Saturday, March 13, 2010

Top 50 Biology Research Blogs

Medicalicious has just selected a list of their favorite biology blogs. I am honored that The Evilutionary Biologist was considered for the list. The full list is available here. From the posting:

If you are seeking a scientist who focuses on biological research to learn more about their skills, you need look no further than the Internet. Hundreds of scientists are blogging about their research daily, in every biological specialization imaginable. In this instance, the top 50 biology research blogs listed below focus on longevity and aging, evolution, biotechnology, neurosciences and microbiology.

Friday, March 5, 2010

Interview with Victor Ambros

There is an interesting interview with Victor Ambros in the latest edition of PLoS Genetics.

Here's his thoughts on his Lasker Award:

And so it has very little to do, frankly, with the particular person getting the award. What the award represents is a process that involves interactions amongst many, many people. And the end, one person ends up getting the award. It's really important to try to acknowledge that and understand the fact that really everything that happens in science, including the discoveries that people try to acknowledge by awards, are really the products of this confluence of people's histories and people's interactions. I really believe that science gets done by people with average abilities and talents, for the most part, and when something special happens, enough so that people want to acknowledge it with an award, it was really…in large part…luck!

We try to say to the public, here's an award for somebody who's really, really special. But actually, it's not the
somebody who is really special, it's the science that is special. The way we do science, and the way it works is so amazing. I wish non-scientists would better understand this. That science is a community exercise, that it involves people interacting, that it involves a lot of good fortune in the context of people trying to do something really carefully and following curiosity. That's why it works so well!

Words to live by!