When we office supply nerds fly too close to the sun, we always get burned.
From the editorial page of this morning’s Boston Globe:
COLLEGE ACCEPTANCE and rejection letters will be arriving in the mail in the coming days, launching high school seniors into the joyous or consoling embrace of parents. But many prospective college students aren’t watching anxiously for the mail carrier. Instead, they are busy attending to the needs of their own children and workplaces.
The traditional 18- to 22-year-old residing on campus is no longer the norm. Almost three-quarters of undergraduates fall into the “nontraditional” category, according to a 2002 National Center for Education Statistics report, meaning they work full time, are financially independent, attend college part time, or didn’t go directly from high school to higher education. For these nontraditional college students, a foreign adventure abroad is more likely to mean deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan than exploring the medieval Gothic quarter in Barcelona. College isn’t just for children anymore.
To read more, click on the link above.
From NewScientist: This is an interesting account of molecular re-engineering: getting codons to be read in 4’s instead of 3’s. So much for codon conversion tables that can fit on one page!
An Auspicious Start
So I had been brainstorming blog titles all day. My virtual trashcan is littered with bad puns, malapropisms, and general dreck. When I finally happened upon The Leading Strand (elaborated below), I knew I had it. I celebrated by promptly choking on a chicken bone. And we’re off!
About the name: The leading strand is the name given to one of the two newly-synthesized DNA molecules at a DNA replication fork. Its “claim-to-fame” is that it’s produced in a single, uninterrupted pass, distinguishing it from the lagging strand, the maligned dimwit of molecular biology.
My sense of humor defaults to self-deprecation, so I had originally considered The Lagging Strand as my title. I thought the idea of doing things unintuitively, backwards, and in small steps made for an amusing picture. The truth is, though, that’s not me. I tend to think of my approaches to solving problems is forward-looking.
I also hate going backwards. Except in subway cars.
About me
Musings about biology, teaching, technology, and a little of everything thrown in. It's a veritable melting pot.
