Everyday Scientist

The goal of this Shiny app is to help use our intuitions about how our graphs typically look to estimate the effect size, and thus the required sample size.

The basics of the scientific method—hypothesize, test, revise—rely on prediction.

This is hilarious: https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.24254

My proposal for funding academic research science: instead of funding grants, just award financial prizes for good papers.

Let me preface this post with the admission that I’m likely wrong about my concerns about eLife’s new model.

experimental design checklistDownload One of the worst feelings as a scientist is to realize that you performed n-1 of the controls you needed to really answer the question you’re trying to solve.

UPDATE: EMBO Reports article here and a write-up in Nature here.

2008 Tsien (predicted 2008) 2010 Suzuki & Heck (predicted among others in 2010) 2012 Kobilka (among my 6 predictions in 2012) 2013 Higgs (among my 2 predictions in 2013) 2014 Moerner (among my 3 predictions in 2013); Betzig & Hell (predicted among others…

Medicine: Adenovirus vector vaccines Medicine (alternate): A second Nobel Prize for Ivermectin ;) Chemistry: Katalin Karikó, Drew Weissman, Ugur Sahin, Özlem Türeci, & Robert Malone, for developing mRNA & liposome vaccine technology.

CRISPR: Jennifer Doudna, Emmanuelle Charpentier, Francisco Mojica, Virginijus Siksnys EDIT: Announcement.

Key components of the scientific process are: controls, avoiding bias, and replication.

Check out our newest preprint at arXiv: If your P value looks too good to be true, it probably is: Communicating reproducibility and variability in cell biology Lord, S.

OK, it’s Nobel season again, and time for my annual blog post.

It’s approaching Nobel season again, and here are my predictions: Chemistry: Cytoskeletal motor proteins (Ron Vale, Mike Sheetz, Jim Spudich) Medicine: T-cell and cancer immunotherapy (Jim Allison, Stephen Rosenberg, Philippa Marrack) Physics: Dark matter…

A few years ago, I compared different immersion oils.

I thought I’d pass along one of my favorite tips: I have several of these Belkin Conserve Switch power strips in lab.

It’s approaching Nobel season again, and here are my predictions: Chemistry: CRISPR (Doudna, Charpentier, Zhang) [awarded in 2020] Medicine: Unfolded protein response (Walter, Mori) Physics: Gravitational waves (Kip Thorne, Rainer Weiss, Ronald Drever , or

Technical Instruments loaned me a Photometrics Prime95B back-thinned CMOS camera.

I bought a $500 camera from Point Grey that has the Sony IMX249 chip.

I learned during my PhD that you should always have plastic sheeting in lab, because it might just save your equipment when/if a water leak happens.

UPDATE: Turns out the Simpsons were right once again… Time for my 2016 Nobel Prize predictions: Chemistry: Lithium-ion batteries (John Goodenough, Stanley Whittingham, Akira Yoshino) [awarded in 2019] Medicine: T-cell receptor (James Allison [awarded in 2…

Electrically tunable lenses (ETLs) are polymeric or fluid-filled lenses that have a focal length that changes with an applied current.

A while ago, I installed a very simple filter for the air vent in our scope room.

(See my second post on this camera here.)

We got a chance to try out a cool new label-free microscope from NanoLive: the 3D Cell Explorer.