Sounds of HIV October 5, 2010
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in DNA, Fun, Music, science.8 comments
A few months ago, Alexandra Pajak, a graduate student at the University of Georgia contacted me about an album of music based on the DNA of the HIV virus she was about to release. I feel lucky that the album is just on its way to my CD player right now. You can buy the album on Amazon (release date: 26, October). Note that some of the proceeds will go to the Emory Vaccine Center, which conducts research for an HIV vaccine. If you wonder how it was made, here is the explanation:
Sounds of HIV is a musical translation of the genetic code of HIV, the Human Immunodeficiency Virus. Every segment of the virus is assigned music pitches that correspond to the segment’s scientific properties. In this way, the sounds reflect the true nature of the virus. When listening from beginning to end, the listener hears the entire genome of HIV.
In English, the nucleotides Adenine, Cytosine, Uracil/Thymine, and Guanine are abbreviated with the letters A, C, T, and G. Since A, C, and G are also musical pitches in the Western melodic scale, these pitches were assigned to the matching nucleotides. To form two perfect fifths (C-G and D-A), “D” was arbitrarily assigned to musically represent Uracil. I assigned the pitches of the A minor scale to the amino acids based on their level of attraction to water.
On “Sounds of HIV,” depending on the track, only nucleotides and/or amino acids “play” as music. Tracks 1 and 10 are based on the first and last nucleotides of the RNA chain. Tracks 2-9 “play” the proteins and sometimes the nucleotides on top of the proteins.
Stem Cells and Web 2.0 October 4, 2010
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Health, Health 2.0, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, PeRSSonalized Medicine, Web 2.0, Webicina.3 comments
It is easy to realize the huge number of malicious websites and the high frequency of false information focusing on stem cells. But there are some quality resources such as The Niche blog, Stem Cells Portal community site, the NIH Stem Cell information center or the International Society for Stem Cell Research Youtube channel.
Webicina’s new Stem Cells and Web 2.0 collection features even more social media resources.
If you also want to follow easily these selected resources in a personalized way, here is PeRSSonalized Stem Cells, the simplest, free, customizable medical information aggregator.
Here is table of contents:
- News and Information on Stem Cells
- Stem Cells in the Blogosphere
- Stem Cell Podcasts and Intreviews
- Stem Cell Community Sites, FaceBook Groups and Forums
- Microblogging: Twitter and Friendfeed
- Stem Cell Wikis
- Stem Cell videos, animations and videocasts
- Mobile Applications
- Social Bookmarking
- Medical Search Engines
- Slideshows about Stem Cells
Feel free to share any of these resources and let us know if you think others should be added.
Internet in Medicine University Course: Medical blogging October 4, 2010
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Blogging, Health 2.0, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, Medicine 2.0 Course, Video, Web 2.0.9 comments
We just finished the second lecture of the “Internet in Medicine” university credit course which was dedicated to medical blogging. Here is the summary of my presentations.
- Definition of blog, post, trackback, pingback, comment, tag.
- First blog: Jorn Barger, 1997
- Technorati statistics about the state of the entire blogosphere
- Blogs in plain English:
- Types of blogs and bloggers
- Major medical blogs as examples: Kevin, MD; Medgadget; Sixuntilme; Doctor Anonymous; Street Anatomy.
- Analyzing the results of the study of Ivor Kovic et al. (Examining the Medical Blogosphere: An Online Survey of Medical Bloggers)
- Blog carnivals and microcarnivals
- How to educate with blogs (e.g. Alan J Cann)
- Some examples such as the recent post from Sergey Brin about his genes and the posts it led to (Gene Sherpa, Scienceroll, Discovering Biology in a Digital World)
- Dangers and how to fight them: Honcode, privacy issues, HIPAA, etc.
- The lesson of Dr. Flea
- Money is not everything: the Scienceblogs.com story and many more
- Why do physicians blog?
- Future? Streaming your life. E.g.: yongfook.com
In the second slideshow, I described how to start a new blog step-by-step.
- You need to answer 3 questions first before starting a blog:
- What kind of blogger will I be?
- Where should I blog? WordPress.com
- How should I blog?
- My “3 blogging rule” described what you need to become a good blogger: commitment, consistency and openness
- Shared many examples about how to build a successful medical blog.
Take-home message:
A medical blog can be a perfect channel to make new contacts, find new opportunities and share your ideas with the world.
The 2 slideshows are described in details on Webicina.com’s e-guide:
See you next week when we will talk about Twitter in Medicine and also how to keep yourself up-to-date with RSS.
The 2010 Ig Nobel Award Winners Announced October 4, 2010
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Fun, science, Video.1 comment so far
This is October again and the famous Ig Nobel Award winners were just announced before the real Nobel winners. Guess who took the Medicine category:
Psychologists Simon Rietveld and Ilja van Beest at the University of Amsterdam share the award for discovering that breathing difficulties brought on by asthma can be alleviated by repeated rollercoaster rides.
Don’t miss these minimovies presenting previous winners.
