Category Archives: Uncategorized

It’s been a year since my last post. On July 9, 2013, I learned that a grant was not funded. On July 11, 2013, I learned that my contract was contingent on that grant. My contract had a year left on … Continue reading →

This week I faced a little bioethics dilemma. I needed to test my primer pairs before I ran my precious samples. It would be best to test them with freshly isolated RNA, since if they failed I would have more … Continue reading →

Authorship is a hot topic in bioethics classes. How to settle authorship disputes. When you did the work to merit first-author but the student who comes after you and “needs” the publication more urgently gets first-author billing. When the wife … Continue reading →

The federal definition of plagiarism does not include self plagiarism–and that is a good thing. For example, in one of my manuscripts I wrote these words: “Male Sprague Dawley rats (250-350 g, Hilltop Lab Animals, Scottdale, PA) were housed on … Continue reading →

This is the 4th time I’ve served on an NIH study review session, specifically for NCCAM and for the “other” funding mechanisms (ie, not R’s, except for the R15s). Someone asked me why I am doing it. It does take … Continue reading →

I went to a health talk last night from a woman who has what I will describe as a whole-person clinic. She is a chiropractor, and other services at her clinic (offered by other professionals) include counseling, acupuncture, yoga, herbal … Continue reading →

I just finished Isaac Asimov’s last autobiography, “I. Asimov”. I want to share this passage (page 163) because it is sadly familiar. This situation is well known to anyone who has experienced academic research. What was interesting to me is … Continue reading →

Check out the #overlyhonestmethods twitter hashtag. In addition to being humorous, #overlyhonestmethods tweets provide insight into the real world of science. Science is “supposed” to be about carefully controlled conditions. We contrast what happens in the laboratory to what happens … Continue reading →

I’m scanning 9 microarray slides. I put a slide on the scanner, hit “prescan” and read a crazyguyonabike journal for about a minute. When the prescan is done, I adjust the area and hit “scan”. I set my timer for … Continue reading →

Have you ever heard a speaker say something like this? “One in 5 of us will die of heart disease. There are 20 people in this room, so 4 of you will die of heart disease.” This statement illustrates a … Continue reading →