Thom Yorke the dance legend.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fNnCKU_gUs&feature=related

A cool argument for how to design AIDS policy:

http://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_pisani_sex_drugs_and_hiv_let_s_get_rational_1.html

PS - Pub meeting this Friday to celebrate last day of classes of my undergrad career?

R. Kelly and Crayfish

"Walking through urine drives crayfish into an aggressive sexual frenzy."

O SNAP! Suspended Animation

http://www.ted.com/talks/mark_roth_suspended_animation.html

Are you free next Thursday?

Hello everyone,

Erin and I are organizing an event for next Thursday (March 25) afternoon and would really appreciate it if you could attend. It is a student dialogue on the Alberta Tar Sands where you'll get the chance to learn a little and share your opinions (which I know you all enjoy doing!). So come to MBC 2290 from 3-5 next week if you're available (and we could maybe go for cheap shots and riblets laters).

Graeme

On a random note

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9vdV2L0yG4

So who's coming Friday?

Olympic Journal Club

Hey all,

I just got my work schedule and it looks like the 22nd or the 26th will work for me to host our meeting/party. I'm working until about 4 both days so I'm thinking setting the meeting time for about 6:30 or 7 should give me plenty of time to get home and ready.

My address is 6546 Hillside Crescent. For those of you from the North side of the Fraser, I'd recommend taking the skytrain to 22nd St. Station and then the 340 to Mackenzie Drive. For South-siders, that would work for you as well, or if the skytrain's super busy try taking the 316 from Surrey Central Station and transferring to the 340 at Scottsdale Exchange (and get off at Mackenzie).

Let me know which day works better for you and hopefully everyone can come!

GG

in case the link does not work

use this instead (pdf below abstract):

http://www.pnas.org.proxy.lib.sfu.ca/gca?gca=pnas%3B0909587107v1&allch=&submit=Go

This weeks paper!

So, sorry about the delay in getting this out, but I finally chose a paper. I haven't read it myself yet, so I dunno how MBB heavy it is, but the topic seems quite interesting, so focus on the main ideas. I guess we're still figuring out the day/time, but i'll see you guys soon!
Steve

here's the link:

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/01/27/0909587107

Does Thursday at 5 work for people?

Steve is (allegedly) picking a paper for this week. (Hurry up Steve, or else I'll be tempted to post some readings delving into phylogenetics.)

Also, Winchester tomorrow!

Thursday Meeting

Hello all,

Does Thursday evening (say around 5, or possibly earlier) work for everyone for this week's meeting?

Meeting Cancelled

Hello everyone,

Matt P and I would like to take a raincheck today and reschedule for next week (possibly Wednesday). Hope that works for everyone.

Sorry for the late notice.

GG

Thursday 1700 hours? Does this work

Here's the paper, sorry for the delay

Hello fellow science-discussers/beer-drinkers!

I had some difficulty this week but have finally selected a paper that highlights some topics I am interested in, namely: Aging, Immunity, and associated Trade-Offs. This paper addresses these topics fairly broadly but should hopefully stimulate some interesting discussion on how we can live longer and if we should be trying to do so:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6W7H-4WK469M-3&_user=955653&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000049301&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=955653&md5=62681f32f61f5f114590631874bcd937

What time are we meeting tomorrow?

PS - Again, sorry it took me so long to get around to doing this.
PPS - In case the link doesn't work the paper is called: An evolutionary perspective on the mechanisms of immunosenescence (Shanley et al, 2009)

Thursday?

I'm only able to meet on Thursday this week, but I'm free anytime after 9:30. Does this work for others or should someone else choose a paper for a different day?

Not Science But Important

Hi friends,

I don't usually advocate publicly for causes but never-the-less I would ask you guys to consider donating to the earthquake relief in Haiti; this is just an absolutely terrible situation. Doctors Without Borders is a good option if you are interested. I know that they do excellent work.

Matt

Meeting This Week

So it sounds like everyone who posted will be able to make it on Friday after 5. Should we meet then or is there a better time?

Awesome (if you are an evolution nerd).

Here is a video tribute to UBC's Dolph Schluter set to the Lonely Planet's "I'm on a boat". If you know his research, you will agree it is pretty much the greatest thing ever.

The Definition of Influence

This is pretty random (actually extremely random and probably entirely uninteresting to everyone except me) but I thought I would just pass on this observation. For my honors project, I have been reading a few papers by the evolutionary biologist Joe Felsenstein at the University of Washington. I knew he was a genius and was very influential in the field but I didn't realize just how influential. Out of curiosity, I ran a citation report on Web of Science.

Total number of papers which site him: 33,136

Most cited paper: Felsenstein 1985 with 14,191 citations (1985 was a particular good year; he had a second paper which has been cited a very respectable 3,065 times)

I am thinking that outside of Darwin, he is probably the most cited researcher in the life sciences.
Others who come close: Francis Crick (21, 619), James Watson (14, 984), Motoo Kimura.

Something to aim for.

Das Papier für diese Woche

Gutentag meine Freunde! I will stop writing in German now. Here is the paper for this week:

http://cdli.asm.org.proxy.lib.sfu.ca/cgi/content/abstract/CVI.00290-09v1

Some parts are fairly MBB heavy, but I think it is still a great mini-review that we could all benefit from reading. I think you will be surprised, or at least hope you will be, by the cleverness of some of the new and upcoming vaccines.

Meeting on Wed may be a problem for me this week.... how does Thursday or Friday work for people?

Not Science, but very entertaining.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMucmRlPZK0&feature=player_embedded

i'll be posting a paper for next week soon. happy weekend everyone!

A Paper for the Future (in more ways than one!)

Although someone else is choosing a paper for next week, I thought I would post this anyways just because it is so provocative. The paper is by the evolutionary biologist Michael Lynch and is on the accumulation of potentially harmful mutations that we, in industrialized societies, are building up throughout our genomes due to our health care. He predicts a decline in human fitness in the coming centuries. It might be interesting to read this in journal club sometime in the future. Crazy stuff.

Let's Try this Again

Here is a new link to the zinc finger article in the post above. The link worked yesterday but for some reason the url has changed (perhaps this is because it is an advance online publication--i.e. it hasn't been put in the journal yet).

If this link doesn't work, do the following to access the article:
-Go to lib.sfu.ca
-Click on electronic journals
-Search "Trends in Biotechnology"
-Search the journal for "Zinc Finger"
The paper is by Le Provost et al. and was published online on Dec. 14

I think Wednesday at 530 (lower section of the pub) seems like it works for people.

The First Paper of 2010?

After reading this article in the nytimes science section, I thought it might be interesting to discuss the possibilities of using zinc fingers for genetic therapy. This seems like it is a pretty hot topic of research and something that I know nothing about.

Here is a link to a recent review that I think looks pretty good. Thoughts?