Archive
Used Lab Equipment Finds A Second Home Overseas
Recently on NPR, the work of Seeding Labs was highlighted. Often, we here in wealthy labs in the US, take it for granted that we have all our equipment and buy partially of completely made solutions for our experiment. In most labs around the world, especially in the developing countries this is utopia. To help them a hand Seeding Labs, a non-profit NGO, gets ‘old’ lab equipment and sends this to labs in developing countries, such as the University of Nairobi in Kenya.
Seeding Labs’ goal is:
… simple: Help talented scientists in the developing world do life-changing research.
Support this great contribution to humanity.
Careers with Sandia National Laboratories
This blog has brought to your attention that alternative career options are very relevant to today’s graduates with a PhD. In that alley, Sandia National Labs is having a recruitment session. Read below.
Careers with Sandia National Laboratories for Advanced Degree Holders
Wednesday, November 2
Noon-1:30pm | Room 114 South Hall
For all interested M.S. and Ph.D. science, engineering, and computer science students and postdocs
- Learn about the excellent opportunities at Sandia National Laboratory
- Meet Technical Members of Staff and UCD Alums -
- Jack Skinner, PhD in Mechanical Engineering from UC Davis
- Mien Yip, PhD in Civil Engineering from UC Davis
Bring Your Resume! Don’t have a resume? Or have a resume that needs some work? Attend our Resume Writing Workshop for Grad Students and Postdocs in advance of the information session
Food and drinks will be provided.
Find more information at www.sandia.gov or at www.facebook.com/SandiaLabs
Sponsored by Graduate Student and Postdoctoral Career Services at the Internship and Career Center and the Office of Graduate Studies (Professional Development Series)
Matt Might’s articles on grad school
Matt Might is an assistant professor in static analysis of higher-order programs at the University of Utah.
He also has a blog with several articles on grad school. Follow the links below and enjoy his advise.
- HOWTO: Get a great letter of recommendation
- Boost productivity: Cripple your technology
- HOWTO: Send and reply to email
- Classroom Fortress: Nine Kinds of Students
- The 5+5 Commandments of a Ph.D.
- 10 tips for academic talks
- 10 reasons Ph.D. students fail
- 6 tips for low-cost academic blogging
- Get The Illustrated Guide in print; fund Ph.D. students; save lives
- The illustrated guide to a Ph.D.
- A Ph.D. thesis proposal is a contract
- 3 qualities of successful Ph.D. students
- HOWTO: Get in to grad school
- Recommended books and papers for grad students
- Academic job hunt advice
Getting the most out of a conference
BiteSize Bio published an article with a few tips to get the most out of a conference:
- See what’s new in the commercial world.
- Go off the beaten path
- Get connected, and try out the connections
- Stay one step ahead of the literature
- Enjoy the city!
To read the entire article, click here.
Masters in Science Communication Program at UCSC
Are you considering a career in science writing? Or do you want to become a good writer as part of your skill-set? Maybe you want to consider taking the Science Communication Program at UC Santa Cruz. This is a one year, intense course in science writing and many of their alumni have gone to great careers in the media, such as NPR or various news papers in LA, Detroit or Philly.
They also started their own blog The Crashing Edge, so can have a taste of the work they produce.
UC Davis gets a new Genome Center in Sac in collaboration with BGI
Read about it here.
Translational Science Seminar – Dan Michael Cooper, M.D. – November 4, 2011, 2:00 PM – GBSF
Longevity epigenetic inheritance in C. elegans
Read the complete article via the theguardian by Ed Yong.
Photograph: PA
“Long-lived worms can transmit their extended lifespan to the next generation by passing on changes in the way their genes are used, rather than differences in DNA itself.
A study has shown that nematode worms can inherit a ‘memory of longevity from their parents, even though their genome remains unchanged.
It is not clear if the same processes apply to humans, but Anne Brunet from Stanford University, who led the study, noted that some genes that affect the lifespan of nematodes were later found to influence human longevity too. ‘In several cases, the worm has proved to be a good model for humans, who live 2,000 times longer,’ she said…”
Cancer resistance to DNA damage-inducing treatments
Research led by UC Davis’ Professor Wolf-Dietrich Heyer discovered how recombination reverses itself which enables cancer cells to become resistant to radiation and chemotherapy treatments.
“An international team of scientists led by UC Davis researchers has discovered that DNA repair in cancer cells is not a one-way street as previously believed. Their findings show instead that recombination, an important DNA repair process, has a self-correcting mechanism that allows DNA to make a virtual u-turn and start over.
The study’s findings, which appear in the Oct. 23 online issue of the journal Nature, not only contribute new understanding to the field of basic cancer biology, but also have important implications for potentially improving the efficacy of cancer treatments.
‘What we discovered is that the DNA repair pathway called recombination is able to reverse itself,’ said Wolf-Dietrich Heyer, UC Davis professor of microbiology and of molecular and cellular biology and co-leader of Molecular Oncology at UC Davis Cancer Center. ‘That makes it a very robust process, allowing cancer cells to deal with DNA damage in many different ways. This repair mechanism may have something to do with why some cancer cells become resistant to radiation and chemotherapy treatments that work by inducing DNA damage.’”
Read the rest of the article from the UC Davis Health System.
The original manuscript can be found here via Nature.
Four inch single cell amoebas
Where? In the depths of the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of our world’s oceans. These amoebas (Xenophyophores) were discovered by researchers at the Scripp’s Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego. Check them out in this brief clip. At this depth and pressure, these organisms are surviving in one of the most uninhabitable places on Earth.
Here’s a close up of the Xenophyophores found in the Galapagos Rift:
Photo by: NOAA.
Related articles at Scripps News and popsci.com
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