New DNA sequencers from SOLiD, keeping up the competition with Illumina, and driving the cost of sequencing even lower. Comparing the dropping cost of sequencing to the increasing speed of computers.
Posts from ‘January, 2010’
Grad School Admissions Essays
This is the second year I’ve had the privilege of reading the personal statements of the prospective new grad students being interviewed by our department. It’s interesting to see the strategies people take in trying to sell themselves. Broadly applicants can be grouped into three categories (at least successful ones, the department doesn’t let us [...]
An Interview with Roger Beachy
Pam Ronald, writing at Tomorrow’s Table points out an interesting interview with Roger Beachy the new head of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (itself a newly created government organization) in Nature Biotechnology. He talks about everything from restoring support for the, very successful, programs that used to fund the training of plant breeders [...]
A new plant (in the apartment, not the world)
I have a second houseplant! I was just excited and needed to share with the world. Check the post for pictures.
First Day Teaching (epilogue)
The belated after-action report from my first day teaching, and a question about how to get people excited about learning the parts of a flower. For me, it was the ABC model of floral development, but both time and a lack of background in genetics prevent me from using that as my hook to draw students in.
“New” Cruciferous Vegetables
A remarkable number of vegetables are actually produced by a handful of brassica species (called cruciferous vegetables), as covered by Greg over at Pie-ence. The wonderful thing about having so many different kinds of vegetables within a single, inter-fertile species is that the Brassicas are a constant source of “new” vegetables. Highlights of this post include: The CAL gene and its role in differentiating cauliflower from broccoli, reminiscing about broccoflower, and the “flower sprout” the newest breed of cruciferous vegetable.
My First Day Teaching (prologue)
I don’t actually start for another two and a half hours. But at 2 pm pacific time I’m going to assume the role of a graduate student instructor (Berkeley’s fancy name for a TA) in the first of the two discussion sections I’ll be teaching every week. As first classes to TA go, this one [...]
More Bill Gates
Bill Gates has an interesting new post up on the risks of of buying into the false choice between sustainability and productivity: The global movement to help small farmers is increasingly divided into two camps. On one side is a technological approach focused on improving productivity. On the other side is an environmental approach that [...]