Ever since I saw the painting shown above, I've wanted to suffocate birds in my very own home laboratory. As I got older, the desire to destroy life subsided, but the desire for a home laboratory remained. People have home studios, why not home labs? Obviously, the main obstacle to realizing this dream is cost.

So how much would a general purpose home laboratory cost? Internet searches provided little help, so I decided to compile a quote myself. I aimed to make the lab as complete and general purpose as possible, without being unrealistic in terms of cost (continues after the break):

Read the rest of this entry »

Here are some science-themed icons and wallpaper spruce up your otherwise un-sciencey desktop! Enjoy!

Icons
Mac OS X
Great Minds (via Interface LIFT)
Modern Scientists (via InterFace LIFT)
Roboticons (via Mastifnet)
Bees (via Britta/arts)
Organs (by Chistophe Bouchard) (OS X, Windows)
Molecules (by Mark Magnuson)
Arthropods (by Max Fiedler)
Windows
Science Icons by ~MrMunkily (via DeviantArt)
Chemistry Icons by eponas-deeway (via DeviantArt)
Science Icons (via My Biotech Life)

Wallpaper
European Space Agency Wallpaper
NASA HubbleSite
NSF Chemistry & Materials
New Scientist
Materials Research Society
BBC Science & Nature
BBC Planet Earth

You may have heard of Craig Venter before, as his former company Celera Genomics was one of the two groups responsible for publishing the first human genome sequence. However, Craig Venter is crazy. So crazy, that Craig Venter just might kill you if you get him angry. Why, you ask? Here are five starter reasons:

5. He's infamously cut-throat

He's been called alternately "Darth Venter", "a one man superpower ", and "an asshole". But how did Venter get this reputation? It likely has something to do with him patenting human gene sequences for profit. Also, blowing up Alderaan.

4. He was in Viet-Nam

That's right, Venter was in the shit. Probably explains the 1000-yard stare in this picture.

3. He's a billionaire

Craig Venter is so damn rich that he could pay to have a piano dropped on you and your loved ones, every day of the year for the next 300 hundred years [($1,000,000,000 / $8000)/365]. Plus, he has two magic science boats, a team of brilliant lackies, and a cool rain jacket.

2. He sequenced his own genome

He really did. If you think one Craig Venter might kill you, imagine what an army of clone-Venters could achieve.

1. His lab recently created the first synthetic genome

If you thought Venter's heyday had past, think again. The J. Craig Venter Institute is has been busy creating life from scratch in the lab. While the JCVI argues that their technology could be used to create bacteria that produce electricity/oil/hydrogen, I can only think this might be the start of something bad, especially coming from Darth Venter.

Oh wow, first mix of the year? This one is about our old friend time dilation so lets synchronize watches and after your high-speed musical adventure we'll compare times and calculate how fast this mix really moved you! Once again it's a live mix so there are a few rough spots but I'd like to think that I'm getting better overall, or maybe I'm just getting more meticulous with my song selection. Download the mix here(30mb) or stream it with this and tell me that it's good!

Note: If you live in the US, support Jacks of Science by downloading individual tracks from this mix from Amazon MP3 for a very affordable price!

1. Pink Floyd - Time // The Flintstones - The Time Machine Side A [0:0]
2. Bruce Cockburn - Lovers in a Dangerous Time [3:31]
3. Postal Service - Theres Never Enough Time [6:00]
4. Arsonists - Rhyme Time Travel [Intro] // Time Machine - Time's Fly [7:02]
5. Sparklemotion - Time After Time [9:26]
6. Juelz Santana - Clockwork [11:20]
7. Akrobatik - Time [12:30]
8. Prefuse 73 - Back in Time // Nas - Rewind [14:17]
9. 2pac - Until the End of Time [16:30]
10. Speed of Light - Dub Pistols [17:28]
11. Booker T -Time is Tight // String Quartet Tribute to Coldplay - Clocks // Guess Who - No Time [20:36]
12. New Young Pony Club - The Bomb [24:25]
13. Madonna - Hung Up // The Countdown Kids - The Grandfather Clock [26:25]
14. Chocolate Milk - Time Machine [29:01]
15. Digable Planets - Time & Space [29:42]
16. John Vanderslice - Time Travel is Lonely // The Flintstones - The Time Machine Side B [31:59]

People mostly associate the graduate school experience with the web comic PHDcomics.

But today, I think Perry Bible Fellowship does a superior job in depicting the true grad student dream...

TI-83? Hideous Rarely cool. TI-Nspire? Well, those are kind of awesome. How about the Casio fx-300MS? I'd rather barf than use that thing! Just look at these amazing calculators by Japanese appliance designer Amadana.

The calculators above are the LC-104 series and they cost about 65 clams. That's a small price to pay for such features as "Hugging Texture" and "Light Key Touch". It's not about complexity here folks, it's about simplicity and style. Plus, Amadana is kind enough to give complimentary safety warnings for using the calculator properly:

Sure they may not have an X^Y button or any trigonometric functions, but honestly, if I was cool enough to own one of these I'd be willing to calculate those things from first principles.

You wanna step your game up? Then get 1 of 500 limited edition color series with stunning sharkskin case. A $350 calculator like this is a serious investment in top notch calculations. It essentially pays for itself after you start charging $1 per calculation for your friends per day for 1 year.

Okay, if your first year chemistry course was as big as mine, 500 units worldwide might not be exclusive enough. The last thing you want is to be seen with the same calculator as a friend. Amadana recently collaborated with British fashion brand Eley Kishimoto and made 250 super stylish limited edition calculators available on Colette for $370.

So what type of calculator do you use? I use a Casio FX-300

Much like being a dog trying to use a computer, applying to graduate school is a stressful and confusing affair. We have it a little easier in Canada, as we don't have to write the GRE (suckers!), but the process is nevertheless taxing. Here's are some links I personally found very helpful during my graduate school application adventures (which continue to this day):

Advice on Getting Into Graduate School:

1. About.com Graduate School Tips
(excellent general resource)
2. Advice for undergraduates considering graduate school
(no nonsense tips)
3. The Grad School Application Process
(from ScienceBlogs blog "Uncertain Principles")
4. Biology Graduate School Advice
(meant for biologists, but its all the same!)
5. A graduate school survival guide
(more no-nonsense tips, this time for computer scientists)
6. Getting into Graduate School
(phds.org section on graduate school, lots of good stuff!)
7. Academic Productivity
(more of a productivity blog, but also has grad school advice)

PLUS! Two essays on being a good graduate student (but also applicable to undergraduates and real life)
1. "On being a successful graduate student in the sciences"
2. "Some modest advice for graduate students"

If you're in the area, this lecture at U of T should be #1 priority this Friday: Science In An Age of Endarkenment: scientific fraud, quackery, religion and university politics.

When alternative medicine and academia collide... Featuring a major public symposium with David Colquhoun

Eminent UK scientist and noted skeptic David Colquhoun was recently at the centre of controversy after critiquing the pseudoscientific claims of a homeopathic practitioner. Prof. Colquhoun was asked to remove his site from the UCL server, but after a backlash from the scientific community, his website was revived. He will be speaking about alternative medicine, academia, and the conflicts that arise when the two intersect.

David Colquhoun is professor of pharmacology at University College London and fellow of the Royal Society. He runs a blog called "Improbable Science" (http://www.dcscience.net) dedicated to exposing and debunking pseudoscientific claims.

Public event: $7 general, $4 students, FREE for Friends of the Centre.

According to the Facebook group there are no pre-sale tickets so make sure to get there early for a decent seat. Unfortunately, I won't be able to make it but you might just see Kieran representing JoS in a Threadless T-shirt because I'm pretty sure he's a member of the Centre for Inquiry.

Have you ever watched movies like Inconvenient Truth and wondered how one person can make a difference? I often wonder how I can save the world without having the save the cheerleader. Well, I searched the internet and discovered a million boring earth saving tips like "remember to turn down your thermostat!" and "try biking to work!".

So I decided to make a list of ways to save the earth for today's youth (which I conveniently ranked in descending order by level of controversy).

11. Pee in the Shower

Spending additional time in the shower to pee is not recommended since hot water is more expensive than the cold water of your toilet. However, the shower peeing expert could easily save water by embracing multitasking possibilities with the pee-n-lather combo. Better yet, guys should just pee in the sink. Why waste water or electricity at all?

10. Cook Food in your Dishwasher

First of all, washing dishes by hand is for earth haters, plain and simple. Don't get me started on cooking in the oven. The optimal way to cook is clearly in the dishwasher by steaming tin foil packages of delicious salmon while simultaneously washing dishes. Bonus points for eating bohemian without utensils and reusing the tin foil for a fancy hat.

9. Watch Eco-Porn (NSFW)

If you're going to pay for adult content on the internet you might as well put your money to a good cause like the non-profit eco-erotica organization F***forforest.com where your sign up fees go toward reforestation and environmental protection projects across the world.

8. Take Off-road Driving Shortcuts

You can carpool and drive at your ideal gas mileage speed all you want but everything boils down to the shortest distance between 2 points, our old friend the straight line. So look both ways before you hop the curb in your SUV and B-line across the parking lot to get to your 9-5.

7. Bike Naked

It's best to avoid driving all together and bike from place to place but if you really want to make a difference and speak out against car emissions you'll want to put your gel seat to good use and participate in a mildly illegal naked bike ride protest.

6. Start a Grow Operation

When you eat imported produce, you eat fossil fuels. The cost of harvesting and shipping produce by truck or airplane is completely hidden when we buy food at the grocery store so we tend not to think about it. By starting a garden, greenhouse, or even a hydroponic grow operation you are one step closer to sustainable living.

5. Litter

If your city doesn't have a compost program like Toronto then you are taking up massive amounts of landfill space with your horrible apple cores and banana peels that everyone is slipping on. You're better off throwing such biodegradable items into your neighbors yard to fuel the soil. Although, knowing the difference between biodegradable and non-biodegradable is crucial. Your neighbor doesn't want a heap of poopy diapers on his door step so do him a favor and incinerate it by lighting it on fire and ringing the door bell. That's what I call good old fashion environmentalism.

4. Smoke Crack

Need motivation to use your old incandescent lightbulbs sucking up valuable energy? Try smoking crack. You just have to hollow them out first and clean them thoroughly so that you don't inhale any poisonous inner bulb coating. The bulb acts like a vaporizer and is the healthiest way to enjoy illicit substances. Smoking crack with your old bulbs will require you to buy new compact fluorescent light bulbs which are 4 times more efficient and last 8-15 times longer. Although, technically, you could just replace your bulbs without doing the crack.

3. Go Big Game Hunting

It's not just hunting, it's wildlife management. Did you know the sale of hunting and fishing licenses are a major source of funding for wildlife conservations? It seems a little strange that hunting and conservation are so closely tied but the truth is that hunters will pay ridiculous amounts of money to hunt rare animals. There was a great article in New Scientist last year called "Bag a Trophy, save a species", and here's an excerpt:

"Without hunting many of these areas would be converted to cattle pasture, and there would be a rapid loss of wildlife," says Peter Lindsey, a conservation biologist at the University of Zimbabwe in Harare and author of a survey of trophy hunting in Africa (Biological Conservation , vol 134, p 455). When it works, the jobs and money generated by hunting also give local residents an incentive to suppress poaching and keep animals live and on the hoof rather than in their cooking pot.

2. Stop Recycling

Like most people, I feel that whatever I put into my recycling bin gets magically turned into a brand new product, gets re-shelved at the supermarket, and the earth is saved. Although, this is far from the truth. Many materials in consumer products require more energy to recycle than manufacture and when you take into account the amount of fuel, cost of staff wages, and air emissions associated with recycling trucks you start to wonder if it's really worth it. The best alternative is to reduce the need to recycle by buying produce and, if necessary, packaged items in bulk. Perfect justification for buying a keg of beer as opposed to a 6-pack.

1. Boycott Organic Food

First of all, there's a lot of research out there on organic food and most of it is inconclusive. It's so difficult to make an informed decision when you have recurring patterns of study, counter-study, argument, and counter-argument. Nonetheless, I've decided to pick a side... and it's anti-organic food!

Organic food still contains pesticides and no studies have conclusively proved that organic food contains higher nutritional value than regular food so it's a bit strange why everyone is buying them. Here's an excerpt from a Salon article called "Save the rain forest, boycott organic" a few years ago:

Perhaps the most eminent critic of organic farming is Norman Borlaug, the father of the "green revolution," winner of the Nobel peace prize and an outspoken advocate of the use of synthetic fertilizers to increase crop yields. He claims the idea that organic farming is better for the environment is "ridiculous" because organic farming produces lower yields and therefore requires more land under cultivation to produce the same amount of food.

So the moral of the list is that you can save the environment and have fun, so go out (or stay inside) and make a difference!

One of the great things about evolution are the smooth transitions that occur between different species. Since most of the transition-species are extinct, they get very little attention (kind of part of being dead, I suppose). Here I present some of these unsung heroes of evolution. Listen carefully, because we could de-evolve into any of these slick dudes at ANY TIME:

1. Ape and Human - Sahelanthropus tchadensis

When people talk about proto-humans, species in the genus Australopithecus (e.g. "Lucy") are the usual suspects. I personally prefer our friend Sahelanthropus tchadensis, pictured above. While S. tchadensis is much more on the ape side of evolution than it is on the human side, it has been suggested that it was fully bipedal (walks on two legs), making it a nice transition form from tree-swinging apes to hop-scotching humans.

2. Reptile and Mammal - Therapsids

I remember watching a movie in elementary school and being perplexed by the statement that mammals evolved from reptiles. It wasn't until my comparative vertebrate anatomy class in my sophomore year that the mystery was cleared up! Therapsids, like Lycaenops ("Wolf-face", ha!) pictured above, are quite basically mammal-like reptiles. The main features of these wolfy-lizards are: large developed jaws, a sleeker and lighter skull, and placement of the legs below the body to facilitate fast "galloping" as seen in the modern pooch. Some scientists even believe that therapsids had by this time evolved mammal-like hair (fur).

3. Fish and Amphibian - Tiktaalik

You remember the Tiktaalik, don't you? He remembers you! Just kidding, but this squirmy little guy wins the award for Most Likely to Frustrate Believers In Intelligent Design due to his existence being predicted long before his bones were even found in 2004. Also, the Tiktaalik is Canadian (found on Ellesmere Island, Nunavut)! For that, I give him a four fleshy-lobed fin salute.

4. Invertebrate and Vertebrate - Larval Urochordate

Another difficult evolutionary step to visualize is the transition between worm-like sea beasties and fish with basic spines composed of vertebrae (i.e. vertebrates) . The leading hypothesis is actually quite ingenious and satisfying, much like this blog. It goes something like this: In the fossil record, oceanic vertebrates appear suddenly 550 million years ago. Up until to this point, the sea was dominated by crazy giant insects and Urochordates, who were (and are!) invertebrate sessile filter feeders (like a sea sponge). The key fact is that the earliest life stage (larval stage, pictured above) of the Urochordate was similar to a tadpole, and even had a rudimentary spine. The hypothesis states that some natural selection situation caused the Urochordate to stay a larva for longer and longer until eventuall, the sessile adult stage was totally eliminated (this process is called neoteny in evo-devo jargon). So in the end we were left with a nice little tadpole who eventually gave rise to all the fishies in the deep blue sea. As for mollusks and the like...I have no idea!

5. Unicellular and Multicellular Life - Cellular Slime Mold

When life first arose, it was almost definitely in the form of one-celled creatures. While many of these simple organisms have persisted in one form or another to present day, others somehow made the jump from being composed of a single cell to being composed of many. This is not a trivial evolutionary step! Now, while the theoretical background of the evolution of multicellularity is a little mind numbing and by nature non-empirical, there are existing organisms that can give us clues about how it might have occurred. For example: the weird ooze pictured about is a cellular slime mold that begins its life as a group of unicellular organisms, but eventually matures into an enormous multicellular (and gooey) individual! Weird!

6. Primordial Ooze to Unicellular Life - ???

What am I, a biochemist?