http://www.gustavholmberg.com/tradingzone Mon, 21 Aug 2006 19:55:28 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en As reported earlier both here and at lots of other science blogs, one of the innovations of the draft proposal put before the IAU General Assembly currently meeting in Prague is the introduction of a new set of bodies, 'plutons'. According to a message to the HASTRO-L mailing list, previously published ... http://www.gustavholmberg.com/tradingzone/2006/08/21/pluton-claimed-by-geologists/ Mathworks, makers of Matlab, marketed Sim Biology 2.0 this summer. Probably, there's a market for those who want to run simulations, but are not programmers; or, as Mathworks' press release says: "SimBiology features a drag-and-drop interface so that biologists who are nonprogrammers can create, edit, and view models of pathways." [via ... http://www.gustavholmberg.com/tradingzone/2006/08/20/software-for-simulation-in-biology/ Open Wet Ware is maybe an emerging culture of scientific collaboration on the net. via Deepak Singh on TechBizMedia: Labs from Harvard University, Imperial College London, IISc, MIT, U. Hyderabad, U. Paris, etc are making use of this open collaborative environment. I think this is a rich source of collaborations and information ... http://www.gustavholmberg.com/tradingzone/2006/08/19/scientific-collaboration-in-wiki-format/ Setting up a lab at home? There's stuff available at eBay: The starting bid for this scanning electron microscope is $10 000. Or maybe an ultrasound scanner for $ 14 500, or why not go for an Affymetrix genetic microsystems arrayer model 417 for $ 5 499. http://www.gustavholmberg.com/tradingzone/2006/08/19/lab-equipment-on-ebay/ Daniel Fischer, present at the IAU General Assembly in Prague, reports to the HASTRO-L mailing list that the first open debate, in which only planetary scientists took part, about the proposed resolution took place Friday afternoon. It lost about 60:40 against an alternative which would exclude Pluto. Seems also that ... http://www.gustavholmberg.com/tradingzone/2006/08/19/more-on-planet/ The IAU, currently meeting in Prague, has now published the draft resolution that will decide whether Pluto is a planet or not. The definition goes: "A planet is a celestial body that (a) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic ... http://www.gustavholmberg.com/tradingzone/2006/08/16/12-planets-and-more-to-come/ Citespace is fun. I'm not sure, though, if it will become a permanent addition to my toolbox. I am, mind you, a qualitative historian, not a quant one. Will it be useful as a tentative mapping device when I begin looking at a field, before the actual reading of papers and ... http://www.gustavholmberg.com/tradingzone/2006/08/15/citespace-again-2/ Bioinformatics is an en emerging field, combining the practices and cultures of maths/physics/computer science/statistics with ... biology of all fields: back in the day, the people I studied with were selected such that people interested in computing, programming, maths and so on early moved towards a kind of physics track; ... http://www.gustavholmberg.com/tradingzone/2006/08/15/bioinformatics-and-the-disciplinary-structure/ Alan Eshleman visits a DNA lab and writes about what he saw there over at the Genes and drugs blog. Lot's of tinkering going on in the lab, apparently. http://www.gustavholmberg.com/tradingzone/2006/08/15/visiting-a-dna-lab/ The American Cancer Society has been fundraising in Second Life, running a virtual relay race and auctioning a virtual car. [via business bytes genes molecules.] http://www.gustavholmberg.com/tradingzone/2006/08/15/new-fundraising-methods/