Derek Lowe's commentary on drug discovery and the pharma industry. An editorially independent blog from the publishers of Science Translational Medicine. All content is Derek’s own, and he does not in any way speak for his employer.

By Derek Lowe

Posts tagged with "General Scientific News"

• Aging and Lifespan

  VCAM1 As a Player in the Aging Brain

  15 May, 2019

  Possible intervention targets for age-related degeneration are always welcome, particularly when they come bearing experimental evidence, and even more so when they relate to the central nervous system. That’s the case with this new paper, from a multicenter team led out of Stanford. Interestingly, this also ties in with the well-publicized … Read More

• General Scientific News

  On the Dunning-Kruger Effect, And On Fakers

  26 April, 2019

  Here’s a fascinating paper (PDF) that’s not exactly chemistry-related (well, not directly) but definitely has some relevance to a person’s everyday work life in the sciences. The authors are using data from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) questionnaire, administered every three years in OECD countries to te… Read More

• General Scientific News

  Large Teams and Small Ones in Science

  20 February, 2019

  I had a book review recently in Nature, on a new volume (Thrifty Science) that looks over the history of early scientific experimentation from the viewpoint of its frugal nature – the idea of reusing and repurposing equipment, objects, and even rooms in one’s house. There was indeed a lot of this sort of thing… Read More

• General Scientific News

  India’s Disgrace

  15 February, 2019

  I’ve written here about what I referred to as “nationalist science”, in that case actions by the Hungarian government against its own universities and the Chinese government’s vigorous promotion of traditional medicine. Now we can (unfortunately) add another one to the list. The Hindu nationalist movement in India has been m… Read More

• General Scientific News

  Learning Some Science, At Last

  10 January, 2019

  I have some blogging topics queued up (as is generally the case) but I can’t resist this one, which showed up in my Twitter feed this morning. It’s an update from Rupert Pennant-Rea in the UK – former editor of The Economist, former deputy governor of the Bank of England, and many other positions besides. Read More

• Biological News

  Engineering Biology, For Real?

  12 November, 2018

  Any article titled “How to Engineer Biology” is going to get a look from me – and when I’m referenced in the opening paragraphs, especially so. This is a piece by Vijay Pande in Scientific American, and I get called out for my naming of the “Andy Grove Fallacy” (found in this post and the… Read More

• General Scientific News

  Hail to the Ribbon

  5 November, 2018

  A correspondent sent along this item, celebrating the inventor of something that’s so ubiquitous in molecular biology and protein chemistry that you have to think for a moment to realize that it had an inventor: the ribbon diagram. That’s Jane Richardson of Duke, who started there in 1969, back when there were only about 20… Read More

• Analytical Chemistry

  Lab-Made Whiskey, Lab-Made Wine

  31 October, 2018

  Via Chemjobber’s Twitter account comes a link to a really interesting Wall Street Journal story on a chemical approach to things like wine and whiskey (last explored here in this 2015 post). The startup company involved, Endless West, began by looking at the constituents of various types of wine and seeing if these flavor profiles… Read More

• Chemical News

  Thoughts on the Chemistry Nobel Prize

  4 October, 2018

  I wrote up this year’s Nobel Prize awards in chemistry yesterday, and there’s no arguing that they’re significant achievements worthy of a prize at this level. For many chemists, though, I think that this year’s award will join the 2015, 2012, 2009, 2008, 2006, 2004, 2003, 1997, and 1993 ones (and there are arguably even mo… Read More

• Biological News

  The Chemistry Nobels, 2018

  3 October, 2018

  The 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has gone to Frances Arnold (for directed evolution of enzymes) and to George Smith and Gregory Winter for phage display. These are worthy discoveries, techniques that have gone on to be used for a huge variety of work ranging from blue-sky research to marketed drugs, and the Nobel committee… Read More