole it for the Q & A after her talk which played out when one gentleman said "I'm sorry to say, I haven't read your books...." and Mary retorted, "Someone get the Ohio Tactical guys on him!" (audience laughter!) And, not one to disappoint, Dr. Inquisitive made absolutely certain to comment on the fact that we don't call cadavers "cadavers" anymore, but they are now called Post-Mortem Human Subjects.

You can watch the interview in two parts.  The second part features a question from Carl Zimmer that Mary said had NEVER been asked before and she really appreciated it! It was a lovely interview, Mary is so wonderful.I'm new at interviewing on camera and she was just perfectly gracious. I do apologize for the background wooshing sound. I have a new mic and I thought this would help.

And in all cool-ness, when we discussed a potential topic for her 5th book (nope, won't tell you what it is about)  I was happy to share some pertinent and interesting facts that could be useful. <ahem> No thanks required, Mary, just mention me in a footnote!

________

*Following Mary's lead, I figured a footnote would be appropriate here. Models would be primarily tall and thin, and there are good reasons having to do with optical illusions created by clothing why this is the prefered body type, but that's a discussion for another day.

Kindly, Joanne

A quick post just to share some fun news.  The AP picked up on the story about me by Christine DeGarennes at the News-Gazette and I've been popping up all sorts of places including the Chicago Tribune online.

Also exciting is the fact that I will be traveling to Ohio State University on Monday to meet Mary Roach (my favorite author)! and hear her speak at the Injury Biomechanics Symposium.  I plan to interview her, so look for that. Also, I will have my books signed!

Below, I copied part of my July 12, 2008 post where I proclaim that Mary is my favorite author for the first time!

Speaking of science outreach, I am FINALLY reading the first book by Mary Roach, called Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers.  The first one I read (her third book) was Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, which I just enjoyed with every cell in my body.  Her humor is so awesome "Again with the pyrex tubes."---read the book to find out what this means!  WAIT! First, a disclaimer! This book is not for everyone.  You know who you are, and if you don't know, I will tell you: if you are a middle schooler or maybe even a high schooler with a parent who would not approve, or your religious affiliation will not approve--DON"T READ IT or I will personally come snatch that book right out of your hands and give you a disapproving look and ground you from emailing or texting anyone for at least a week! 

Mary Roach is now officially on my list of people I most want to invite to dinner. I'll add her to Reza Aslan (author of No god but God-a great book describing Islam--while I'm not a Muslim, I like how he expressed himself) and Brian Greene (author of The Elegant Universe--about string theory) and Alan Alda.  They don't have to come all at once as I'm not necessarily the "hostess with the mostess", but I'd certainly try and definitely hope wonderful conversation would be the centerpoint of the evening.

Kate from Intrigued Host, a new podcast about interesting people and things, will interview me next week because I guess I have intrigued her. This is all so exciting and fun.

Look at the people she has interviewed.....I'm impressed!!

Some of my interviewees have included Tony, Emmy, Grammy, and Oscar
winners/nominees such as, Sir Ian McKellen, documentary filmmaker
Malcolm Clarke, Alan Cumming, Rachel Evan Wood, Richard Jeni, Arthur
Marx, Michael Constantine, Garry Marshall, Peter Guber, Eric Stoltz,
Atom Egoyan, Don McKellar, Bruce McDonald, Harvey Pekar, Severn
Cullis-Suzuki, Doris Roberts, Alan Arkin, Paul Dano, Alan Rickman,
Ralph Fiennes, Donald Sutherland, Gloria Gaynor, and even the Dalai
Lama

What else? I did review the Star Trek movie for Nerdabout.com and you can see that here!

I will leave you with a video that got the women scientists I follow on twitter all excited about an automatic pipetting device.  Hmm, I wonder why that would be?

Bad fake scientist guys, throwing pipettes like that! Tsk, tsk

 Until next time,

Kindly,  Joanne

I have now been called to jury duty five times. Four petit juries and one coroner's jury (that was very interesting!) in my adult life. People in the office are stunned I get called so often! Three of those times were in the past five years.  As it turns out, I am running the GEM4 Summer School Cell Biology lab portion exactly at that time so I need to reschedule.  I requested a letter. I am posting it because it makes me happy. I hope everyone can get a letter like this in their life! Here it is:

It is so nice to know that I am on occasion indispensable, and not just to the courts!

I am grading, but once that is done, there will be a new book list from this year's students as well as musings on this face recognition project!

Until next time,

Kindly, Joanne

Making up for lost time!! It's been a very busy month.

First, a very important and intelligent book! Doubt is Their Product by David Michaels.

And a fun book by Theo Gray called Mad Science

All this comparing me to women with dark hair, high cheekbones, and striking eyes is getting old.  And Dr. Isis from ScienceBlogs has added the last straw by finding what I now will unfortunately have to say is the best match yet!

 I don't pout or glare (usually, but maybe I'll take it up if this comparing continues!) and don't tote a pistol but thanks to my bro, an ex-marine, I can fire one and hurt you if you stand really, really still.  Good thing you'd run because I'd never have the guts to do it anyway! I'll just aim at the fake cardboard guy.

This is Baroness, an intelligence officer for Cobra from the GI Joe series. She's evil and ruthless. I'm not. I'm the nicest person you'll ever meet....probably, or so say my students.

When you vote for the ladies I am accused of being similar to, Baroness is NOT on the list! I don't know that the facial recognition software would work on a cartoon. But, I will ask!

It looks like I am driving to see Reza Aslan speak in Chicago this evening. I really enjoy his writing style. Along with Mary Roach (and others), he is an author I am looking forward to meeting (at least for a book signature).  I know this is not science (and some readers could possibly be seething that I dare mention a book about religion--but why not, there's a pic of me in a Catholic School uniform next to Pope JPII, so I'm not exactly breaking new ground here), but I enjoyed his book about Islam called No god but God.  It was a clear and logical, intelligent and exhaustive explanation of Islam.  Just the facts but with a marvelous writing style (as a good science book should be, too!).  He has a new book out called How to Win a Cosmic War: God Globalization and the End of the War on Terror I just started it, but so far, so good.

Finally, I came across a video I enjoyed by a young man who entered the Discovery Education 3M Young Scientists Challenge last year.  Here, Michael Koehler explains Bernoulli's principle. Future professor? What do you think?

While we are presently concerned about the Swine Flu, which hopefully can be prevented with common sense measures, I think a look at a more pervasive infection is worth your time.

An ingenious website has been created to identify the symptoms of a NERD infection and to help support those with such an infection.  It is high time that this has been done.  I wrote to them telling them of my symptoms and they thought it best I write something up for them.  However, liking the visual aspect of things, I decided to film something.  Above is what I came up with.  Naturally, I could go on and on, but kept it relatively brief or we'd be here all day!

Watch my video, visit their site, tell your story. The world must know.

The State Science Olympiad is done for another year.  It is always a ton of work, but fun for everyone!

Our bioengineering department head is pretty cool (Mike Insana).  He walked by my office, pointed at me with a laugh and said "My vote is for Racquel Welch!"  LOL! thanks!

Julia Roberts is in the lead....still. I don't see it, I really don't, but don't let my opinion stop you.

Last lab of the year, so need to tend to that!  Until next time,

Kindly, Joanne

First a video posted on the World Science Festival (NY June 10-14, 2009) Website.

New York City high school students share their thoughts on science.

Science is Everywhere from World Science Festival on Vimeo.

 Second, now that I've been out on video for a bit, adding to other information from years past, I have been accused of looking like some of the most beautiful women ever to walk the planet.  Those who know me think I find this hilarious, a little flattering, but mostly hilarious.

Sandra Bullock          Lynda Carter         Audrey Hepburn         

 Vivian Leigh           Julia Roberts         Racquel Welch           (Sarah Palin)

So, lets be scientific about this. I will post pics of these beauties in the BIOE hall (3rd floor of DCL) and you can come by and vote on who you think I most look like.  I will collect data until the end of the semester. If you found me here by chance, use the comment form to send me a comment...you won't be anonymous, but I make no judgments on what you think.

Then, I will look to see if I can find someone who can run some sort of software analysis to compare % similarities between my facial features and those of these women.  We will match that to my other collected data and see what we come up with.  If you know someone with this software, let me know!!

Still working on Science Olympiad...only a few days until the big event!

Until next time,

Kindly, Joanne

Via Twitter, I have made contact with some very interesting people (and I thank freelance science writer David Bradley of Science Base blog for convincing me to be more active with it).  Just recently I started following history_geek, a professor who studies the history of medicine.  Those who know me, know I love the history of science, but I am particularly drawn to the history of medicine and am excited about this new interaction.  She has a website called Wonders and Marvels: A community for Curious Minds who Love History, its Odd Stories, and Good Reads My question is: How did she know I was out there???

She is heading to Paris shortly and I told her about my "nerdy" trip to Paris about a year and a half ago where I tried to visit mostly scientific spots of interest.  One place I decided to go was La Musée d'Histoire de la Médecine (The Museum of the History of Medicine).  There, one could find all sort of ancient medical artifacts including trepanation kits (for drilling into the skull) and other antique medical equipment. 

The most fascinating item there was a table made of petrified body parts.  Here we go:

Translation: Created by Efisio Marini, Italian physician/naturalist and offered to Napolean III

This table is formed of petrified brain, blood, bile, liver, lungs and glands on which sits a foot, four ears and cut vertebrae which are also petrified.

If you are now grossed out, let's look at something less gruesome, a sample of penicillian!

 OK, gotta run!  Lots to do this week to get ready for the State Science Olympiad.  I need volunteers for the day (Saturday the 25th!  Contact me if you have a few hours to help these kids!)

Kindly, Joanne

Theo Gray, author of the book TheoGray's Mad Science, of which I wrote a few days ago, showed me a video that was to appear online the next day in his Gray Matter PopSci column the next day when I visited him to pick up a copy of his book.

He made a thermal lance out of bacon.  Why? To demonstrate the properties required to produce a high heat flame sufficient to cut through iron. Those who are vegan or trying to keep kosher or halal can also make one out of a cucumber as well.

See it here!

When I was a kid, there were not many science magazines available.  Scientific American, Popular Science and Popular Mechanics were the only ones I was aware of at the time.  My dad had the Popular Science and Popular Mechanics, so I would read through those and as I got older, would buy my own copies of Scientific American.  Now there are so many choices!!

Until next time,

Kindly, Joanne

The NEW vid from BIO-RAD!!! I am in geek heaven! If you can't get to the vid from here because of such high trafffic, go straight to the BIO-RAD site HERE!

I've ordered from them for years for my SDS-PAGE supplies.

And don't forget the original.  The only problem is I swear they say Polymamases and not polymerases

Theo Gray's Mad Science: Experiments You Can Do at Home but Probably Shouldn't,

 That's ok, I'll do them in my lab.

Read about it here, at PopSci, where Gray contributes to the Gray Matter column.  If I read it, I will probably review it.  This review may have me doing the experiments....I think it will be required! I may seem like a mild mannered biologist, but there is enough of the fascination with fire, chemical mixing and freezing things with liquid nitrogen in me that needs to be expressed, that it looks like this book is one I will savor!

I am a little disappointed however, that the author of the article, Mike Haney, is not the electrical engineer Mike Haney who runs the Senior Design Projects for us in Bioengineering....oh well. 

But less disappointed now that I found out that Theodore Gray co-founded Wolfram Research based in Champaign and is JUST down the street from me.  I'm going to pick up a copy of the book from him IN PERSON!

Thank you to mycitytalk who corrected the first sentence of their feature about me, for which I am most grateful. 

David Bradley at his Sciencebase blog has been posting science safety stories, which seems quite timely given the boxes for shoes incident in the lab!!   You can check his stories out here. They are amusing.  And as we know, this can be serious

My safety blunder story happened as an undergraduate in a plant biology/microbiology lab I was working in. (One day I'll share about it--acid rain and bacteria that clean up oil slicks--a lab that cared about the environment!)

We all know that wafting a chemical is important, as is labeling your beakers and bottles. Cleaning copper grids for scanning electron microscopy involves a dip in acetone followed by a dip in each of three beakers of dH₂O. The phone rang, I answered it, returned to my task, and, having not labeled the beakers all containing clear liquid,  I couldn’t remember which direction I was working. I picked up a beaker at one end, wafted my hand carefully over the beaker and thought I detected acetone. Certain that this was the acetone beaker, picked up the one on the other side, assuming it was water and put my nose right up to the contents and took a big sniffing inhale. Imagine my shock as my nose immediately began bleeding and didn’t stop for 20 minutes!

Oh, THAT was the acetone beaker! ALWAYS WAFT!!

 Until next time,

Kindly, Joanne

This is just a quick response to the kind feature about me presented on mycitytalk, which is an up and coming web news site.  I am flattered they chose to feature me. I truly can't complain because it looks like a good forward thinking site.

I only have one small issue.  A noun in the first sentence. 

If you look at the April 2 post (You've been Eric-ed!) you will clearly see that I wrote that Eric put boxes, not boxers, on the offending student's feet. I had imagined Kimwipe boxes in my joke, but Eric found some corrugated cardboard boxes that did the trick and apparently decorated them with tape to look like laces.

Although boxer shorts would be quite goofy and humiliating, I'm absolutely certain that I would not have that much forethought to store those in the lab.  And I feel pretty confident that I've never humiliated anyone on purpose, but they have squirmed and blushed when I've caught them doing something they're not supposed to such as texting, chewing gum, or forgetting their shoes.  If they forget their shoes, I usually send them home, or sometimes lend them the shoes in the prep room.

I now imagine the Division of Research Safety is having a fit at this point. Yes, I agree, boxes on feet could be hazardous due to tripping issues (although I expect they were sitting at the biosafety cabinet for most of the time). I take full responsibility even though I wasn't there for the incident because the buck stops here.  We promise (right, Eric?), it will never happen again, because forever and ever, students will know that we mean it when they MUST wear closed toed shoes in the lab.  And that is NEVER a joke. 

 Until next time,

Kindly, Joanne

I finally put together another book review.  I had a cold that had decided to nestle into my throat, so was a hindrance. This book, Mean and Lowly Things caught my eye at the library (one of my favorite places) and I picked it up. I think it was because there was this waif of a girl on the cover holding a snake but doing this courageous field work that intrigued me initially. You can check out Dr. Kate Jackson mimicking Medusa on her Whitman college webpage!

Sometimes people ask how I get so much reading done.  First, I read quickly.  Part of this is due to the example set by my mom.  We used to say that she belonged to the "Book of the Hour" Club because she read so quickly.  I recall a time when I was a preteen and I said "Mom, would you like to read this book? It's really good!"  Her reply was "I took it from your nightstand and read it one night while you were asleep!" My other method is to keep several books going at once.  I have one that I usually try to focus on and power through, but then I keep one that I generally read before going to bed and another that I might leave in the car or read at the gym.

Kate Jackson's book was my read before bed every night.  I loved the tone of her book and the idea of what she was doing and looked forward to it every evening until I finished it. I think you will, too!

Switching gears. I am happy to share with you a note from the mother of a young girl I was privileged to talk to a few weeks back.

Hi Joanne -
My daughter (EM) and I had the pleasure of meeting you met when you were speaking with Dr Barbara Oakley at our local book store in Northville, MIchigan.  We were with our Girl Scout troop on Saturday afternoon.
I wanted to tell you that you really impressed E!  She thought you were fascinating and she was very surprised that you could be that excited about science!  Although E does well in all of her classes, she generally prefers writing, reading and creative projects.  And your description of G.A.M.E.S. was so vivid that E went home, jumped on your website and researched more about the Bioengineering Camp.  And today, she submitted her application to attend the camp in August.
I don't know whether E will be accepted or what her ultimate decision about attending will be - but I wanted to thank you for encouraging E to look at science camps in a different way.  Perhaps - we will see you again this Summer but - if not - thanks again for being so enthusiastic and encouraging E (and all of our scouts) to expand their interests.

I was thrilled that the timing of my visit with Barbara Oakley coincided with a bookstore talk and that Barbara asked me to share a little about what I do with the people there, including the girl scouts. I suppose anyone would be happy to know that they have inspired someone.  Even better if it is just from doing what they love.  Nothing could please me more than to know that people can see my enthusiasm for science....I'm glad it shows, because it is the one thing I know is perfectly true about me.

Until next time,

Kindly, Joanne

I remember a lot of my dreams.  Recently I had one where I was buying mascara.  It was a good, practical dream that did not require me to shake off any weirdness upon waking.  And the nice thing is I can make it come true one day soon!

One memorable dream involved one of my former students as a matured scientist who wanted to show me his discovery before he showed anyone else.  In a darkened room, so the technology could be seen best, he opened an 8 x 11" envelope, reached in and made the motion to remove a piece of transparent, well, something.  It looked like he was holding nothing, but suddenly in glowing green and blue, up came a 3D hologram of a molecule (somewhere in size between a softball and basketball).  He seemed quite proud.  I was in awe of both the technology and of the molecule, which seemed to be of great significance.

After the article came out in the local paper about my video reviews of science books, I was contacted by Dr. Alan Craig here at the U of I who is working on a pretty neat project called augmented reality books.  He directed me to his website, and right there was an image of a hologram hovering over a regular print book. I was struck by how much this reminded me of my dream.  Dr. Craig invited me to come see his work.  With a camera and some software (i.e. your cell phone) and some code imprinted on a page of a book, one can see a 3D representation of just about anything. This video shows some work by the team in New Zealand he is collaborating with.  Amazing Stuff!

ScienceCheerleader and I are following each other in Twitter...hard to say who started following who first, but she likes what I'm doing and I like what she is doing (science outreach).  You can check out her site and see her collection of cheerleaders dispensing scientific information, among other clever items. She flattered me by asking if she could put me on her Sexy Scientists and Engineers page. I'm trying not to giggle as I write this.  Some days I find it tricky to reconcile sexy and science as well as the fact I could embody this in any fashion, especially while IN the lab and maintaining a professional tone (why do I hear some of you laugh? OK, the lab is a little bit less than professional, but not sexy, more like goofy!). Many of the gals are shown in their super cute cheerleading outfits.  While there are in existence many, many swimsuit photos of me, you will not be seeing them on this site, EVER.  Except the one of me in the Miss Guam World contest...you'll have to go mine for that one if you didn't run across it already.

Until next time,

Kindly, Joanne

I informed my Teaching Assistants before spring break that when students return in April and the weather is warm, many will arrive to lab in sandals and shorts.  Uh oh! Any savvy lab person knows that is completely against the rules!  I told the TAs to point them out the door and send them home to change. I also jokingly said "Or, make them wear boxes on their feet!"

Well TA Eric took this to heart.  Yesterday a few students showed up in improper attire.  He made one wear HIS shoes.  He took my deck shoes from the prep room and put them on himself (I think I will stock pink ones with flowers on them now just for entertainment value). He made one student wear boxes on their feet over their sandals, and the person in shorts was forced to wear a labcoat as a skirt!

Nothing like a little humiliation to drive the point home! And Eric said he wanted to be a verb, too.  Soooo, if you show up without your shoes and he forces some silly but safe requirement on you, we will now say "You've been Eric-ed!".

BTW, Eric is responsible for this on the top of my beer cooler style fridge in the lab.  I was not pleased that the company I ordered the fridge from had their name up top.  They didn't pay me to advertise for them. I asked students to create an image.  It was to be a contest but Eric was the only contestant, apparently after destroying all other entries, he claims. Now you know who you are dealing with....

The foil on the glass doors blocks the fluorescent lights which create toxic by products in our cell growing media, in case you are wondering...

I don't care if it is 97^o outside!  Bring proper lab shoes, please!

Kindly, Joanne

Here I am with a fellow chaperone (such a wonderful lady!) and one and a half of my three very well behaved charges. This was at the final ceremony held at the Hollywood Studios park (formerly MGM) where our prizes were distributed for our band competition.  This is me, happy with sun and warm weather and hardly any sleep for a week!

Guess my favorite park!  Did you guess Epcot?  Science, innovation, travel.  Yeah, that's the place! And Soarin'--oh, so fun!

I was hoping to film today, but my voice is not cooperating thanks to being quite run down from that crazy week!

I keep thinking about science TV.  I watched some last night while in my misery from a head cold.  I am continually reminded of this interesting feel to these shows that try to invoke a sense of fear or anxiety when discussing scientific issues. (When will the next earthquake strike? Will the dog bite?) You can hear it in the narrator's voice, the choice of words, the music, the editing of the scientists' comments.  I guess fear = serious in TV land. I don't agree, of course.  Our other option for science TV seems to be "goofy" which works sometimes. Mythbusters comes closest to striking a balance between serious, fun and showing how engineers attack a problem.

I'm reposting now a study done about French science television that discusses "What kind of science TV viewer are you?"  Enjoy!

Friday, June 13, 2008

I am completely exhausted after a fun but intense week of chaperoning the middle school band down in Orlando for Festival Disney music competition! We did quite well!

Before I left, two things happened:

First, I was featured on the front page of the living section for our local paper, The News Gazette.  You can read it here.  I think they did a good job with it and I am grateful.

Second, I created a video recommending two books, Bad Science by Ben Goldacre and Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics by Sherry Seethaler.  I didn't get the chance to post it on my website because I had so little time at a computer during the trip. You can see it featured up top of this page for a while.

My video reviews are also appearing on Seed Magazine's ScienceBlogs Book Club.  You can see my first one here

Hannah Holmes (The Well Dressed Ape) sent me a link to a Nature news article called Science Journalism: Supplanting the Old Media? The article and the subsequent comments are interesting.

I finished reading Mean and Lowly Things by Kate Jackson on the bus down to Disney and will review that as soon as I catch my breath.  I am currently reading Doubt is Their Product by David Michaels--very good!!

Until next time,

Kindly, Joanne

Awesome!  Watching this Colbert Report from March 17, 2009 was quite entertaining for myself and my TAs in our weekly class meeting! A good use of our time, I think.

As a reminder, I had posted the link to the US News and World Report article about Tissue Engineering our meat back in August.  Tissue Engineered meat has no texture, it's like snot or slime as the cultured muscle cells require stress and strain to create the fibrous texture. You should also be aware that meat also has a good portion of connective tissue fibers as well, and those are most likely missing from this engineered meat.

A side note: since Fetal Bovine Serum in the growth media is currently used to culture the meat,  it is not yet animal cruelty free.

There IS serum free media, but cells grow less able-y in this.