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My department is hosting a panel on “The Future of Genome Sciences” that is free and open to the public. Here are the details: Panel Discussion: The Future of Genome Sciences Monday, May 7th 7:00 pm, Kane Hall EDIT: 120 University of Washington Seattle, WA free, no registration required The speakers will be: Dr. Bruce [...]
Archive for the ‘genetics’ Category
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The genetic “proof” for ancient aliens
March 12th, 2012 
Jen I have a new, horrible obsession – the History Channel’s show Ancient Aliens. On Saturday I found myself drinking with a group of my boyfriend Sean’s friends, when one of them announced that we must play an Ancient Aliens drinking game. I had no idea what the show was, but became intrigued when they started [...]
Scientific publication title of the day
January 31st, 2012 Jen “Desperately Seeking Stable 50-Year-Old Landscapes with Patches and Long, Wide Corridors” in PLoS Biology. I’m not sure if the authors purposefully came up with a title reminiscent of a personal ad, or if it’s just my overactive imagination. Either way, it makes me giggle. I mean, “long, wide corridors”? What a size queen. For anyone [...]
INJUSTICE
December 28th, 2011 Jen I was playing Cranium with my family, and as luck would have it, my team got an evolutionary question. My dad and grandma turned to me, since, you know, I’m an evolutionary biologist and stuff. This was the question: “True or False: Dogs are more closely related to cats than they are to bears.” I [...]
My Skepticon talk: Skeptical Genetics
November 30th, 2011 Jen My talk from Skepticon is now online! If you ever wanted a quick and dirty summary of basic genetic concepts, now’s your chance. I try to address a lot of common misconceptions about genetics and address some of the shoddy ways genetics is portrayed by the media: That was my first time giving that talk. [...]
This gives a whole new meaning to high-throughput sequencing
October 20th, 2011 Jen The marijuana genome has been sequenced by researchers at the University of Toronto and University of Saskatchewan. It’s actually a pretty neat study. They compared two strains of Cannabis sativa: Purple Kush (a “potent” strain used for getting high) and Finola (a hemp cultivar). From looking at the genome alone, researchers weren’t really able to [...]
A new religious type of RNA discovered?
July 23rd, 2011 Jen The backstory, from reader Arctic Ape, a Finnish graduate student: Adjacent pic is from a whiteboard in a student clubroom at the University of Helsinki, Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry (or, as we call it, “Wood & Weed Science”). Someone had drawn a crude chart of plant floral induction pathway and another(?) person had made [...]
An intro to the neutral theory of evolution
July 23rd, 2011 Jen From a top donor: “I’d like you to write a blog entry (primer) about neutral theory aimed at the layperson.” Okay, I’m not going to lie. I’ve been secretly hoping someone would bump this question out of the top ten, mainly because neutral theory is kind of boring and vaguely confusing and hard enough to [...]
Neanderthals and the beauty of science
July 23rd, 2011 Jen A common creationist debating tactic is to sneer at science, saying something like “It changes all of the time! Scientists can never make up their mind, and often times they’re wrong! Why would you want to trust something that admits it could be wrong?” And my response is usually to laugh, because that’s precisely what [...]
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