As a brief follow up to the post about Dr. Andras Pellionisz's Google seminar, I cannot help but quote from his website:

Since a US Government-mandated (and taxpayer paid) 4-year study (ENCODE, led by Dr. Collins) established the scientific fact that (at the least a significant part of) formerly "written off" so-called "non-coding DNA" is massively involved in genome function, US government-supported professionals who after the release of ENCODE (reversal of the Establishment in 2007) neglect to to follow Dr.

Those of you who read Genomicon v1 or other blogs that discuss non-coding DNA will, for better or worse, be familiar with regular commenter Andras Pellionisz. Many people have concluded that Dr. Pellionisz is essentially a "crank", though I believe I have tried to give him a fair hearing on the blog (before asking him to stop repeating the same arguments over and over). Whether he has managed to convince anyone of his view that all non-coding DNA is functional is another issue, however. Readers should judge this for themselves. Thus, here are links to his website, a recent article, and a recent Google Tech presentation.

www.junkdna.com (home of the "avant-garde society that formally abandoned 'junk DNA'")

I don't get too concerned about things such as titles, but I have noticed that this year a more substantial number of students has been sending emails addressed to "Mr. Gregory". I don't know if the students this year are unaware that most professors hold a Ph.D. and therefore are "Dr." and not "Mr." (or "Ms." as the case may be), but this seems to be much more common lately. Has anyone else noticed this?

I know this can get a bit confusing, so let me try to explain it, at least as the terms are used in North America.

I came across this interesting forum on Spore. I hope SpongB6F1 won't mind if I quote this posting at length, as I think it is very insightful.

"Science Spore" would be ideal.



...



I think many people will claim that although some kind of abstract commitment to science would have been nice in Spore, what they really want is just some decent, engaging and clever gameplay, instead of a rigid pattern of repetitive, simplistic grinding tasks.

One of the reasons I was interested in giving some comments on the science in Spore is that I am a big fan of video games but rarely have a chance to play anymore. The discussion about Spore (which I wasn't asked to evaluate as a game per se) got me thinking back on the games I have really enjoyed playing. So, just for fun, I have come up with this list of some of my favourite games. Now, these go back to my elementary school days in the 1980s, so bear with me. It's a mix of console and computer games and is a little behind the times as I don't have much time for games anymore. Here they are largely in chronological order.

I have complained recently about the state of basic research support in Canada, as the current government is pushing for more short-sighted, applied, industry-oriented work. This is as nothing compared to the attitude of some politicians south of the 49th.



Here is how a recent paper of mine began*: