Do you want to know if SCN2A has been expressed in HeLa cells? You can find your answer to this question and others using a trick explained by EP FELLOW.

Here’s how:

While specialised search engines will always have their place, I find myself drifting more and more toward google for the thorough, ‘all document’ [...]]]>

Do you want to know if SCN2A has been expressed in HeLa cells? You can find your answer to this question and others using a trick explained by EP FELLOW.

Here’s how:

While specialised search engines will always have their place, I find myself drifting more and more toward google for the thorough, ‘all document’ search. Here is a simple example – I want to know if SCN2A (the gene encoding the Nav1.1 channel) has been expressed in HeLa cells. My first destination is PubMed:

- SCN1A HeLa ? 1 result, a ‘false’ positive

Next, I’ll try google:

- SCN1A HeLa ? 6070 results

Far too many to search through. Most of the results appear to be mentions of one or both words on the same web page.

If I think about what I am actually search for it is: “We expressed SCN1A in HeLa cells…”. I could search for that exact expression (0 results), but I know that there are a hundred different ways of saying the same thing. I would like to search for all those web pages where SCN1A is in the same sentence as HeLa cells. There is at least one commercial solution out there – the excellent DevonAgent, which I suggest is worth a look. But a similar, though limited, functionality is available in Google.

- “SCN1A * HeLa” ? 1 result, a ‘false’ positive

(Enter with the quotation marks). This produces all the webpages with SCN2A preceding HeLa in the same sentence; of course HeLa may precede SCN2A, so I also need to enter the search phrase:

- “HeLa * SCN1A” ? 0 results

This gives me some confidence that SCN1A has probably not been expressed in HeLa cells; at least not documented to have been expressed. I realise that this method may result in some misses – when HeLa and SC12A are split by a single period for instance. But it is a far better method than the standard google search and has many uses beyond science.

I long for the day when one can supply a search modification in the google search bar along the lines of ’search for these two words, and only return those webpages where they are within [x] words of each other’.

Google Trick for Science Search [via EP FELLOW]

The need to express personal feelings, dietary habits, travel itineraries, misfortunes and general whereabouts has become widespread. This somewhat egomaniacal urge has spawned from the proliferation of social media websites – facebook, myspace, twitter, linkedin and other general blogs. But what to do when these social media outlets cause embarrassment, ridicule, or worse…?

What compels [...]]]>

The need to express personal feelings, dietary habits, travel itineraries, misfortunes and general whereabouts has become widespread. This somewhat egomaniacal urge has spawned from the proliferation of social media websites – facebook, myspace, twitter, linkedin and other general blogs.
But what to do when these social media outlets cause embarrassment, ridicule, or worse…?

What compels me to write this post today was reading this entry on the Huffington post “The Funniest Facebook Snafus Of All Time” and Facebook recent privacy changes. The first article made me laugh for a good 10 minutes, but then hilarity was overcome by a sinking feeling of terror (fueled by the second article): world-wide-web embarrassment could happen to anyone, it could happen to you or me.

The idea of offering to the public an extremely private or sacred piece of information, offers a compelling question at this point of my life: should we protect our lives from lab mates, co-workers, collaborators and supervisors? How much information should we really put out there? Are our private lives a liability for our careers? Do we risk to lose the respect of our colleagues or bosses after they take a glance at the “crazy pictures from last night party at John’s house”? Should graduate students be weary of messages, posts, pictures they share with the world? In my opinion the answer is YES.

Any good book on graduate school will warn the student too eager to produce his or her first research article from publishing mediocre results, to avoid the embarrassment years down the road, when that journal article might be considered at best, regrettable. Likewise, these social networks are creating an everlasting retrievable digital trail that one day may be hard to look back with pride.

Tasteless pictures, controversial comments and opinions might not turn off a prospective employer or collaborator, but we should all keep in mind that we are liable for whatever we decide to release into the “social media-sphere”, and that it is certainly up to one’s judgment to decide what’s appropriate and what’s not appropriate

That being said, to open up our lives and psyches to general examination by people who might judge us may seem scary. But personal expression can be quite liberating. Also, sharing the content of our character and displaying an interesting personality may actually endear someone to you; your lab-mates may find you funnier than during those ‘Thursdays morning meetings’ and your future boss may think that your traveling experience may come in handy with the new collaborator from Spain.

There is no doubt that social networking may be a liability when used inappropriately, but the possibilities for success (personal and non-personal) are limitless. Perhaps, one must remember the goal for which social networks were created : simpler and faster social interaction.

UPDATE Feb 10 – As though we needed another social networking website the “big G” aka big brother Google jumped in the mix with the new ‘Google Buzz’, here’s what NOT to get into:

Although I am not sure what the attendance expectations were, Saturday’s Medical Biophysics Open House must be considered an all around success.  Hundreds of undergraduate students descended onto Princess Margaret Hospital, on a cold winter morning (-15C, FYI!), to attend the annual Medical Biophysics Open House and learn more about our program.

Students from [...]]]>

Although I am not sure what the attendance expectations were, Saturday’s Medical Biophysics Open House must be considered an all around success.  Hundreds of undergraduate students descended onto Princess Margaret Hospital, on a cold winter morning (-15C, FYI!), to attend the annual Medical Biophysics Open House and learn more about our program.

Students from all the major universities in Ontario attended the event, all eager to meet faculty, talk to students and tour the laboratory facilities. In attendance, there were students with a variety of backgrounds:  from molecular and cell biology, physiology, biochemistry, chemistry to physics, engineering, mathematics and beyond. The morning started with the majority of the undergrads sifting through the different posters and talking to the many graduate students and supervisors available at hand.

While 80% of the posters were located in the main hall, there were a few posters relegated in a moderately conspicuous room representing the physics stream, specifically Sunnybrook hospital projects . And that’s where I was. Honestly, I would have preferred to be in the middle of the action and high student traffic area, but I made the most of it. But despite the less than perfect strategic position, I was able to talk with many students that courageously ventured in the dungeon room.

There you would have seen me gesturing and waving my hands, while explaining the wonders of cardiac MRI, the amazing things we are doing in the Wright group and in the MBP program in general. I was able to interact with undergrad students looking for summer positions, recent grads looking for Masters or PhD positions, and everyone seemed extremely receptive and impressed (by the way it’s extremely easy to wow a second year student!)

But the most endearing aspect of this whole experience, was looking into those inquiring eyes and seeing myself from a few years ago. I remember being at a crossroad of my life trying to decide whether to stick with my ‘right-out-of-school’ engineering job or apply to grad school. Not really knowing which school to select or what lab to apply to.  Just like that younger Samuel, many students today were driven by an inner passion for more learning and consciously steered towards grad school.  But like an explorer faced with the decision of taking the right or the left trail, personal passion sometimes leads you to the unknown, which is filled with anxiety.  Hopefully, today I was able to decrease some of that anxiety and paint a brighter picture of graduate school, a little less daunting and present to those students the great aspects of our interdisciplinary program.

Overall, it was an extremely great experience. I could go on and talk about the socially-awkward-feet-staring-probably-disconnected-from-the-real-life students, or about the food, or the keynote address by Peter Burns, but I’ll let the pictures do the rest of the yapping….(and no, the above-mentioned students are not included in these pictures….)

(By the way I took the pictures with iPhone using the pretty cool panoramic app “Pano”, some of the stitching is not perfect but whatever… enjoy)

main hall

"the Sunnybrook room"

Dr. Burns

more pictures below…..

MBP OPEN HOUSE!

Title: MBP New Year Pub Night Location: Molly Bloom’s @ 191 College Street Description: Title: MBP New Year Pub Night Where: Molly Bloom’s @ 191 College Street When: Wednesday January 13, 2010, 5:30 to 9:30pm Tickets: $5 – includes drink and appetizers. Purchase from Vanessa DiPalma (PMH) – vdipalma@gmail.com

Start Time: 17:30 Date: 2010-01-13 End Time: 21:30

Title: MBP goes bowling at Newtonbrook Bowlerama Location: 5799 Yonge Street North York, ON M2M 3V3 Description: Wednesday January 20, 2010 8 to 10pm

Newtonbrook Bowlerama (Take Yonge subway line north to Finch station, walk 5 min north to Newtonbrook plaza). For map click here.

$10 for MBP ($13 non-MBP) + shoe rentals ($3) Free Drinks and Snacks – [...]]]>

Title: MBP goes bowling at Newtonbrook Bowlerama
Location: 5799 Yonge Street North York, ON M2M 3V3
Description: Wednesday January 20, 2010
8 to 10pm

Newtonbrook Bowlerama (Take Yonge subway line north to Finch station, walk 5 min north to Newtonbrook plaza). For map click here.

$10 for MBP ($13 non-MBP) + shoe rentals ($3)
Free Drinks and Snacks – while supplies last

Buy tickets from:
PMH: Alison Aiken Alison.aiken@utoronto.ca
MaRS: Shawn Stapleton s.stapleton@utoronto.ca
SB: Arvin Arani arani@sri.utoronto.ca

Start Time: 20:00
Date: 2010-01-20
End Time: 22:00

Title: THE ANNUAL MEDICAL BIOPHYSICS HOLIDAY WINE & CHEESE Location: PMH 7th floor atrium Description: Ring in the holiday season at the annual MBP Holiday Wine and Cheese!

Time: Wednesday, December 16, 5 – 10 PM Place: PMH 7th floor atrium

Students, postdocs, and faculty are welcome to partake of free food, drinks, and raffle prizes. Start Time: 17:00 Date: [...]]]>

Title: THE ANNUAL MEDICAL BIOPHYSICS HOLIDAY WINE & CHEESE
Location: PMH 7th floor atrium
Description: Ring in the holiday season at the annual MBP Holiday Wine and Cheese!

Time: Wednesday, December 16, 5 – 10 PM
Place: PMH 7th floor atrium

Students, postdocs, and faculty are welcome to partake of free food, drinks, and raffle prizes.
Start Time: 17:00
Date: 2009-12-16
End Time: 22:00

SEE BELOW FOR MORE INFO

Our MBP May Kay Girl’s Night was a huge success.  The event was held last week in honour of the Week to Prevent Violence Against Women.  About a dozen beautiful ladies came out, ate delectable brownies, drank delicious hot chocolate, and pampered their skin in every way.

Our fearless instructor Shirley Hung [...]]]> (by Sarah Cuddy)

Our MBP May Kay Girl’s Night was a huge success.  The event was held last week in honour of the Week to Prevent Violence Against Women.  About a dozen beautiful ladies came out, ate delectable brownies, drank delicious hot chocolate, and pampered their skin in every way.

Our fearless instructor Shirley Hung taught us to cleanse, exfoliate, moisturize, and protect our skin.  Something I didn’t know before this event: you can exfoliate your hands! And they feel amazingly soft after! …….. (more below)

When matching foundation to our skin tones everyone soon realized that almost all of us have the same paste-y white skin tone! I think the Mary Kay Company might even rename the Ivory 2 shade to graduate student glow…

It was a great night in all.  It appears that MBP ladies love the bold look and Mary Kay will soon have a shortage of bright RED lipstick….

If anyone would like to order Mary Kay products from Shirley she can be contacted at: shir.hung@gmail.com

Hi MBP,

We’d like your feedback on our annual Geneva Park retreat.  This anonymous survey will help with continually improving our retreat, we’d really appreciate you taking 5 minutes to fill it out.

To get comprehensive feedback, we’re looking for responses from as many students, faculty, and postdocs as possible - whether or [...]]]>

Hi MBP,

We’d like your feedback on our annual Geneva Park retreat.  This anonymous survey will help with continually improving our retreat, we’d really appreciate you taking 5 minutes to fill it out.

To get comprehensive feedback, we’re looking for responses from as many students, faculty, and postdocs as possible - whether or not you attended the retreat this year.  Your opinion counts and we’d love to hear from you!

The survey link is   http://tinyurl.com/genevapark

Thanks very much!

your MBP GSU