Category Archives: original research

Making a difference

Posted on September 10, 2010 by Cath@VWXYNot?

Hey, remember my colleague* who did the fundraising bike ride to Seattle with me and was the star of my video? (Here’s the video again) Well, he’s all over the news this week thanks to his two very, very interesting … Continue reading →

Posted in fund raising, medicine, original research, science | 4 Comments

Science Idol

Posted on May 14, 2010 by Cath@VWXYNot?

The BBC’s “Science and Environment” RSS feed included a real gem today*: news of a competition in which members of the public were asked to submit ideas for research projects. The four winners will be mentored by experts in their … Continue reading →

Posted in case-study, medicine, original research, science, sport | 3 Comments

Endogenous retroviruses and evolution: redux

Posted on March 28, 2008 by Cath@VWXYNot?

While chatting with Propter Doc last week, I realised that most of my current readers weren’t around to witness this blog’s finest hour. Way back in June 2007, I posted an explanation of why a paper of mine that had … Continue reading →

Posted in creationism, evolution, meta, original research, science, virology | 11 Comments

Christmas Science

Posted on December 24, 2007 by Cath@VWXYNot?

I bet you didn’t know that “the concept of Santa Claus’ features is an historical remnant from before the phylogenetic divergence between prokaryotes and eukaryotes“. The authors state that they “are further studying the Hoho2 transgenic Homo sapiens quadruplicates generated … Continue reading →

Posted in blog roll, journal club, original research, science, silliness | Comments Off on Christmas Science

Friday’s Primate Party

Posted on November 24, 2007 by Cath@VWXYNot?

How did you get so heavy, boy? We had monkey-spit coffee at last week’s party. This week: would you like some macaque milk with that? A study published in this week’s Current Biology looked at the quality of the milk … Continue reading →

Posted in monkeys, nature, original research, Primate Party, science, silliness | 2 Comments

Hooray for Mutation

Posted on October 28, 2007 by Cath@VWXYNot?

I’ve always tried to cover the most up-to-date research in my journal club series, but today’s paper is an exception. “Strong Selective Sweep Associated with a Transposon Insertion in Drosophila simulans“ was published in 2004, and I actually covered it … Continue reading →

Posted in creationism, evolution, journal club, original research, publishing, science | 4 Comments

Viral Sneakiness

Posted on October 17, 2007 by Cath@VWXYNot?

Viruses are fascinating little buggers. They sneak into cells and take over their entire machinery and pathways for their own use, sometimes with as few as three genes. The amazing thing is that every virus has evolved a different way … Continue reading →

Posted in journal club, original research, science, virology | 2 Comments

Watch a movie, use Google, get published

Posted on October 4, 2007 by Cath@VWXYNot?

or “Stop that, it’s silly”.There’s been too much silliness around here. I mean, some daftness is necessary in life, but I realised today that the entire first page of this blog is curently made up of posts with the silliness … Continue reading →

Posted in journal club, original research, publishing, science | 2 Comments

Scientists Scrutinise Chimp Changes

Posted on August 16, 2007 by Cath@VWXYNot?

Today’s paper revisits a topic that seems to have become a recurring theme for this blog – the evolution of gene regulation. (It also involves primates, which is always a bonus). Ryuichi Sakate, from the Japanese Biological Informatics Consortium, and … Continue reading →

Posted in evolution, journal club, original research, science | 2 Comments

Evolutionary Solutions to the Hairy Back Problem

Posted on August 7, 2007 by Cath@VWXYNot?

Some creationists like to complain about macroevolution. They claim that this microevolution stuff is all well and good, but when has it ever produced any kind of meaningful change at the whole organism level?This week’s paper is an excellent rebuttal. … Continue reading →

Posted in evolution, journal club, original research, science | 6 Comments