| Ethics review boards? |
[07 Jul 2009|09:48am] |
Anybody here had to get past an institutional ethics review board for an experiment? I'm writing a sci-fi/fantasy short story that involves human subject research and I'd like to see some documents people have to produce to get past ethics review boards. It doesn't have to be humans, experimenting on mice is fine too. I'm looking for things like forms that you fill out for the board, forms that you create for the subjects to give informed consent, and justification papers that you submit to accompany the paperwork. It doesn't have to have been successful. I'd also be interested in seeing their response, but this is less crucial to my story (I'd probably only include it if I lengthened the story to no longer be short, or if I did a sequel).
My own background is astronomy, so I've never had to deal with an ethics review board. I'll be looking for things such as what information is included in the forms, and whether the tone of papers submitted to ethics review boards is different from the tone of peer-reviewed astronomy papers. (For example, is it written as if to a peer who is also an expert in the subject, or is it written as if to a politician?)
If you're willing to show me such documents but don't want it public, you can email me at zandperl-AT-gmail-DOT-com. If you're willing to just describe such things, that'd be great too!
Thanks!
|
|
| Rotational Spectroscopy Software |
[06 Jul 2009|12:40pm] |
Hello all.
I'm looking into working with theoretical rotational spectroscopy, and was wondering if anyone here might be able to recommend some good software which might help. Seeing as I've only really worked with electronic excitation spectra up until now, I'm not entirely sure where to start! Are there any pieces of ab initio software out there, which could take a molecular structure (and/or parameters like dipole moment and principal axes) as an input and calculate a full rotational spectrum?
Thanks in advance for any advice or suggestions you can give!
|
|
| Finding the degree of error |
[05 Jul 2009|07:25pm] |
|
Hello. I am a college student studying in BS Medical Technology. Right now, I am busy with my thesis, "Effects of the over-anticoagulated blood based on amylase and acid phosphatase determination". One of my objectives will be finding the degree of error. This will be based on the values obtained from the tests of a normal amount anticoagulated blood and an over anticoagulated blood. But I am hardly good at statistical computation. Will you suggest a formula to get me by this problem?
|
|
| Tip Boxes |
[04 Jul 2009|12:04pm] |
Hey everyone =)
So, my academic institution of choice has a "free things!" area, where labs can put old equipment/etc and it essentially becomes fair game for anyone to take. Usually it's junk, but today when I walked by there were a bunch of empty tip boxes - Sorenson Multiguard Barrier Tips, to be exact. Catalog #15020T. The boxes are a slightly greyish blue with a clear lid
My lab buys tips in bulk in huge bags, and we then manually put the tips into boxes, autoclave, and voila (Exceptions to this include RNA work, but for day to day lab stuff, this is how it goes). Seeing as each person is responsible for their own tips, and being the newest person in the lab, I have the shittiest (and fewest) tip boxes. So I scooped up a bunch, figuring I would try them out next week to make sure the tips we order fit properly and come out easily, and then I'd be set.
Of course I was also planning to check that they were autoclavable. There's no information about it on the Sorenson website (http://www.sorbio.com) but I'm assuming they wouldn't be advertising it because they'd rather you buy an entire new box of tips. I've emailed the tech support, but no response yet, so I'm hoping someone here has personal experience?
And, to have a discussion going, how does your lab buy tips? Pre-racked? Already racked and in boxes? Or do you buy them in big bags? My old lab had a guy come in once a week to rack/autoclave tips, and it was sort of a communal stash we had going on, but here everyone is responsible for their own. We're switching to pre-racked for our P200 tips, but only because we're getting a deal where it works out cheaper than buying in bulk - everything comes down to the final $... we even do plasmid preps the old-school way without a kit.
|
|
| Does this depress anyone? |
[02 Jul 2009|10:51pm] |
|
Just out of curiosity, I'm looking for more information that shows how the brain is in "cognitive decline" as a function of age... anyone know of any interesting (or recent) studies pertaining to the subject matter? ;D
|
|
| article request |
[02 Jul 2009|01:47pm] |
My institution doesn't get Theoretical Applied Genetics; can anyone who has access to it please email me this article:
El Mousadik A, Petit RJ (1996) Theor Appl Genet 92:832– 839
Thanks in advance!
daisieh at gmail dot com
|
|
| Article Request |
[02 Jul 2009|01:36pm] |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8959243
Does anyone have access to this? I am doing a similiar study and like the idea of using dN-dS because I have about 3 cases where dS = 0 (intra host viral quasispecies) and dN/dS doesnt fly when dS=0..
janarock at gmail dot com
Thank you in advance!
|
|
|
[01 Jul 2009|11:26pm] |
|
So I'm an American undergrad doing a lab internship in Germany for the summer, and one thing that I think is really strange is that nearly 90% of the students who get a bachelors degree in the sciences--or at least in biology, chemistry, and biochemistry--get PhDs. I guess there are a number of other factors that come into play--like the fact that you go to medical school straight out of high school so those students don't need a bachelors, and people go to college knowing that they want to study whatever it is they want to study (I definitely did not), but still.
|
|
| Help me out |
[30 Jun 2009|10:05pm] |
I just recently made a few microbe art culture plates (this one of E-coli and Salmonella paratyphi on EMB agar). I'm trying to win a scholarship with it, so if you like it... go vote for it or follow the link and check out some of the other plates I made. My favorite is "Screw You" featuring E-coli flipping a bird (haha) on a MacConkey agar plate.
Thank you Dr. Liechty for letting me have the run of your cultures on this!
|
|
| pEE14 |
[30 Jun 2009|05:29pm] |
Anyone know anything about the shuttle vector pEE14? Where to buy it? Where to find a vector map for it?
Any information would be greatly appreciated. :-)
Edited to add: If anyone knows of a good replacement for pEE14 or has it and would be interested in a collaboration, please let me know. :-)
|
|
| for no reason, a silly question |
[29 Jun 2009|03:56pm] |
Have any of you gotten advice from a livejournal (or more generally any internet) group that has proven instrumental in your published work?
if so, have you ever thought of including us in the acknowledgments? That sounds weird to me.
|
|
| Generating cDNA, not from oligo-dT |
[29 Jun 2009|04:04pm] |
Hi Everyone,
Short version: What's your favorite way of generating high quality cDNA from total RNA (not just mRNA!)? Optimal kits to use? technique? etc...
Less short version:
I am looking to do some deep sequencing (RNAseq) of a few samples, I have all of the samples and the people we are collaborating with have all of the Illumina deep sequencers. They suggested that the best way to provide them with samples was via cDNA from ribosomally-depleted RNA. They sent a protocol that they use, but it is oligo-dT based, and we are hoping to include any microRNAs, siRNAs, etc. in our analysis, which would obviously be lost by this process.
I assume my best bet at this point is to use random hexamers, but are there various protocols? what are their pros and cons? are there any that don't discriminate against smaller RNAs?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
No Worries,
Matt
|
|
| Paper request |
[26 Jun 2009|08:09am] |
Does anybody have these papers?
R Robinson
Genetic aspects of umbilical hernia incidence in cats and dogs
Vet Rec., Jan 1977; 100: 9 - 10.
GB Young and K Angus
A note on the genetics of umbilical hernia
Vet Rec., Feb 1972; 90: 245 - 247.
Please send it to urmakuz at yahoo dot com
Thanks a lot in advance!
|
|
| article request - biology |
[23 Jun 2009|03:16pm] |
Fellow bio nerds,
Would anyone happen to have access to the following article?
Nuclear phosphoinositide signaling regulates messenger RNA export.Okada M, Ye K. RNA Biol. 2009 Jan-Mar;6(1):12-6. Epub 2009 Jan 19.
Please email to my profile addy, if you do. Thanks in advance and hope you have a great day! Cheers, sweetjenia
|
|
| Where are the Spots? |
[23 Jun 2009|11:18am] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
 contemplative |
] |
A New Solar Minimum?
If you were to take a look at the Sun during the past +2 years you would notice something strange - where have all the spots gone? The Sun is now well past the predicted minimum in of the last Solar Cycle (#23) - and still, sunspots are few and far between. This hasn't gone unnoticed by Solar Astronomers and now at least one task group is predicting that this will be the weakest solar cycle of the past one hundred years.
What does this mean? High sunspot activity has been directly linked to an increase in the Sun's luminosity by 0.1%. This is the result of the area of bright faculae offsetting the dark (less bright) sunspots. During quiet periods both sunspots and faculae are in short supply - hence the Sun is actually dimmer.
Since the 1950's, solar cycles have been much stronger than the recorded average of the past 250 years. This ramping up of the solar cycles may in part explain the 'global warming' phenomenon observed not only on Earth - but on Mars as well. But a down turn in the intensity may at least partially offset anthropogenic contributions to the current global warming trend.
Global cool downs associated with down turns in the solar cycle has happened before. The Maunder Minimum (1645 to 1715) and the Dalton Minimum (c. 1800 - 1840's) have both been associated with sharp cool downs. During the Maunder Minimum sunspots were essentially non-existent and the Northern Hemisphere experienced bitterly cold winters. Crops failed, and the glaciers advanced in what was known as the "Little Ice Age".
Extended warm periods like the current and the "Medieval Maximum" (1100 - 1250) have been associated with high cycles. During the later, Greenland was actually "green" and vineyards were common in England. These and other earlier fluctuation in solar activity have been cross correlated with Chinese/Korean records and Carbon-14 analysis of tree rings.
The bottom line - things may NOT be as dire in terms of Global Warming as 'predicted'.
Update - The 0.1% change in solar luminosity has been directly measured by satellites. Using a very simplistic back of the envelop calculation:
5800 degrees K x 0.001 = + 5.8 degrees K increase.
Granted, this is overly simplistic as there are a number of complex dynamically coupled systems to consider, but a temperature swing of +/- 2 or 3 degrees C isn't out of the question.
|
|
| CFSE - Lymphocyte proliferation. |
[19 Jun 2009|06:56pm] |
I've been given the task by my senior to "make our CFSE assay more robust". Or basically to make it work. Because, clearly, if no-one else has managed to make it a reliable assay, I should be able to.
Anyway - does anyone here ever run CFSE assays on a FACS analyser? Do you use whole blood or PBMCs? How long do you incubate?
Any tips would be greatly appreciated!
|
|
| Gradient SDS-PAGE gels |
[18 Jun 2009|10:01am] |
Is there a method for manually pouring gradient gels? The one reference I found uses some fancy gradient mixer connected to a peristaltic pump. I'd like to run the gel tomorrow so buying and waiting for precast gels to arrive isn't an option.
Can you just pour several layers of different percentage acrylamide? For instance, pour a thin layer of 12% *wait to polymerize* pour a 10 percent layer, *wait to polymerize* pour an 8 percent payer *wait to polymerize* ad nauseam?
|
|
| Article Request |
[17 Jun 2009|12:44pm] |
Can anyone send me this article?
Goldberg, A L,
Protein degradation and the generation of MHC class I-presented peptides. Adv Immunol. 80, p. 1-70, 2002
andream (dot) steveh (at) gmail (dot) com
Thanks!
|
|
| navigation |
| [ |
viewing |
| |
most recent entries |
] |
| [ |
go |
| |
earlier |
] |
|
|
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small}
_scientists_
