Monthly Archives: July 2009

Glancing at the calendar this morning, in these holiday-stagnant, seminarless summer weeks in the lab, I realized that I am coming up to the midway point of my current research appointment. Like that strange illusion of endless summer that most … Continue reading →

Numerous urban studies have characterized ‘The Broken Window Syndrome’: the notion that abandoned buildings with smashed glass tend to attract more of the same abuse. The phenomenon, it turns out, can be extrapolated to pretty much anything. In his excellent … Continue reading →

The heroine of my third novel has a problem with filing: she is incapable of committing to a concrete decision. Instead of compartmentalizing her papers into simple, broad categories, she has arranged her reprint collection into a drawer of hundreds … Continue reading →

Tedium: it has its uses. Biological research is a complex activity requiring many different approaches. We spend a lot of our time making tools – modified plasmids, say, or a transgenic cell line – and the rest of the time … Continue reading →