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© 2024 Foundational Skills in Life Sciences
Description
Students and scholars in life sciences need to use many skills to survive and excel during scientific training, which involves listening, reading, writing, and speaking.
But I have seen many of them struggle in understanding and learning those skills.
As a professor, I will guide you through the skills, so that you will learn and improve successfully in your professional life.
Please visit my website for more information (https://synaptologica.com/), and send me emails with questions, comments or ideas (ideas@synaptologica.com).
20 Episodes
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We will experience the fascinating world of scientific troubleshooting. In this episode, we will revisit a life-science experiment where researchers aimed to see if a specific chemical compound could enhance a particular function in cultured cells. Their plan seemed straightforward - a pilot experiment with a positive control (active compound) and a negative control (inactive compound). They wanted to confirm everything worked as expected. But the results were strange! Both the positive and n...
There are many reasons why life-science experiments do not work well. Today, I will tell you a real story about an experiment. It is an experiment that did not go well. We will explore the problem that researchers encountered. In the following episodes), we will discuss how they identified the problem, and how they solved the problem. The story will help us understand the importance of negative controls, especially how to design them for the experiments, and how to use them for trouble-shooti...
Today's focus: negative controls. In life-science experiments, negative controls play critical roles. In my view, they are more important than the positive controls! They form such a rich topic that we will spend at least a few episodes on discussing them. Today, we introduce basic aspects: 1) what the negative controls do in life-science experiments, 2) our practical definition by modifying the typical and ideal one, 3) how the negative control was used in our milestone graph (Fig. 3D of mil...
I will list four sets of links mentioned in this episode. All are related to the Laureates, Dr. Katalin Karikó & Dr. Drew Weissman of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2023.Milestone Article 1: Immunity, 2005- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.immuni.2005.06.008 - PDF: https://www.cell.com/immunity/pdf/S1074-7613(05)00211-6.pdf - PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16111635/ Milestone Article 2: Molecular Therapy, 2008- DOI: https://doi.org/...
Today's focus: the power of text elements in figures. We explore how category axis labels in bar graphs, when meticulously organized, reveal key experimental conditions at a glance. For a prime example, take Fig. 2B from our milestone article 1 by the Laureates of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2023. Here, the labels use two key strategies: 1) precise keywords accurately represent each condition, and 2) a three-layered structure visually communicates relationships between condition...
Dive deep into Step 11 of reading the milestone article written by Nobel Laureates. We will examine the most important bar graph. We will read the labels and the legend, and combine our knowledge with the Nobel Committee video. We will use the information flexibly to understand the story the graph tells. This is Part 8 of the reading mini-series "Let’s read a paper written by Nobel Prize Laureates, 2023." (My email is active. But my website is under construction....
Visual elements in scientific papers often convey information faster than words. In Part 7 of reading mini-series, we will discuss previewing the paper content by scanning the figures and tables. This step will help us gain a quick overview of Nobel Prize-winning research. (My email is active. But my website is under construction. Please wait for a while. Thank you for the patience!)
In Part 6 of reading mini-series, we will discuss key steps before diving into a paper. We will verify the paper's identity and map its structure. These simple actions will give us a bird's-eye view of the paper and set us up for a deeper, rewarding reading experience. (My email is active. But my website is under construction. Please wait for a while. Thank you for the patience!)
Welcome to Part 5 of our mini-series on reading. Today, we will discuss a crucial step before diving into a paper. This powerful step will shift your focus from passively absorbing the written content to actively engaging with the authors' intent. By understanding what they are doing with each sentence and paragraph, you will gain a clearer overview of the paper's meaning. So, what is this important step? (My email is active. But my website is under construction. Please wait for a while...
Thank you for listening. I started podcasting earlier in 2023. The total number of episode downloads reached 250 on the day of this recording. Please keep listening to the episodes to come!
This episode is Part 4 of a multi-episode mini-series on reading. When we want to read a paper written by the Nobel Laureates, you might wonder which one to choose. We will discuss how to select the right paper from among the many that the Laureates have written. How do we do it? There's a simple way. (My email is active. But my website is under construction. Please wait for a while. Thank you for the patience!)
This episode is Part 3 of a multi-episode mini-series on reading. The biggest hurdle when we read a paper written by the Nobel Laureates is usually our lack of knowledge necessary to understand even the basics of the paper. We will talk about how to obtain the minimal amount of the most accurate background information. It is to watch a YouTube video. But it should not be any video related to the Laureates’ work. There is only one video that I would like to recommend watching. What would it be...
Let's enjoy the Nobel Prize announcement. How do we enjoy it? We will read one paper written by the Nobel Laureates, and dive deep. This episode is Part 2 of a multi-episode mini-series on reading. We will talk about: 1) how the Nobel Prize laureates are selected, 2) what a milestone article is, 3) why we would want to read the milestone article by the Nobel Laureates, and 4) who will benefit from this reading activity. (My email is active. But my website is under construction. Pl...
Let's enjoy the Nobel Prize announcement. How do we enjoy it? We will read one paper written by the Nobel Laureates, and dive deep. This episode is Part 1 of a multi-episode mini-series on reading. We will talk about two goals of reading the paper. (My email is active. But my website is under construction. Please wait for a while. Thank you for the patience!)
I would like to report to you: the total number of my episode downloads reached 100! It took me 2 months. Thank you for listening. Please keep listening to the episodes to come!
Google celebrates the 25th birthday in September, 2023, when this episode is recorded. Google CEO, Mr. Pichai, reflects on the paths that Google chose to take in the past, and on the paths that Google is going to take from now. Similarly, we would like to reflect on 1) how the online information search looked like before Google, 2) how it has changed after Google, and 3) how generative AI could change our activities from now (There is no answer yet!). (My email is active. ...
In this episode, I would like to thank you for listening. I will report to you the number of downloads for the first three episodes so far. It is a tiny but mighty audience! I will also report to you the three countries where my listeners are located. Then I would like to express my gratitude by thanking you in three languages of those countries. Well, English is one of them. What would be the two other languages? You will know by listening :-) Please visit my webpage for more informati...
In this episode (Part 2) and the one before (Part 1), we are discussing how to search for life-science information online. What method would give us the reliable online information? Now, ChatGPT has arrived and it is becoming very popular. Shall we rely on ChatGPT and other tools of generative artificial intelligence? That’s what we will talk about. Please visit my webpage for more information about this episode (https://synaptologica.com/3). Please send me an email, if you have q...
This is the first episode of a mini-series. We rely very much on online information every day. How can we choose reliable websites for the correct information? As an introduction to the mini-series, we will introduce two common search methods: the traditional Google Search and the new ChatGPT. To help us understand that we need high-quality information sources to think deep, we will virtually experience one practical situation where a beginning, life-science student is trained. Based on...
Welcome to the "Foundational Skills in Life Sciences" podcast. I am your host, Dr. Synaptologica. In this episode, I will introduce you to this series, by answering three key questions: #1. What foundational skills are we going to discuss? #2. What are life sciences? #3. Who will be my target audience? I hope you enjoy starting listening to my podcast. Please visit my webpage for more information about this episode (https://synaptologica.com/1). Please ...
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