Rainy Rainy Sunday

http://www.cimmyt.org/maize-from-mexico-to-the-world/
An article about CIMMYT's germplasm bank (International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center)




http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/22/opinion/sunday/to-write-software-read-novels.html?_r=0 From the Sunday Review of NYT, the writer comments on the importance of humanities in an age of STEM.  Much merit in this.





https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-study-visualizes-proteins-involved-cancer-cell-metabolism  Report of an NIH-funded study using cryo-EM to visualize cancer cell proteins at high resolution.These will be important in drug development. Glutamine dehydrogenase was visualized at 1.8 angstroms. Work was doen at NCI and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences.

http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/46134/title/FDA-Approves-Bladder-Cancer-Immunotherapy/ This article from The Scientists is a report of the approval by the FDA of immunotherapy for bladder cancer. It's a monoclonal antibody developed by Roche and costs about $12,500 a month, out of reach of most people.

http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/46130/title/Immune-Defect-Detected-in-Knockout-Mice/ Again from the Scientist and kind of a big deal, I think, is the detection of a mutation in the genome of a mouse strain C57Bl6 commonly used in research. This mutation could cause immune defects. The work was done by the Ragon Institute and published in Cell Reports. Some major scientific studies may need to be reevaluated based on this finding.




http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/46071/title/Image-of-the-Day--Signal-Sensors/ Image of the day from The Scientist. Cilia, cellular protuberances. Diseases are called ciliopathies and can effect things like sperm mobility (ciliary disfunction.)



https://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/mencken.htm  Here are some HL Mencken quotes from the blog Con Job: Stories of Adjunct and Contingent Faculty.




http://www.genengnews.com/gen-news-highlights/fighting-cancer-with-borrowed-immunity/81252754/
An article from GEN about the transfer of T cells from healthy donors to help fight cancer. This is called TCR  (T Cell Receptor) transfer and was done in Oslo and reported in Science magazine.


http://www.sciencealert.com/more-evidence-suggests-rna-is-behind-the-origin-of-life
From Science Alert, a report in Phys.org lends more evidence to the RNA first theories of life's origins. Researchers at LMU (Ludwig Maximillian U in Munich) have created conditions in which adenine and guanine can be synthesized; in which case all the conditions are present in which RNA could have been synthesized in the early world. It has already been shown that RNA can work as a messenger and a catalyst.



http://science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6287/758.full  Really great article in Science mag about evolutionary biology bringing its power into determining whether to prescribe high or low doses of antibiotics in order to treat microbial infections and prevent drug resistance from developing.




https://www.statnews.com/2016/05/24/podcast-biotech-has-a-gender-problem/   The STAT podcast about sexism in biotech.



http://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2016/05/teaching-safety-skills-not-just-safety-rules
This commentary from Science magazine about the new chemistry lab safety guidelines issued last year by the American Chemical Society (ACS) and the implementation of these rules.  Teaching safety as rules and compliance, it was decided, is insufficient. Students need to know how to prepare for emergencies.



 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/angelina-jolie-appointed-as-professor-at-the-london-school-of-economics-a7043911.html Angelina Jolie is a professor at the London School Of Economics, from The Independent.


http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2016/5/23/the-women-who-leave/ From the Harvard Crimson about Women in Science (and out of science).


https://richarddawkins.net/2016/05/the-genes-still-selfish-dawkins-famous-idea-turns-40/ Richard Dawkin's groundbreaking book, "The Selfish Gene" is celebrating its fortieth anniversary. He is a wonderful writer.





http://qz.com/689806/a-controversial-theory-may-explain-the-real-reason-humans-have-allergies/  From Quartz, Carl Zimmer's description of Ruslan Medzhitov's theories about the immune system and allergies, a channeling of Janeway's theories about the immune system. Janeway discovered Toll-Like Receptors.




http://www.npl.co.uk/news/insights-magazine-measurement-science-at-the-heart-of-big-data-revolution   From Insights magazine, publication of the National Physical Laboratory, an article about measurement  science at the heart of big data. The NPL (UK) is involved in defining data standards and "helping communities develop new measurement solutions."




http://www.npr.org/2016/05/24/479223874/we-followed-a-snowy-owl-from-maryland-to-ontario This is an npr report of a research team of bird biologists that followed the movements of wide-ranging snowy owls (using solar-powered GPS transmitters) which turned up south of their usual winter range and wound up in Canada.




http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/05/genome-editor-crispr-helps-trace-growth-embryos-and-maybe-cancer-next  Published online by Science magazine a report on the use of the genome editor CRISPR to trace the growth of embryos in zebrafish. This work was done by Alexander Shier and colleagues at Harvard U.



http://healthjournalism.org/blog/2016/05/rankings-reveal-which-states-are-healthiest-for-aging-adults/ The Association of Health Care Journalists blog Covering Health reports the healthiest for aging: Louisiana is the 50th.



http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/28/science/african-american-dna.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0  From the NYT Matter column by Carl Zimmer a report on African Americans from PLOS Genetics about how migrations have left their mark in the DNA of African Americans. It may also show how genes influence their risk for diseases. The DNA of 3.726 African Americans was analyzed in this study.



http://www.cultofpedagogy.com/classroom-management-problems/ This is from a blog called Cult of Pedagogy about classroom management. Things you can do to sabotage your classroom management. "Smile when the students try to get you off track" first one; (how about laugh?) This is also available a 27 minute podcast but you don't want to play it in class.





 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2016/05/26/the-superbug-that-doctors-have-been-dreading-just-reached-the-u-s/  From Science mag, an article about the discovery of drug resistant superbugs in the US. Published in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy.



http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/46173/title/Editing-Genomes-to-Record-Cellular-Histories/  From The Scientist, an article about tracking C. elegans cells during development to trace them back to their embryonic beginnings.  Our debt to the worm. This work was published in Science Mag.