Archive for February, 2010
RTP Wrapup 2/12
Thursday, February 11, 2010, 11:53 pm No Comments | Post a CommentBayer CropScience is on the hook for $1.5 million after a jury verdict, former Gov. Jim Hunt tries to stoke the Research Triangle area’s creative juices at this year’s Emerging Issues Forum and RTI International scientists dipped into their nanotech tool box to come up with a better lightbulb. Read more…
Ideas dislike organizational charts
Wednesday, February 10, 2010, 10:46 pm 1 Comment | Post a CommentCall it ingenuity, right-brain thinking or out-of-the-box problem solving - what sparks ideas goes by many names. The Chinese, the Egyptians, the Incas, the Italians, they all had it and the results fill museums, theaters and libraries.
Americans had it, too, but two years after we triggered a global recession we’re worried that we lost it.
No wonder a forum Monday and Tuesday on how we can get our juice back in the 21st century sold out, drawing hundreds of people to the Raleigh Convention Center. An interesting question that popped up again and again at the Emerging Issues Forum was whether proprietorship stifles innovation. Read more…
ScienceOnline2010 - interview with Maria Droujkova
Tuesday, February 9, 2010, 10:18 am No Comments | Post a CommentContinuing with the tradition from last two years, I will occasionally post interviews with some of the participants of the ScienceOnline2010 conference that was held in the Research Triangle Park, NC back in January. See the interviews posted so far here. You can check out previous years’ interviews as well: 2008 and 2009.
Today, I asked Maria Droujkova to answer a few questions:
RTP Weekahead 2/8
Sunday, February 7, 2010, 5:24 pm No Comments | Post a CommentEvents taking place the week of Feb. 8 in the Research Triangle area that are open to the public: Read more…
Specter sights and sounds
Friday, February 5, 2010, 4:12 pm No Comments | Post a CommentMichael Specter, The New Yorker’s science writer, has a book out, “Denialism: How irrational thinking hinders scientific progress, harms the planet, and threatens our lives,” that triggered praise and criticism. Like other authors, Specter speaks about his book - to promote it and because he gets a speaker’s fee. He has given a talk at Google and he was the keynote speaker at ScienceOnline2010 in Research Triangle Park.
ScienceOnline, which drew nearly 300 scientists and science writers who blog from as far away as Australia, attracted a large contingency of science journalists this year because of the cutbacks in the U.S. newspaper industry. But Specter in his speech said he was optimistic about the future of science writing.
Science in the Triangle couldn’t let this statement stand without questioning the author. So here is the ad hoc interview with Specter at ScienceOnline 2010:
RTP Wrapup 2/5
Friday, February 5, 2010, 12:13 am No Comments | Post a CommentGlaxoSmithKline wants to scale back research and development and the cuts could affect jobs at the British drugmaker’s U.S. headquarters in Research Triangle Park, IBM unveils the $360 million cloud computing center it established on its RTP campus and a Durham startup reels in $10.5 million in venture capital and a deal with Burlington-based medical testing giant LabCorp. Read more…
Mitochondrion whisperer visits NIEHS
Wednesday, February 3, 2010, 11:33 pm 1 Comment | Post a CommentIn search of new medicines, researchers have gone inside the cell to study mitochondria, tiny power plants that are key to cellular life and death, and their role in causing disease.
Malfunctioning mitochondria have been linked to cancer, immune defects, neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, sterility and deafness. North Carolina scientists have been among those on the forefront of mitochondrial research, including a group at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in Research Triangle Park.
Gerald Shadel
On Tuesday, the NIEHS group hosted Gerald Shadel, a Yale University biochemist who is sort of a mitochondrion whisperer. His lab at Yale’s school of medicine tries to understand how mitochondria tell cells what to do and what happens when the communication breaks down. Read more…
International climate scientist visits UNC
Tuesday, February 2, 2010, 9:20 am 1 Comment | Post a CommentDr. James Hansen
Just as the snow was beginning to melt after one of the worst winter storms to hit the Triangle in recent memory passed, climate scientist James Hansen visited the Univ. of N.C. at Chapel Hill to talk about – you guessed it – global warming.
It’s probably not the first time he’s delivered a speech during wacky weather, and it likely won’t be the last.
Hansen directs NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and he is an adjunct professor in the department of earth and environmental sciences at Columbia University. His visit to the Triangle was courtesy of UNC’s Frey Foundation distinguished visiting professor lecture series. Read more…
