God: The Failed Science Professor

I wish I could say I was creative enough to have come up with this, but I didn't.
Taken from http://www.getamused.com/jokes/0101103.html

Why God Never Received Tenure at Any University
1. He had only one major publication.
2. It was in Hebrew.
3. It had no references.
4. It wasn't published in a refereed journal.
5. Some even doubt He wrote it Himself.
6. It may be true that He created the world, but what has He done since then?
7. His cooperative efforts have been quite limited.
8. The scientific community has had a hard time replicating His results.
9. He never applied to the Ethics Board for permission to use human subjects.
10. When one experiment went awry He tried to cover it up by drowning the subjects.
11. When subjects didn't behave as predicted, He deleted them from the sample.
12. He rarely came to class, just told students to read the Book.
13. Some say He had His son teach the class.
14. He expelled His first two students for learning.
15. Although there were only ten requirements, most students failed His tests.
16. His office hours were infrequent and usually held on a mountaintop.

Oy Vey, a Busy Week Ahead

This week is going to be pretty busy! Here's a short list of the awesome things this week has in store:

• Monday: Public lecture by E. O. Wilson. Dr. Wilson is a very famous name in biology and is speaking at the U of A as part of the centennial celebrations. He's famous for a slew of things: his studies in sociobiology (he coined the term itself), his studies on ants (he's known as The Ant Man!), and his concern for ecology and conservation are just some of them. He's also a humanist to boot (though he sometimes leans towards deism).

• Tuesday: Important day to us video game addicts. Tuesday is the release date for the hotly anticipated Left 4 Dead. For those of you not familiar with it, Left 4 Dead is an online co-operative first person shooter where you and four friends must survive a post-zombie apocalypse by mowing down wave after wave of blood-thirsty undead while making your way to safety. Also being released this day is the Lord of the Rings Online expansion pack, The Mines of Moria (I'm a huge Tolkein nerd, so I'm getting this for sure) and the Dungeons and Dragons based Storm of Zehir (I will also be getting this to satisfy my D&D needs until I can get a group up and running). Looks like Tuesday will be an expensive day for me....

• Wednesday: The U of A Atheists and Agnostics are hosting a talk by Dan Barker entitled "Can you Be Moral Without God?". Looks to be an interesting talk. He'll also be signing books (and if you don't have one, there will be a few copies for sale!)

• Thursday and Friday: These days look free, but given Tuesday's release schedule, I think I know what I'll be doing...
  

Coming soon: Regular posts again

Now that I'm back from Boston, iGEM is wrapped up for the year (though I'm going to volunteer to casually help finish our project), I should be back to making regular posts here at In Vivo. I've been swamped with things to take care of lately, but I have some things in mind to write about. I'm also reading Craig Venter's autobiography A Life Decoded, so expect a book review sometime in the future.

P.S. iGEM jamboree was a blast. Undergrads in science/engineering, I urge you to get involved in the competition at your school, or if you don't have a team, speak to a molecular biology/cell bio/biochemestry/microbiology professor about starting one!

Congratulations, America.

Obama wins.
Congratulations, America. You made the right choice.
After 8 years of utter incompetence, you are on the cusp of 4 years of sanity.
Perhaps now your country will rise above it's reputation as laughing stock of the international stage.
Congratulations.