Craft beer is a glorious thing. In 2013, over 15 million barrels (that’s over $14 billion worth) of craft beer were sold in the US, and new breweries are popping up all over the place...
If you ever worry that you’re a bit too optimistic about the future, try reading Maryn McKenna’s posts about the growing threat of antibiotic resistance.
My new lab’s paper is out! I had nothing to do with this work (it was submitted just before I joined), but it’s an incredibly exciting study investigating the diverse microbial communities that grow on cheese rinds...
A couple of years ago, my fiancée and I wanted to try to make some home-made mozzarella cheese, but ran into a problem. In order to turn milk into cheese, you have to add a substance called “rennet,” which causes the milk to coagulate, allowing you to separate the curd (mostly fats and hydrophobic proteins) [...]..
Bananas are delicious. Personally, my favorite consumption methods are in oatmeal or cereal, in smoothies, or just on their own (for the record, I peel them the right way, not from the stem like some savage)...
Last week was a monumental one for me – I said goodbye to my old lab, where I’ve worked for the past 5 years. It was harder than I thought it would be to leave.
Vox.com is a new news site that aims to do things a bit differently. Led by Ezra Klein, formerly of the Washington Post “Wonk Blog,” news stories at Vox are supposed to rely more on data, and actually provide the data behind stories so that readers can judge for themselves...
One of my favorite parts of graduate school was participating in an outreach-oriented organization called Science in the News. SITN (as we lovingly call it) has a number of great outreach arms, including regular articles about current science topics written by grad students called Signal to Noise (fomerly The Flash), hands-on events like the model [...]..
I’m signed up for this social network analytic tool called “ThinkUp,” and one of the things it does is to remind you what you were talking about a year ago on the same day...
I’ve been pretty quiet in this space for the last several months. In the 6 months since we started Food Matters, I’ve been absent for three of them.
I listen to a lot of podcasts – on my commute, while sitting at the bench pipetting, doing dishes, in line at the grocery store, wherever.
I don’t think I’m alone in my prurient interest in research related to sex, since those posts tend to be wildly popular. At the same time, I try mostly to stick to my field of expertise while blogging, and the intersection between sex and the immune system doesn’t happen that often (unless we’re talking about [...]..
Let’s talk about bias for a minute. My fiance, Rachel Rynick, just released her first album, and I think it’s awesome. Of course, my opinion on this matter can’t really be trusted...
I was on a bit of a hiatus on blogging last month, but a lot of good things happened. I had a manuscript accepted for publication at Cell, I got my box checked (which means I have permission to start writing my dissertation, which means I should be graduating this year), and my fiance and [...]..
I’m doing a monthly series here at Food Matters that I’m calling “Friday* Happy Hour,” in which I’ll delve into the science of alcohol production.
Ever since coming to Harvard, I’ve been involved with a graduate student group called “Science in the News.” At SITN, the goal is to bring the fascination with scientists that graduate students have to a wider audience, and the flagship effort of the group is a series of lectures held every Autumn and Spring that [...]..
There was a pretty huge response to my take on the GMO labeling debate last Friday. At the time of writing, there are 37 comments (for comparison, my other posts here have had between 0 and 4 comments), and I had a couple of convergent conversations on twitter and google+...
I’m a granola (and dirt)-eating, tree-hugging, liberal/progressive. If I was called by a pollster asking about the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), I’d be counted among the folks that disapprove, but only because I think it doesn’t go far enough (I’m for single-payer, but I could have settled for the public option)...
A few years ago, while casting out to twitter asking for immunology-themed post ideas, Christie Wilcox mentioned that a friend of hers seemed to have an allergic reaction after having sex...
I’m doing a monthly series here at Food Matters that I’m calling “Friday Happy Hour,” in which I’ll delve into the science of alcohol production.
