I could not find so much infomation out there about the HP Ipaq hw6515 power surge – my device runs on battery only a few hours if both GSM and GPS are being enabled. After several unsucessful attempts I found only two options to prolonge battery life – disabling both SD card slots and by CPU clocking down from ~300 to ~100 Mhz.
Hagen Rether – here in Munich
Munich has a long tradition (“Münchner Lach und Schiessgesellschaft“) of doing political comedy, known as “Kabarett” . Yesterday evening we have been in Schwabing’s “Lustpielhaus” to see Hagen Rether. Excellent, I would not have to write a science blog if I could earn my money by entertaining people on such a level …
New genome browser version
A recent email of Donna Karolchik – the maintainer of my favorite human genome viewer – reports Continue reading New genome browser version
How much you can expect
We already talked about academic salaries in Germany. “Academics – Das Karriereportal der Wissenschaft” now has some figures on extras. You may expect 250,000€ – 260,000€ in biosciences for your first professorship with annually 48,000€ for consumables. You will get 6 rooms on average and ~2 technical positions, yea, yea.
Fire Scribe
The WordPress editor window is somewhat odd if you are writing in text mode but need to scroll down to preview your post. From several blog editors that I have tested now – there is now one that made it onto my desktop. Scribe Fire is an advanced Firefox plugin that can be nicely configured as you can see on this screenshot.
The “powered by” can be switched off Continue reading Fire Scribe
Free Burma
DNA to heal asthma?
A new nature medicine review is listing clinical trials targeting Toll-like receptors. These include 3 preclinical studies all using cpG-ODNs against TLR9 by Dynavax Astra-Zeneca, Coley / Sanofi-Aventis and Idera / Novartis. Lets wait and see…
London smog, asthma and the world’s fastest man
Haile Gebrselassie has broken the world record on the Marathon distance in Berlin with 2:04:26! Gratulations!! Earlier this year in London he could not finish due to breathing problems. I wonder if there has been any systematic research on the relationship of air pollution and Marathon results? Munich marathon will start on Oct, 14!
Unwillingness to face reality
The most recent Edge issue cites
… Kahneman’s view that “the administration’s unwillingness to face reality in Iraq reflects a basic human aversion to cutting one’s losses—the same instinct that makes gamblers stay at the table, hoping to break even.”
as well as another one of Kahneman’s ideas Continue reading Unwillingness to face reality
Vitamin A and allergy
No, I am not confusing here vitamin A and vitamin D as done in the early days of vitamin research. This post is really about vitamin A (but with similar nomenclature problem as with vitamin D). Retinol is ingested in a precursor form; animal sources like liver (–>cod liver oil) contain retinyl esters, whereas plants like carrots contain carotenoids. Continue reading Vitamin A and allergy
The Lucifer effect
I am currently reading “The Lucifer effect” by Philipp Zimbardo. Having seen many terrible things like a woman killed by more than 30 stabs with knife I know that theodicy is the main problem in theology – when the bad “situational power triumphs over individual power”. Zimbardo examines the process of transformation when good or ordinary people do bad or evil things Continue reading The Lucifer effect
First journal that allows trackbacks
There are great news – PLOS ONE now allows trackbacks that will show up close to the original article. Hopefully, this new feature will be extensively used. As Jim Giles speculated last year only the most successful researchers are confident enough to criticize others in this public way…
A short history of steamed cod liver oil
First use of liver cod oil probably originates with the fishing communities of Norway, Greenland and Iceland several centuries ago – an excellent reference is at “Cod liver oil and chemistry” 1895 by Peckel Möller. This book has a nice account on fishing at the Lofotes around the turn of the last century with many details about the cod fish migration.
The first medical use is being dated to 1789 Continue reading A short history of steamed cod liver oil
Transrapid
We have a heated debate here in Munich about the Transrapid, a magnetic monorail system that could connect Munich central station & Munich airport. It is being announced as a technical innvation reducing travel time form ~30 min down to ~5 min, however, as I would have to change trains, it wouldn´t save me anything. Instead of using it as a technical showcase – the estimated budget is ~1.8 billion € – I would certainly vote for our tax money go directly into science. German science funding agency DFG has an annual budget of € 1.3 billion only, yea, yea.
How to predict good research
It is difficult if not impossible to foresee future research results. I am sharing the belief with many other colleagues that grant applications are largely a waste of time (in particular if most applications fail). A recent correspondence letter in Nature applauds Continue reading How to predict good research