The Toast: Search for a Gal Scientist

For those of you who are up on the blogosphere, The Toast is searching for a female, PhD-level scientist to author a regularly occurring science column. As part of the search process, they have been running a series of one-off posts from female scientist contributors. 

To read the full archive, follow this link or look for the tag 'gal science' on their website. 

Physicist Kerstin Nordstrom is the author of the most recent Gal Science post. She addresses the frequently asked question 'So what is it you do?' and offers tips for interacting with scientists. If you have time, the entire post is a wonderful read. To paraphrase her advice, don't treat us like magical creatures, don't say things like "Oh, you must be really smart," and don't put us on the spot about our research topics unless you are genuinely interested in the answer. 

And most importantly, do not compare me to Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory.

SEP Volunteering: Year 3

I've written about UCSF's Science-Education Partnership (SEP) program previously.  Since arriving at UCSF in 2011, I've been involved with two semester-long programs. My first year I was involved with the Bio&Chem Teach program, where I was partnered with a 7th grade life-science classroom. Last year I participated in the STAT program and was placed with a 4th grade classroom. 

This is my third year volunteering with SEP. After some scheduling difficulties, my classmate and I were placed in a pair of 2nd grade classrooms. Although both teachers are new to the SEP program, they brought a lot of great ideas to our first planning meeting and I am incredibly excited to be working with their students. 

Our first visit to the classroom to meet the students was last week. Both classrooms had great questions for us and were excited to hear we were coming back four more times over the course of the semester. We've planned a series of lessons progressing from good/bad bacteria to human intestines, with lots of interesting experiments along the way. Hopefully by the end of the school-year I can convince some of them to stick with science!

Seminar

It's always really fantastic to attend seminar and listen to the amazing research being performed at other institutions. It's even cooler when you and a classmate are able to host the speaker. 

Friday Funnies: Explaining Academia

Helix

 Image from the "Pilot" episode courtesy of the Helix website.

Playing God and tampering with the genome can lead to deadly results--and that's clearly the case in the new original series "Helix" from the Syfy channel.

The series follows a group of experts from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) who travel to a remote research compound in the Arctic to investigate a dangerous new disease outbreak. However what they soon discover is that this deadly virus changes and mutates infected individuals into something bestial and superhuman. Cut off from the rest of the world, the scientists face a terrifying life-and-death struggle to find a cure for the disease before an outbreak annihilates the human race. 

Deception, double-agendas and constantly revealed plot twists make this show an exciting, fast-paced thriller. If you're interested, you can access the first three episodes here on the Syfy channel's website.  

If you still have some doubts, the show boasts and impressive list of veteran producers including Steven Maeda from "The X-files," Stephen Welke from "Alphas," and Ron Moore who helped make the "Battlestar Galactica" remake into such an awesome series. After watching "Helix" the past few weeks, I have am certain that the rest of the season will be just as action-packed. 

Forbes 30 under 30

Congratulations to UCSF student Jon Ostrem (left) and UCSF fellow David Weinberg (right) for being named to Forbes 30 under 30 list in the field of Science!

 

Ostrem, a student in the lab of Kevan Shokat, created mutant-specific inhibitors of the oncogene K-Ras.

Weinberg, a fellow at UCSF,  is studying how cells determine how much protein to produce.

I expect we will continue to hear many awesome things from these two! For the full list, follow This Link. 

Men in Science

Repost from Professor Sarah Boyer. Yay for people like man #2!

Overheard at the Society for Integrative & Comparative Biology meeting in Austin:

Man #1: "I think that if a meeting has a Women in Science event, there should also be something for Men in Science!"
Man #2: "I'm pretty sure that what you're asking for is commonly known as
'a meeting.'"

[I actually think SICB is a particularly good conference for women, thanks in part to awesome people like man #2.]