Category Archives: science

Our new paper in PLoS One: why we should sequence big genomes

By Michael Eisen | Published: March 4, 2009

We have a new paper out in PLoS One that I think is particularly cool: Peterson BK*, Hare EE*, Iyer VN, Storage S, Conner L, et al. (2009) Big Genomes Facilitate the Comparative Identification of Regulatory Elements. PLoS ONE 4(3): e4688.  The paper is about species with big genomes – in particular species from the […]

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Is John Conyers Shilling for Special Interests? [HuffPost]

By Michael Eisen | Published: March 2, 2009

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lawrence-lessig-and-michael-eisen/is-john-conyers-shilling_b_171189.html

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I love Anna Eshoo!!

By Michael Eisen | Published: February 27, 2009

A friend posted this letter on Facebook: February 27, 2009 Dear ——-, Thank you for writing to me about H.R. 801, the Fair Copyright in Research Works Act.  As you may know, Congress directed that all NIH funded studies be available for free online. H.R. 801 would effectively overturn this important and much needed policy […]

Also posted in open access, science and politics | Comments closed

Stem Cells: The Future of Skin Rejuvination

By Michael Eisen | Published: February 27, 2009

As if there wasn’t enough stem cell hype already….

Also posted in misc stuff | Comments closed

Great op-ed on Conyer’s Bill

By Michael Eisen | Published: February 23, 2009

Misunderestimating open science By James Boyle Published: February 24 2009 02:19 | Last updated: February 24 2009 02:19 It is hard for politicians to do anything that would shock me but I have to say that John Conyers, a US Congressman, has done it. In the process, he has taught us a lot about how […]

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How should the NIH spend its stimulus money?

By Michael Eisen | Published: February 11, 2009

Steve Quake has an interesting post on Olivia Judson’s blog (Quake is a guest columnist while she is on sabbatical) about what life is like for a scientist at a modern research university. The interesting stuff is at the end, when he talks about how labs are funded. It’s a particularly important time to think about […]

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Sean Carroll in “Cooperstown of Evolution” on NPR’s Morning Edition

By Michael Eisen | Published: February 11, 2009

For those of you still with a chance to listen to NPR’s Morning Edition, there’s a really nice piece withJoe Palca following Sean Carroll as he gets a chance to look at the notebooks of Darwin and Wallace during a recent visit to London.  Of course you can also listen to it online.

Also posted in evolution | Comments closed

Obama and Copyright

By Michael Eisen | Published: February 8, 2009

I haven’t been so worried about the Conyers bill to end the NIH Public Access policy because I figured even in the unlikely event it got through Congress, Obama wouldn’t sign it. But then I read this post by Seth Johnson about “stacking” of the Justice Department with veteran copyright defenders. I’m still not all […]

Also posted in open access, PLoS, science and politics | Comments closed

Conyers reintroduces bill to kill NIH Public Access Policy

By Michael Eisen | Published: February 6, 2009

John Conyers (D-MI) has reintroduced his publisher-backed “Fair Copyright Act”  which would effectively end the NIH Public Access Policy by eliminating the government’s right to impose conditions on grants that would give the government the right to distribute works arising from federally funded research. As many have pointed out, the whole premise of the bill […]

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Weekly Address from Obama’s Science Gurus

By Michael Eisen | Published: January 25, 2009

The scientific community is quite rightly celebrating the replacement of the ascientific Bush with the assertively pro-science Obama, and the elevation of a cadre of outstanding scientists (Varmus, Lubchenko, Chu et al.) to cabinet or advisory positions. But given how much has been written lately about an increasing divide between science and the public, and growing […]

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