I’m subscribed to some search feeds at Pubmed. Here’s what caught my eye this week in the Stem Cells feed:
What’s new in Pubmed this week: Stem Cells
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Tag Archives: science
What’s interesting in Pubmed this Week: Stem Cells
I’m subscribed to some search feeds at Pubmed. Here’s what caught my eye this week:
I’ve worked out a method for doing immunohistochemistry (IHC) on formalin-fixed paraffin embedded (FFPE) sections of bone.
Bone is very autofluorescent, so most dyes that excite in the visible range also excite substances present in bone itself, making it hard to find the specific signal generated by the dye-conjugated antibody. However, I noticed when using DAPI, an intercalating DNA stain used to light up the nuclei, that the background is almost totally black, meaning that bone isn’t autofluorescent in the UV range, where DAPI excites. So, I figured that all I would have to do is find a secondary antibody conjugated to a dye that excites in the UV range, and I should be able to do IHC with little background.
Open Science
Taking a cue from my colleague Attila, I will be writing my dissertation via blog. My hope is that increased exposure, however slight, will improve the clarity of my thought and strength of my research plan through helpful comments and suggestions from readers. The extra scrutiny I am compelled to give this work before exposing it to the world will also serve as an additional impetus to get it right.
As I am now beginning to look for a postdoc, it doesn’t hurt to be visible to potential employers, either.
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A dialogue between a scientist and a catholic pro-life activist.
It’s not surprising in this melting pot of a nation, founded on religious tolerance, that people believe a variety of things. Neither is it surprising that some believers try to get other people to believe like they do. Southern Baptists, for example, aren’t considered to be true believers unless they “bear witness” to the non-believers. Everyone understands this, and for the most part tolerates it with a minimum of eye-rolling.
However, where the line is crossed is when believers in some article of faith attempt to assert the objective truth of said article by advancing a supposedly secular argument in favor of what they personally take on faith. For example, no one cares if you personally believe that life begins at conception, but when you start machinations to get such belief encoded into the law, people care.
I found a blog dedicated to doing exactly that for the Catholic faith. In one post, the blog author, Rebecca, is complaining about an editorial in Nature Neuroscience, which takes Dr. Maureen Condic to task for an sloppy and biased article she wrote for the Catholic magazine First Things.
The following unedited exchange is between myself and Rebecca.
Active voice is what should be used in scientific writing.
I will endeavor to write more in active voice, but I think it’s appropriate to shift focus from who’s doing the action to what’s being done in some cases.
Case 1:Writing up your results for publication. Use active voice, because it makes for more natural sounding, easier to read sentences.
We assayed the samples for calcium, alkaline phosphatase, and osteoprotegerin.
The samples were assayed for calcium, alkaline phosphatase, and osteoprotegerin.
Case 2:Writing a grant proposal. The focus should be on what’s going to be done, rather than who’s doing it. Passive voice works here, because active voice would just be a bunch of, “We will …” phrases stuck on the beginning of every sentence, not adding much.
The choline deficiency model of hepatocellular carcinoma will be used to generate malignant cells.
We will use the choline deficiency model of hepatocellular carcinoma to generate malignant cells.
Scientists in the kitchen
Just when I was talking about it. Scientists in the kitchen(Free reg. req.)