This is an overview over the blog of 
Cedric Meury is a Guest writer to this blog. He's also a molecular biologist and is passionate about intelligent music, the information technology age and lots of other things.
XML FeedsWho Can Name the Bigger Number?
Link: http://www.scottaaronson.com/writings/bignumbers.html
A funny article that is best described by this short abstract:
You have fifteen seconds. Using standard math notation, English words, or both, name a single whole number—not an infinity—on a blank index card. Be precise enough for any reasonable modern mathematician to determine exactly what number you’ve named, by consulting only your card and, if necessary, the published literature.
Click on the title to go there
In situ hybridization of zebra fish with pax 2.1
More pictures from the lab, this time we made in situ preparations of different stades of zebra fish embryos. This means that you basically make the mRNA (in this case for the morphogen pax 2.1) visible. Pax 2.1 is expressed (as you can see HERE) in the midbrain hindbrain boundary (early stade), in the otic placode and pronephric mesoderm (later) and after 24 hours in the spinal chord neurons, the otic vesicle, the anterior retina, the otic stalk and the pronephric duct.
Pax 2.1 is a transcription factor with a homeobox domain
Mini Apéro Thanks to the Affolter Lab
Today the Affolter Lab generously offered us a small reward for our work this week, seems like we've done a good job...See the pics HERE
Morphogenetic movements
β-Catenin, Bozozok, Chordin, Dickkopf, Squint, Cyclops, One-eyed pinhead, No tail, Brachyury and Floating head...Yeah, floating head that's what I got right now, that's why I decided to go over it again and draw a scheme by myself...For all of the non-developmental biology specialists among us, these are names of Zebra fish genes or more precisely names of their gene products. The fundamental question is how can you make a bilateral (head, tail, dorsal and ventral axis) fish (or vertebrate for that matter) from a symmetrical sphere...The solution is a very complex and not entirely understood interaction network between morphogenetic gradients that can either stimulate or inhibit other protein or mRNA gradients and so on...Basically, the first breach in the symmetry is the entry of the sperm into the egg.
If this sounds like Chinese, please consider the possibility to not try to understand it, most people (except biology students of course) can happily live without ever knowing what a morphogenetic gradient is...
Hope I got it right, please send in you feedback so that I can correct it when necessary!
GFP zebra fish under the fluorescence microscope
Added the latest pics, here's an appetizer for today's menu...Smells like fish!
Click to view original size
Find more HERE
Luxembourg - Basel (via Trier, Koblenz, Mainz, Frankfurt, Nürnberg and Karlsruhe, of course)
As Marc mentioned in his post earlier, our trip to the world cup 2006 Netherlands vs. Portugal was a full success. So as I do not want to reserve you the pictures I took, along with my impressions, I'll write one article too:
Marc screams: Forca!
On Sunday Charles and I went to Nürnberg to see Portugal vs Holland. Charles arrived in Frankfurt late in the morning and we got into a rather adventerous train journey a few hours later.
First the locomotive had to be changed due to technical difficulties... Then we had to stop right in the middle, the whole train smelled like burned plastic, and the personel was running around like crazy. But of course, it was just a precaution.
With about 40 minutes delay we arrived in Nürnberg, but never got the free drinks that were promised.
In Other News : Dechorionated Zebra Fish Embryos
Danio rerio is an important model organism for studying vertebrate development. During this and the next days, our pratical work with Prof. Affolter's lab will focus on these fascinating organisms. We analyze different developmental stages of these embryos and thereby maybe get some insight into our own fate...Right now, we are doing some in situ hybridization experiments, stay tuned on Friday to see what 3 days of lab work can produce...
The Left Handed DNA Hall Of Fame
Link: http://www-lmmb.ncifcrf.gov/~toms/LeftHanded.DNA.html
A funny site featuring all publications in the recents years where the DNA molecule is shown to left-handed (although we all know that most of this earth's DNA is right-handed of course). Some mentions include covers of big journals, or commemorative coins etc...Check it out now!
Photography rules
Link: http://theonlinephotographer.blogspot.com/2006/06/photography-rules.html
MIKE JOHNSTON writes in this interesting article about so-called established rules in photography...Very interesting post!
Take a bow for the Royals
Most of you might not be too familiar with our Grand Duke Henri de Luxembourg, so I thought you might be interested in hearing why we Luxembourgers are so proud of our Heng and his family. Or are we? Find it out yourself!
Mothers against Dpp
D'Lëtzebuerg brennt
Last Friday was a massive fire in Clausen (Luxembourg) in a depot of the Mousel brewary...I took the pic from my garden...
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Click to view original size
It's raining cats and dogs!
Finally, Flo, our new Leonberger puppy arrived at its new home...She's such a sweet dog, I will put some more pictures to the gallery...Anyhow, I think that pictures say more than a thousand words, so why waste my time:
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More to be found HERE
Ons Hémécht - Faakelzuch - Nationalfeierdag
So as you probably heard, the last weekend was kind of hard for me because there was just simply so much to do and so little time...
First of all, on Thursday, I skipped some lectures to get the early train that takes me to Luxembourg in about 3.5 hours, the reason being that this was the evening before national day, which means lots of people streaming into our capital.
Line and her sister Jil picked me up at the central station and we went back to my place to meet Flo finally...This will feature in another article...So, I packed my things, took my uniform and went to the HOGA where we meet every year with my scout group to grill before going to the Faakelzuch or torch procession, if one can name it like that. I did manage to convince Annik and Lena to watch over me while I checked the quality of this year's strawberries harvest...Still pretty green in comparison with the ones Line gave me from her own garden...
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