Journal created:
on 4 February 2008 (#14873959)
Updated:
on 13 October 2008
Name:
cellography - snapshots in biomedicine
Membership:
Open
Posting Access:
All Members , Moderated
Description:
science: live and in picture
The Madness
This is a community designed for anyone who has ever been awed by the way nature works. We celebrate life and the study thereof.
The Method
The idea is to post an image that exemplifies your current favorite biological mechanism (we'll take chemistry, physics and astronomy, too; I'm secretly into that stuff). Rather than focusing on models and diagrams, we'd like to see the real thing; therefore, your media of choice may include:
microscopy
crystallography
fluorescence
luminescence
staining
dyes
flow cytometry
or anything else that will show a real cell, a real microbe, etc. Go for visualization where you can.
The Goals
1. To share science.
Anyone who is passionate about science, whether professionally or as a hobby, can't stop talking about their areas of interests. This is your opportunity to show off that awesome biological phenomenon you can't get enough of.
2. To discover the secret of life.
You teach by exposing others to background on your favorite biological mechanisms. You learn by watching the community and keeping up with what others are posting. If only one person posts something each day, you'll know ~30 new secrets of life by the end of the month.
3. To make the study of molecular/micro/cell biology more available to non-scientists.
The reason Galileo got in trouble for telling everyone that Copernicus was right about the Earth revolving around the sun thing is because everyone heard about it; everyone wanted to know what scientists were doing, and they all talked about it around the 15th century water coolers. Now, maybe because science has become an umbrella term encompassing an overwhelming plethora of subjects, the biomedical studies seem unapproachable - "it's too hard to understand, and I get all the science I'll ever need from Fox News and The Magic School Bus." (I'm not knocking The Magic School Bus, by the way; it's amazing.)
It's important to know what stem cells really are before you make a decision about the ethics involved in their usage. It's important to know what NSAIDs are and how they work to protect yourself from another Vioxx fiasco.
On an even more basic level, an example: know that if you take an antibiotic for a viral infection, you will not only not even touch the virus, you'll kill the bacteria that are helping you survive the viral infection, and, more dangerously, you'll eventually strengthen the bacteria that can cause you harm - welcome to MRSA.
We want to spread science, to show how interesting it can be, to make it available to everyone (even the philosophy majors), to teach and to learn about how to use science in our daily lives - science is our daily lives.</center>
Where Do I Find These Images?
The most obvious place would be the literature. Try:
PubMed
Annual Reviews
You Tube for some awesome microscopy videos and animations.
If you don't have access to an article you want, post an entry requesting it, and I'll dig it up for you - I have access to most of journals, I think.
Textbooks also work. PubMed gives you free access to many books. Just select "Books" in the search quarry.
And, of course, Google. Just make sure that the site you end up using is credible; generally, anything ending in .gov, .edu or .org should be good. No .coms. Also try Google Scholar
In what format do I post?
What you post is up to you, really, as long as it matches with the goals of the community. Just remember to site your sources.
antibodies, apoptosis, astronomy, astrophysics, bacteria, biochemistry, biology, biomedicine, biophysics, cancer, carbohydrates, cat, cell biology, chemistry, clathrin, confocal electron microscopy, crystallography, dapi, developmental biology, disease, dna, electron microscopes, elisa, emission spectra, endocytosis, epigenetics, eukaryotes, evolution, experiments, flow cytometry, fluorescence, forensics, genetics, gfp, gram stain, immunology, lipid rafts, lipids, luciferase, luminescence, markers, microarray, microbiology, microscopes, microscopy, molecular biology, molecular genetics, molecular science, mri, mts, mutants, nature, neurobiology, neurology, neurons, nucleic acids, organelles, parasites, pathogenesis, pathogens, phages, physics, physiology, plasma membranes, prions, prokaryotes, proteins, radiolabeling, ribozymes, rna, science, scientists, sem, signaling, staining, tem, virology, viruses, visualization, x-rays