The Boyden lab (my last abortive UROP) had a community. It was large. There were something like 15-20 people in it (or at least, that many people came to lab meetings on a regular basis). People knew each other and made jokes over the pizza. There was a lab mailing list and it was kind of high-traffic. On the other hand, the environment was very ( Read more... )

Here's a Pharyngula post on how vertebral segments develop in general and in different animals:

Mmm, development. I got shivers down my spine reading about the Wnt/FGF - Notch timing thing.

Hybrid Medical Animation have put out a new demo reel for 2008. It's a thing of beauty. I can't identify most of the things in it, but still, wow.

Biology is beautiful.

(Woo Dr. Worm)

It really strikes me as strange when people aren't interested in things. Even at MIT this happens -- people go into engineering because they have an aptitude for it, and because they can make money at it, not because they love it. Ditto (and possibly even more so) for premeds ( Read more... )

20.020, while a very interesting class, turns out to not include any bench work. All the biological design we do is theoretical, and everything we actually work with will be non-biological. E.g. the first day we did a paper airplane design exercise for team-building, and tomorrow we're going to take apart tape recorders. For the record, as trivial ( Read more... )

My brother's applying for a scholarship where he has to read one of a set of articles on recent scientific discoveries and then comment on it. Specifically, he has to answer the questions: why is it newsworthy? how does it advance the field? what would you do next if you were the researcher? He asked for my help on the article he chose, because it ( Read more... )

I've a new, more serious blog, The Dendritic Arbor. No, I'm not abandoning this LJ. But...agh, I already explained it there, I'm too lazy to type it up again. Go read this.I'm in the process of editing and reposting some of the best content from this LJ, over on Dendritic Arbor. I'm not going to put it all up at once, more like one or two a day, I ( Read more... )

It is very important for me to earn money this summer, because I am about to become a starving student, and because MIT expects people on financial aid to earn so-and-so much during the summer and during the school year. Money is a good thing. It is good for continued existence ( Read more... )

Every thesis ever written.

This video shows a creationist's perspective on vanilla flowers and the certain only species of bee that is able to pollinate them. "Clearly, the flower and the bee were made for each other by God, so we humans can have vanilla, which we enjoy ( Read more... )