Maggie Aderin-Pocock

Day 2 of our mushroom lab: running our sample through a DEAE-Sepharose column

Voyager 2: Image Of The Planet Neptune, NASA  Photography

Some random crystals formed from my raw reaction mixture at the bottom of a flask.

The second at the third is cropped from the original sized picture. 

The picture in a large size (3000px wide) could be found HERE, without watermark. Use it as a wallpaper or print it out and put it on your wall.  Other pictures from the best posts could be  purchased at Society6, now with a free worldwide shipping over here: https://society6.com/labphoto?promo=NJYKQ8VB9QKT 

Doing vs. Writing | PHD Comics | http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1887

I always get stupid names for these so I have devised an egalitarian solution

Check out the colors on this one!

Small changes add up to big results. You can activate the movement. 

Tune into the livestream for the United State of Women Summit 6/14 here . GIF by Tumblr Creatr Thoka Maer

This week in “TBDMSCl crystals”

Structures from Nature

Image Gallery by David Walker, UK

source: microscopy-uk.org.uk

Also, while this is on my mind. In my master’s-level food toxicology class today we discussed various genetically modified crops and watched part of a documentary about them, and as someone with a food science degree I would like to be clear about the following:

The only health risk that has been shown to us throughout twenty plus years of having genetically modified crops as part of the food system is that there is a possibility of introducing proteins that could cause allergic reactions. New strains are required to be tested for this, of course, but that is a practical risk that needs to be closely monitored.

The objection to GM in general should be the patenting of genes and other legal matters; there are a number of crops that have been saved from blight and overall extinction via modification in the past two decades, and much like putting up inaccessibly expensive paywalls to scientific journals, patenting of genes within crops limits our ability within universities, small research companies, etc to make significant breakthroughs to further the scientific progress of humanity. 

Furthermore. People think of organic crops as the environmentally-friendly option. If you believe this, please pay attention to what I’m about to say. Current regulations dictate that to have a crop classified as organic the land on which the crop is grown has to have been pesticide-free for a significant amount of time. There is no interim label available to farmers. So what do they do? Do they use no pesticides and take the losses from disease and insects for a decade, waiting for a time in which they are allowed to reclassify their crops in such a way that they can sell them for more money?

Of course they don’t. It isn’t practical. You can say what you like about how the system is structured; I’d personally like to see an interim classification come into play. But what farmers actually do, and states like Montana are feeling the full effects of this–they clear-cut forests and plant their organic crops on entirely new land.

You want to tell me that clear-cutting forests is environmentally friendly? It’s not. Hell, for all that people make a big deal about saving the environment by limiting how much paper they use, paper production is done in a more sustainable manner (because the paper farms replant their trees in a regular cycle so as to not deplete their sources; they don’t just go out and cut down random trees). 

There are objections to be had in regards to GM crops on a legal basis. On a scientific one, there isn’t much. Call them frankenfoods all you want; look up what most commercially-sold produce truly looks like in the wild with no modification and you will learn very quickly that all foods have been modified in some way over the years through conventional breeding. We just think of that differently. 

Biotechnology is not the enemy. Pseudoscience tells us that this is the case. Pseudoscience also tells us that we should seek out natural supplements instead of medicine, and, well… that’s a rant for another day, but suffice to say it’s an even more dubious proposition.

Don’t buy into it.