Abel Pharmboy is the nom de plume of an academic researcher and educator who holds a PhD in Pharmacology. He writes on natural product drugs and dietary supplements, academic career development, medical journalism, and wine appreciation for the monetarily - challenged. You can learn quickly the distinction between the fields of Pharmacology, Pharmacognosy, Pharmacy, the Pharmaceutical Sciences by clicking on the hyperlinks. You can learn more about me here.
HBCU scholars answer questions at NYTimes education blog
8 Mar 2010 at 6:02 pm
Last week, the New York Times college admissions and aid blog, The Choice, solicited readers for questions on US historically-black colleges and universities (HBCUs). These 105 HBCUs, primarily in the southern US, were defined by the Higher Education Act of 1965 as institutions of higher learning established prior to 1964 whose principal mission was and is the education of black Americans.
Answer
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What's the difference between HeLa and HeLa S3 cells? Part II: The life and c...
7 Mar 2010 at 12:02 pmThis post is the second in a series on the origin and history of HeLa S3 cells. The first post can be found here. In this post, we discuss the life and careers (yes, careers) of the remarkable physician-scientist, Florence Rena Sabin.
"Too bad you're not a boy, you would have made a good doctor."
Florence Rena Sabin was born in the mining town of Central City, Colorado, on November 9, 1871, two
Science with Moxie's Princess Ojiaku: PLoS Blog Pick of the Month this week, ...
6 Mar 2010 at 6:23 pm
I want to get this quick shout-out for local hero, blogger, musician, and all around too-cool Princess Ojiaku before her band, Pink Flag, plays tonight at 10 pm in Durham, NC, at The Broad Street Cafe. From their website, "They're a regular three girl rhumba dancing on the common ground of a love of early post-punk, riot grrl and top 40 of the 1990s." Their name pays homage to the 1977 album by Wi
What's the difference between HeLa and HeLa S3 cells? Part I: Launching the lab
6 Mar 2010 at 11:40 am
When I first started my independent academic laboratory in 1992, it was in a brand new facility across the parking lot from a then 40-year-old building named in honor of the woman to the right. I took on a big teaching load from day one and while I had some cash left from the $50,000 start-up package, I didn't hire a technician immediately. So it fell upon me to do all the ordering of the basic s
Inspire & celebrate women with Nobelprize.org feature for International Women...
5 Mar 2010 at 9:02 amWhile I'm hammering out The-Post-That-Will-Never-Finish related to National Women's History Month (U.S.), let me draw your attention to the homepage of NobelPrize.org.
The entire frontpage is devoted to interviews and stories from women Nobelists spanning from 1903 to present.
The idea of an International Women's Day first arose at the turn of the 20th century and the event is now celebrated ann
Welcome back Nature Network blogs!
4 Mar 2010 at 9:02 amLooking all shiny and spiffy today are our colleagues over at the blogging network hosted by Nature. After some downtime to install a new blogging platform, Movable Type 4, Nature Network blogs are back with a much more pleasing aesthetic and a more user-friendly interface.
For those readers who don't have their own blog, the publishing software behind the scenes makes a big difference in how e
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UNC-Duke Coal Wars?
2 Mar 2010 at 8:02 pmThe NCAA basketball season traditionally brings to the Piedmont region of North Carolina the Tobacco Road battles between the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University, the private school in Durham about 12 miles to the northwest (actually 10.79 miles from the Dean Dome to Cameron Indoor Stadium).
But what I'm wondering is why a coal war hasn't erupted between the two instit
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Congratulations to Chris Mooney on his Templeton-Cambridge Journalism Fellows...
2 Mar 2010 at 12:02 pmGreat news came across my RSS reader the other day that author and journalist, Chris Mooney, was among twelve journalists selected by the John Templeton Foundation for an intensive two-month fellowship on the relationship between science and religion. The Templeton-Cambridge Journalism Fellowships in Science & Religion provide financial support for scholars to study at their home institution and e
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LungMutiny2010 continues: reflections on chronic illnesses
28 Feb 2010 at 8:08 pmA few weeks ago, I wrote a post about being stricken with pneumonia and my reflections on what it must be like for people who live continually with chronic illnesses. I was surprised by the response from many readers, quite a few of whom I've never seen comment here, who voiced understanding and even relief that a "normal" would take the time to reflect on what their life might be like.
Well, my
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Insider's take on Amy Bishop's gender-discrimination case
26 Feb 2010 at 7:05 amWhile some readers are likely to be growing weary of the Amy Bishop case, this topic has generated two (1, 2) of the longest and still-active comment threads this blog has seen since my most highly-read personal post.
So, I was going to limit any further posts here to topics that haven't been beaten to death elsewhere.
But here's an interesting take brought to my attention overnight by commenter
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Another hydrogen sulfide (H2S) suicide, with altruism
25 Feb 2010 at 9:02 amA year ago we wrote about a death of a San Jose teenager from poisoning by hydrogen sulfide gas, or H2S. At the time, I had hypothesized that the death might have been from an attempt at synthesizing methamphetamine gone awry.
But while one can mistakenly generate hydrogen sulfide gas from improper meth synthesis, I soon learned that intentional suicides with H2S is an increasing US trend import
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HudsonAlpha investigators to teach UAHunstville classes
23 Feb 2010 at 9:02 am
As I wrote on Twitter yesterday, I am sending hugs, salutes, and immense respect to Dr. Chris Gunter and her colleagues at HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology in Huntsville, Alabama.
Gunter, a self-described "recovering Nature editor" who serves as Director of Research Affairs at HudsonAlpha, is working with several of her colleagues at the institute to finish teaching an undergraduate neuros
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"What makes you so special, Genome Boy?"
22 Feb 2010 at 10:02 amA very nice surprise greeted me this morning on the local page of my AP News iPhone app: an interview in the News & Observer with Dr. Misha Angrist of the Duke Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy by freelance journalist, T. DeLene Beeland (also on Twitter @tdelene).
Angrist is perhaps best-known as the fourth of the first 10 people whose genome was sequenced for George Church's Personal Genome
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Tsuken gets his Ash Customworks guitar
21 Feb 2010 at 5:38 pmThe Australian psychiatrist, musician, amateur astronomer, daddy, and blogger Tsuken just sent out word that his custom electric guitar has arrived from New Zealand luthier, Adrian Hamilton, at Ash Custom Works in Auckland.
At his blog, Music, Medicine, and the Mind, our giddy colleague writes:
Oh. Baby. Yeah. I'm here today to tell you: there is nothing - nothing - like a custom guitar. No way w
Virginia Williams: "If I were your daughter, I wouldn't be here for this"
21 Feb 2010 at 10:02 amYounger readers and readers outside the southern United States may not completely grasp my preoccupation with the Jim Crow segregation era "sit-ins" over the last several months. These non-violent acts of civil disobedience in the 1950s and 60s challenged the "separate, but equal" provisions for public facilities that were upheld in the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson US Supreme Court decision and continu
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