Fallout over a death threat and apology?

I previously wrote a short post in support of PZ Myers and his over-the-top post on the great cracker hijacking of 2008. Of course missing the point completely (albeit I can be understanding as PZ's hyperbole was intentionally inflammatory), a number of christians™ did what they do best and proceeded to exhort, damn, and otherwise hate on Dr. Myers. This isn't a christian trait by any stretch, get enough people together, offend them in some way, and a few will go all ape-shit in an anonymous fashion. So, the reaction was not unexpected. However, and again this could not be unexpected, Dr. Myers received some extremely threatening responses, including at least one death threat. 

Much to my satisfaction, Dr. Myers instituted a publication policy stating that he reserves the right to post any threatening emails he receives with full identifying information. (Note to self:  delete recent draft of email to Dr. Myers.) So of course, more emails come in and he posts two of them for his vast audience's perusal. Now PZ notes that he simply wanted to advertise these emails and the identifying information that could be found there and that's it. Sad Sad Sad. I will take him at his word and assume he meant what he said, however, I will also assume that he is naive (at best) or delusional (at worst) and I am leaning more towards the latter than the former.  PZ has been blogging since before there was a blogosphere, he's like those early bacterial species generating O2, which eventually increased atmospheric oxygen levels to levels that allowed us respiratory bloggers a niche in which to grow. When you post this kind of "anonymous" information in relation to someone who sent you a threatening email, your computer savvy (and not so savvy) readers will attempt to gather information on the sender. Why? because its a challenge, "what can I learn and post in a comment revealing more information" mindset. You want to know why this psychological perspective exists, look at all the reality shows on the damn tube. People want up close and personal information and many people are willing to go after it.

Now the first email came with readily obvious information, which was immediately problematic for the sender. It came from a 1800flowers.com email address, and represented an obvious employee's account. The stupid would burn if it wasn't for the fact that people seem to check their brains when the modem light comes on. Alright, so why does this matter? Well the email read (punctuation, grammar, spelling in the original post)...

Paul,
what I would like to know is how did you even get a job at a collage. when you are obviously a moron. How would you feel if nice folks starting ranting against Fags, and atheist like yourself. well sir, you don't get to blaspheme and walk away from this. You have two choices my fucked up friend, first you can quit your job for the good of the children. Or you can get your brains beat in. I give you till the first of the month, get that resignation in cunt

Call me an idiot, but WOW, strike that FUCKING WOW! Just to be a complete asshole let me try a do over for the sender...

Dear Dr. Myers,

What I would like to know is, how did you even get a job at a college when you are obviously a moron? How would you feel if nice folks started ranting against fags and atheists like yourself? Well sir, you don't get to blaspheme and walk away from this. You have two choices my fucked up friend, first, you can quit your job for the good of the children or second, you can get your brains beat in. I give you until the first of the month to get that resignation in, you cunt!

Now I am not to happy with the corrected version, but damn! Brain cells were flinging themselves out of my ears like rats from a sinking ship while I was typing that. I mean, jesus christ, "...if nice folks starting ranting against Fags..." What the hell is your definition of nice?

Now it turns out numerous individuals contacted 1800flowers and informed the company that an employee's email account was used to send a threatening email. Long story short, said employee got fired.....because the email was sent by her husband! It was sent by Mr. Kroll using Mrs. Kroll's work email account. Now in no way do I believe Mr. Kroll was acting maliciously in using said email account. He is too damn stupid to understand that aspect. Now while many posters in the comments of several blogs have anguished over Mrs. Kroll's firing, I am less forgiving.

Alright, that is the back story. Now we finally get to the purpose of this post. Chuck Kroll issues an apology? (punctuation is correct) You can read the post uninterrupted at that link, I just want to break down several aspects in this long winded apology/diatribe.

Melanie Kroll did not send an email to anyone named Paul. Melanie Kroll did not threaten anyone in an email with death, or as was the case in the email in question, a physical beating.

Does "Paul" get a last name too or is it only catholics?

this email did not come from 1-800-flowers, or anyone connected in anyway shape or form to that company

Connected like being married to said employee and sent while logged into a 1800flowers server? 

The fact is, that this email to the so called professor,

No in actual fact PZ Myers is a professor, not a "so called" professor unlike Mr. Kroll a so called christian. 

was sent by an angry male catholic, who was very upset after reading that some crazed person in a position of responsibility, charged with teaching children biology, had been encouraging people to steal and desecrate the body of CHRIST, which for Catholics is represented by the Eucharist.

Where to start...would it matter if PZ was a firefighter? or taught French? He never encouraged anyone to steal anyone's body and if you think a piece of bread is a human body, can we amplify christ's DNA from it? Also, he never asked anyone to desecrate a piece of bread, he wanted to do it himself..I mean if you can desecrate a piece of bread.

I know this to be true, since I wrote the original email to this so called teacher.

Again with the so called.....sigh

Was the tone of the letter terse, and did I say I would beat his brains in, yes I did.
I wrote this in the same way one does when saying “I’ll beat your ass”, “or kick I’ll kick your butt” or other such niceties used by members of the unpolished masses, such as myself.

Please assclown do not include yourself in the unpolished masses club. Im one and I don't use the term "cunt" lightly. By the way, I can kick a butt and beat an ass and not kill anyone, but if I bash in someone's brain they are effectively fucked.

 I live a thousand miles away from this guy.

Planes asshole, or car....1000 miles/60 miles per hour = less than a days drive.

My anger at what he (Myers) was doing,

Typing?

and the fact that there seems to be a double standard used by these so called intellectuals such as Paul Myers to attack the religion of millions of Americans, and to encourage others to do so made me see red. 

so called #3. What is the double standard? Only christians are allowed to send death threats?

Upon reflection, and reading many of the comments made, I feel that no matter how mad I was, it did not make it right for me to use the language or tone I used. In fact, I think there would have been many more constructive things I could have done, the angry email was just the simplest way.
And I’m sorry.

Poor start, but Mr Kroll really pulled it out at the finish which seemed ok....what? there's more? But he said sorry, what else is there to say?

There are many folks that read, and biog. at this site who are not religious, perhaps you feel it’s silly, outdated, or superstition, fine. This is your right,

Ok, I dont know why he's going on, this is correct but so freaking obvious my head hurts...what there's more?

 but for people in positions of responsibility and with the power to encourage captive undeveloped minds to attack their neighbors beliefs is just insane, divisive, and maybe even criminal.

Ok I see, only halfwits like yourself are allowed to be assholes. If you have a reliably firing neuron you must tread softly. This must explain why the so called Mr Kroll never sent a death threat to Bill Donohue. By the way, why is it ok for Dr. Myers to believe these rituals are based on silly outdated superstitions, but he should not talk about it on his (personal fucking) blog, whereas the religious can believe any old batshit crazy things they want and indoctrinate undeveloped minds?

I wonder if that university where mr. myers is employed excepts any money from the state?

Of course it does moron...Its the University of Minnesota: Morris. Must have taken too long to look it up or see it on the sidebar of PZ's site or read it in the blogs you are clearly getting your information™ from.

 And I wonder if the good people of this state know that they are paying good, hard earned tax dollars on such a disturbing creature as mr. myers.?

Dr. Myers, its Dr. Myers Mr. Kroll. Let's see Dr. Myers has been interviewed numerous times in the papers, most recently in relation to being expelled from a screening of the movie Expelled, in which he played a role. Since the movie was about how bad it is that creationism intelligent design is being kept out of schools, I expect anyone capable of reading or being read to is able to be aware of Dr. Myers opinions on religion.

 I know for a fact that the University is aware of mr. myers antics, and have disavowed his statements.

So? Your wife seems to have disavowed your actions. What's your point?

I am going to write to mr. Myers and offer him my apologies for using such childish language, and the threatening way in which I presented myself to him. It is my hope that he will forgive me, or hold me accountable. However, I think it is his duty to repair the damage that he and his associates have achieved through their concerted and organized campaign to punish both Melanie Kroll, and 1-800-flowers, who were completely blameless in this matter.

Umm, Mr Kroll? About that apology earlier, I am feeling a little uncomfortable with...you know what? Fuck you. There I said it. No more pansy footing around. Mr Kroll you are a despicable little troll of a man. You know you're despicable, but are fortunate enough to be able to cloak yourself in religion to try and hide that fact from yourself and those around you. 1. Your wife is not completely blameless, she let you have access to her email account. Thus, nullifying your completely blameless hypothesis. If you (Mr. Kroll) had logged her out or even taken the time to check where you were sending this ADMITTEDLY threatening email none of this would have happened. You could have sent the email from another account (try gmail, yahoo, or hotmail for starters) and your wife would have her job. Concerted and organized....paranoid much? Yes, PZ was kidding himself when he posted the information. However, many commentors went to bat for your wife and PZ insisted people stop emailing 1800flowers (of course that ship had sailed). Regardless, its on you asshat. Blaming PZ and those that contacted 1800flowers is like blaming your mother for birthing you. Actually it probably is more her fault since your parents likely indoctrinated you into the hateful self-absorbed puke you are.

However, this whole incident has caused someone who had nothing to do with the email to mr.myers,.a wonderful, sweet person who would never threaten anyone terrible troubles. Great harm has been done to this wonderful lady, without proof or a question asked, you just accuse, and assume.

Liar liar pants on fire! Show me where Dr. Myers accused and assumed that Mkroll sent the email. Was it this? "for one thing, we can't be certain that an innocent's account hasn't been hijacked; for another, we're supposed to be better than that." or this "Please STOP SENDING EMAIL TO THESE INDIVIDUALS. There are too many of you, the over-reaction is excessive, and you are not doing our reputation any favor. See this message for more."

Wow and I thought you liberal folks were supposed to be the open minded ones.

Sweet, nice use of the FOX "liberal" there. By open minded, are you referring to after you bashed in PZ's brains?

It is my hope that since the mystery is now removed, and now that the Identity of the horrible person who dared write such crude things to the mr. myers is known, that the same people who put so much effort into harming Melanie Kroll, will use as much effort to right the wrong that has been done to her.

Right the wrong, right the wrong....hmm, Dear Mrs. Kroll, I know an excellent divorce lawyer...

If there is responsibility, and any seek revenge or if there is a need for consequence, it should fall on me, and me alone.

Duh, ya think? But if you are responsible, why is it Dr. Myers' duty to get your wife's job back? I don't get it.

The email account used to send the email was used by mistake, I sent the email from what I thought was my private account, not the 1-800 email account that was used. I had simply clicked on the link to the professors email in the article.

You forgot so called. Also, your wife almost certainly violated the use policies for the 18o0flowers account. Your toolness simply let the company know that. For the record, I send flowers often to family members and friends across the country, ask me if I would use 1800flowers if some action had not been taken. I think the company is knowledgeable about these issues even if you are not. Bad press is not better than no press, unless you're a creationist.

. It’s somewhat amazing to me, that a guy responding (albeit brutishly) )to
a news article about a crazed professor who was encouraging his students and others to
desecrate the American catholic church, could turn into this orgy of innuendo, and an attack on an innocent, hard working mother of three, and a company that hires many underprivileged people, and single mothers as a matter of policy.

So what is it? A piece of bread, a chunk of human meat, or a frigging building, you are confusing me. Orgy of innuendo? Please. Innocent? She exposes her 3 children to the rantings of an apparent lunatic. Attack? I am sure some assholes sent inflammatory and vile emails in protest, much like yourself Mr. Kroll. But I also expect most were simply informative and if the assholes who sent inflammatory emails did it from their work computers or let someone do it from their work account, I expect their jobs are in jeopardy too.

I want to thank some of the level headed people that have posted here. Some who seem so super smart to me, it’s almost intimating!

Low bar phenomenon

 My sending mr. myers that wrongheaded stupid email was never the fault of Melanie Kroll, or 1800-flowers, or the pope, or Bill DONAHUE, not even the president. It was just my gut reaction to statements made by mr. myers and his disciples.

Approaching a closing apology....?

In closing I still maintain that if mr. myers. Or anyone, who is encouraging people to desecrate the Eucharist, or if he is doing so himself, I would like to beat his brains in, would I? I don’t know.
I’ve never done so before. Though, at that one moment when I was reading his statements..?
I suppose If I caught him doing it, I would try to stop him.

Apology denied!

I wonder if all of you perfectly politically correct folks here, the ones who prefer to stifle any thought, or debate that does not fit into the approved thoughts of the day.
Would find it so interesting, or funny, if mr.myers were attacking the Muslim or Jewish religions, or encouraging others do so?

Hey moron, spend a minute doing some research. Myers attacks any and all religions, christianity turns up most often because of fucks like you, who live and breath right here next door. Groups that insist we give them super extra special consideration in all things.

What many folks don’t know, is that mr. myers seems to have a warm spot for the Islamic religion.

Prove it. Read the post on the Koran, read the post on the father who beat his daughter to death and got away with it and then had the wife killed when she left him.

 We know this from his spirited defense of Islam in the past, he insists Islam differs from other religions.

Prove it.

 It seems that mr.myers can’t even be a good atheist.
His thesis is that, it’s wrong to attack Islamic houses of worship and symbols, because they are poor and minorities. 

Do not confuse a building or ancient monument with a ritz cracker.

At least that is what a reasonable person would gather from mr. myers past statements.

How the hell would you know what a reasonable person would gather? You sent an email threatening someone's life over a cracker. If you would not have acted on it, why the fuck would a reasonable person have sent it?

That Islam is the largest religion in the world is of no matter to this professor.

why is that? Would not Islam be a fair target for mr.myers disgusting
attacks as well? If you believed that the attacks on Catholics are fair, even correct, then why not
other religions that hold that there is a God. Is Islam less wrong about this then Catholicism or Judaism mr. myers?

One syllable summarizes my interpretations of Mr. Kroll. Douche.

My feeling is that mr.myers would never dare attack Muslims, or their beliefs. Even though as an atheist, you think he would. I mean just to be fair. I hate to use a military term here, but my feeling is that Catholics are just easy targets for people like mr. myers.

Get off the cross asshole, people need the wood.

As mr. myers, should know, and most intellectually honest people do know, attacking the Muslim religion or advocating attacks of it’s symbols and traditions would not have resulted in a stupid but boorish email from a “Nutjob whacko, and all-around asshole catholic ” as ole ylooshi here, so eloquently posted above.
It may very well have resulted (if the recent 30 or so year past is any indication) with the good professor hearing the words Allah Akbar shouted into his ear, while not so nice things were happening to him, perhaps things like, being shot in the lobby of a travel agency, being thrown overboard of his cruise ship, or being shot at the airport ticket counter at lax, or maybe being driven over by a student in the college parking lot, could be the bus he rides would have been torn to shreds by a homicide bomber, or even being murdered while riding his bicycle to work, or perhaps he would have been sitting at his office computer, when one the offended folks drove an airplane through his window.

Keep praying Mr. Kroll, maybe your god will answer your prayers. If not it simply means your god was busy smiting some protestants, gays, Iowans, meh pick some place in the news. Or maybe your god doesn't like it when you call someone a cunt, I don't know.

By the way, how does Islam have anything to do with this? You sent a threatening email to PZ Myers, breaking federal and likely several laws protecting us from terrorists and terroristic activity. Are you saying that if Dr. Myers had more posts railing against bombastic asshats who follow Islam, you wouldn't have sent that email? I thought it was a gut reaction after reading a report on a ffaaaaarrrrrr right wing site that prompted you to write it? So now you wrote it because your readings of Pharyngula led you to believe there is an imbalance in the religion bashing and you want that rectified? Please explain.....What? Oh right, douche, I forgot.

Now I ask you, if that’s a fact. am I lying.

Its not a fact and yes you a re a liar. If it were a fact, sadly you would still be a liar. But hey, at least you're consistent.

C. Kroll,
Brookhaven, NY

p.s. it is my prayer that none of these terrible acts that I mentioned above happen to the good professor, or any other American for that matter. Jew, Christen, Muslim, or even atheist.

I am sure you pray it, but I expect the thought still gives you a little stiffy.

In support of that bastard Myers

There is a current little war being waged in one little niche of the blogosphere. In one corner we have PZ Myers, who has one of the more popular science/atheist websites on the net at the moment. In the other corner we have Bill Donohue, the president of the self-proclaimed spokes organization for the Catholic Church in America. At issue the eucharist. In a post, Dr. Myers responded to a news item, describing a student who took a wafer/cracker/cookie from a church, instead of worshiping, loving, holy shit EATING it!!! This kid is getting a lot of shit and death threats, because he took a wafer from the church instead of eating it. That bears repeating...

A living breathing human being is hated, reviled, and threatened because he walked out of a building with a small edible piece of cooked flour and water instead of eating it.

Now I am not Catholic, nor was I raised Catholic. However, the Lutheran and Baptist churches I went to had a similar ceremony, albeit I expect the focus was on the ceremony not the piece of bread as it appears to be for Catholics. Now PZ wrote some inflammatory things (at least inflammatory if you've been brainwashed schooled in the catholic tradition) and asked that his audience help him do some unnamed acts to said cookie wafer. Bill Donohue, speaking for all Catholics took offense at this, again on behalf of all Catholics. This led immediately to a protest to the University of Minnesota to get Dr. Myers fired. For some updates, check here, here and especially here (I love the Xian turn the other cheek love thy neighbor responses in the letters to PZ).

Now my initial response is that PZ crossed a line and should full well have expected the response he received. I agree with him almost to the letter, but my word choice would have been different. At issue here is whether the student (have we forgotten that PZ's initial post was in response to members of a Catholic church getting up in arms over a student taking a piece of the eucharist from a church, and by up in arms I do mean death threats! fucking death threats!!!). If you want to go through the communion ceremony and feel closer to your god, fine. Good for you. But I the problem lies in those members of that faith who believe that the wafer is actually in fact and in truth the body of Jesus. Ok I know the bible verse Luke 22:19 And when He had taken some bread and given thanks, He broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me." (New American Standard edition) So how does this work, in the story of the last supper, I am assuming that the bread, which presumably had been on the table the whole time, didn't disappear only to be replaced with actually parts of Jesus' body in the form of bread. If that is the argument, then did Jesus have a bunch of wounds afterwards from the chunks of flesh that flipped into the breadbasket? or is it a metaphor (assuming it actually happened)? If it was a metaphor, why is the cookie now an actual part of Jesus? I just don't get it....not enough prepubescent guilt/hope brainwashing I guess.

I started out agreeing with PZ, although feeling compassionate for the religious side. Now I agree with PZ and no longer feel compassionate. I mean WHAT THE FUCK?!?!

I believe in the Purple Unicorn of Belize and in the holy ceremonies celebrating and remembering the splendid world which her holy horsey gave us by spilling her blood into the beer steins of those first Octoberfesters. I do dedicate this fine India Pale Ale in her name as the true blood of our Purple Unicorn. If anyone should try to Snarf my beer or take another but not chug it within the ordained 5 minutes, I shall be morally offended and may have to bust a cap in their ass.

Tell me the difference in these stories.....Ill start. 1. Story #1 has been around a bit longer than the one I pulled out of my ass. Your turn.

Oh and thinking of wafers, I couldnt help but leave you with this...

New T-shirt

I was hoping to get a picture of my new T-shirt (a gift from a like minded individual who I will allow to remain anonymous). Sadly, I didn't. I did wear it today proudly as promised. From the public I encountered, I heard 4 positive responses and 0 negative responses, which surprised me. Anyway, below is the shirt and I recommend buying one for all your friends.

By the way, I think many people may be concerned that the T-shirt is insulting. However, I have thought about it and in fact I can not come up with an offensive message from the shirt, unless you believe it nullifies Jesus's accomplishments as a scientist. Enjoy!

On Being a Post-Doc

Over at Highly Allochthonous Dr. Rowan asks a question on the minds of many/most post-doctoral researchers. "How long do I have to do this before I can get a real fucking job?" I posted a rather long rambling answer to this there, but thought I would expand on it here a bit, because it is always timely.

By way of full disclosure, I did one post-doc before getting a faculty position. I also know of and have known dozens of post-docs over my career as an undergrad through the present. However, most of my thoughts originate from my direct experiences as a post-doc. Thus, these will not apply to everyone.

First, when you are completing graduate school and thinking about post-docs, think beyond the post-doc. Where do you want to end up? Do you want to be a research scientist at a tier one research institution or do you want to teach science at a small liberal arts college? Do you want to go into industry? Science writing? The possibilities are endless. However, if you don't have an idea of what you want to do in the long term, stop reading and go figure that out first. By the way, you can take some time after graduate school to figure it out, maybe doing a temporary post-doc in your thesis advisor's lab or a related lab nearby (however, I do not recommend this for more than a few months as the best course of action).

Ok, you know what you want to do. Now you need to find a post-doctoral mentor that can help you reach that goal.

If you want to go primarily into teaching, why would you go to a high powered lab with 5 other post-docs who are at least partially competing with each other to get the next Science/Nature/Cell paper? Not that you couldn't do well there, but what you really need, in addition to research and pubs, is some teaching experience. So find a post-doctoral mentor that will accommodate you being out of the lab to teach a section of undergraduates or a class at a community college. Also, just because you are primarily interested in teaching undergraduates, you may want to, or have to, continue doing some research. How about doing a post-doc in a bacterial or fungal lab? These organisms tend to be easy to handle in a small college setting. The supplies to grow and study them are fairly inexpensive and its possible to get a lot of data in a short time by asking the right questions using undergraduates. Remember you will not be doing this research much yourself, you'll be teaching 2-3 classes a semester. But think of the excitement and passion for science you can generate in your undergraduates by giving them readily doable (and publishable) projects!

If you want to go primarily into research (this is my track), then you need to be thinking about the research program you will have as a future PI. Here's a question you must ask when you interview with a potential mentor, "What aspects of the work I do can I take with me for my own lab?" If you don't ask that question in some clear way, you are a fucking moron. You might get lucky regardless, but morons sometimes do. You are striving to establish your own career, while working in someone's lab who is trying to maintain their own career, so this isn't trivial. The answer might be, anything done here, stays here. Isn't it better to know you will likely be directly competing with an established funded filled to capacity lab before you even unpack at your new position? If the answer is like this, find another post-doc with a different answer or plan on doing a second post-doc. You may get an "I expect you to work on this for me, but you can also establish your own projects to take with you." or "Whatever you want to take, take." answer. The permutations are endless, but you need this information! Also, talk to the current and former members of the lab, has the mentor scooped a trainee trying to start their own lab in the past? Its not common but it happens (regardless of the answers given above). Remember at the end of the day when an unpleasant surprise greets you, no one in your department, at NIH NSF or the DOE, on the tenure committee is going to give two shits about your "Its not fair!" approach. Its not fair, its sucks, and while I dont like to blame the victim, in most cases I've seen, its due to the victim not doing their homework or blatantly ignoring all the warnings.

Alrighty, you've got the perfect post-doc! How do you know when its done? My advice is be thinking about jobs from day 1, because success in getting a job is due to luck as much as skill. What you need to do is try your best to stack the deck in your favor. You will need publications, a strong rapport with your mentor, and contacts outside your current research center (independent funding is also a gigantic plus (a training grant/NRSA is not gigantic since these are primarily given to the mentor)). To be marketable for the research track, you will need at least 3 publications within 2-3 years, more is better and it can easily take a little longer depending on your field. Regardless, now is not the time to be dappling with 4 different projects. Also, to quote myself, publication quality matters more than quantity, but D'uh. Impact (not impact factor) is important, though often overlooked. If you are publishing high quality papers that are essentially in the "more of the same" variety this does not have as much impact as a paper establishing a new approach to study a problem, a new way of thinking about a problem, etc. If you are doing what everyone else is doing (albeit in your specific area) you can not set yourself apart from your competitors. BTW dont kid yourself, it is a competition and you generally don't get to see the competition in action. Obviously you want a strong rapport with your mentor, if you don't have that consider yourself terminally fucked (shouting matches with your mentor can often be an indication of a strong rapport). Finally, outside contacts to write you letters of reference is a great way to set yourself apart. If you can, skip your thesis advisor, its like asking a parent for a letter. Getting your mentor and 2-3 top researchers at top research centers to write letters is like gold. When you go up for tenure (if you are in a tenure-track position), you need outside letters and everyone knows it. If you can show the hiring committees that you are already establishing yourself, you've gained several strides on your competition. Finally, obtaining a post-doc to PI transition award is essentially a free pass to a faculty position (but these are not trivial to get and you shouldn't count on them).

Ok, you have interesting and important pubs, your god-like mentor adores you and departmental chairs across the nation are emailing you for help, now what? Pray and pray often, and dont be choosy about the deities you pray to. This is where it becomes a crap shoot. Again plagiarizing myself the issue is the job market and how your research area/skills fit into the job market. When you apply and go on the job search you need to leave the committees with an idea about what you will bring to the institution. Your specific research area will get you in the door, but how you approach science and think about things will get you an offer. What you cannot control is what research areas will be in demand (actually you can usually determine if an area will likely not be in demand, which can help).

As I said there is a ton of luck involved, although to a large extent you can stack the deck in your favor. I got a faculty position after 2.5 years of post-doc. This was not the norm nor am I some super-star, primarily this was being in the right place at the right time (this is the luck component and why I only got a few interviews). However, I also had a bigger view about my research area than the specific niche I was immersed in or at least I think I did and the projects I was involved with had broad ramifications (the stacking the deck component and why I got offers from every place I interviewed).

So, to all those soon-to-be and current post-docs out there take my opinions with a five pound tablet of salt along with this heart-felt "Good Luck!"

Evolution Steers Research Leads to Knowledge Potential Cure

This is a story about a transposon aptly named Sleeping Beauty, it could have been named Rip van Winkle, but I do think Sleeping Beauty is more apt. Now I am not going to go into the details of what a transposon is, that information can be found many places. Suffice it to say that transposons are small bits of DNA that hop around another organism's genome. There are bacterial transposons, yeast, drosophila, worm, fish, primate transposons. Basically there are transposons found in all cellular lifeforms. What is great about transposons for a geneticist is that if you can control when they hop, you can generate a series of essentially random mutations in a heartbeat. If the transposon hops into a gene whose product is required to make the amino acid arginine, your mutant will not be able to grow in the absence of arginine in the medium. This is great if you are interested in understanding how a cell makes arginine and this approach has been used since the 1960s to study and understand many basic cellular processes in bacteria and in eukaryotes. In the post-genomics universe, transposons are also a powerful tool because you know the DNA sequence of the given transposon you are using (if not get another job). So, once you have a mutant you are interested in, identifying the gene disrupted by the transposon is fairly trivial.

Now transposon were used to study primarily "simple" organisms, such as bacteria and yeast for half a century. However, transposons were not used for genetic studies in mammalian organisms because active/functional transposons did not exist. This despite the fact that a major part of our (and other mammals) genome is composed of nothing but transposons and transposon remnants. Although many transposons are intact within the genome, they are non-functional because they contain mutations that have accumulated over time. (Tangential creationist bash - one tenet of the creationist/ID movement is that mutations are uniformly bad. From the perspective of the transposon these mutations are bad, from our perspective having transposons hopping around in our cells is a bad idea so the mutations are good).

In 1997 Ivics and colleagues published a paper in Cell that changed all this. They looked at a non-functional transposon called Tc1/Mariner, which is found in fish humans and other organisms. The idea was to recreate a functional transposon from these Mariners that all contain mutations. However, a transposon can move through a population vertically (think mother to child) or horizontally (think person to person, like the flu although this is not to suggest that transposons are infectious.) So if a transposon picks up mutation in one cell then all the descendants of that cell will have a transposon with that mutation due to vertical transmission. The idea here is that just because all the Mariner transposon in a salmon have a given nucleotide at some position in the sequence does not mean that the nucleotide is not a mutation. So how do you figure out the original "functional" transposon sequence? Ivics obtained the Mariner sequence from 8 different fish species and aligned them using standard sequence analysis computer programs. From this they established a consensus sequence, that is the DNA sequence of Mariner found most often in the different species and identified the important domains (Fig A) of the transposase (the enzyme that carries out the transposition reaction).



When compared to the salmon Mariner a number of mutations were identified (Fig B). Ivics and colleagues then first fixed all the premature stop codon mutations to the correct amino acid (changing SB1 to SB3. The protein expressed from this sequence still did not do too much.



Next, they changed a number of amino acids to make SB4, the protein made from this sequence was not functional as a transposase, but it did localize to the nucleus! This is an important step forward as the transposase needs to be in the nucleus to carry out its function. The researchers then went through a number of steps SB5-SB8 and finally obtained a protein capable of binding DNA, and 2 steps later they generated a functional transposase. This transposase also works when introduced into mammalian cells. Genetic researchers working on vertebrate organisms rejoice! This is why Sleeping Beauty is an apt name, the transposon was relatively simply to reactivate and has been essentially sleeping in our genomes for hundreds of millennia but is now such a powerful tool for understanding ourselves it is indeed beautiful.

Step forward to 2008, by introducing the transposon into mammalian cell lines or into mice, we have a system where we can generate essentially random mutations when and where we want simply by turning on Mariner (the transposase) when and where we want (this is done using specific promoters). The transposase is expressed causing the transposon to hop into new sites in the genome, some of which will have an effect you are interested in. For example, this approach has been used to identify genes involved in the progression of specific type of cancers (do a pubmed search for sleeping beauty for a ton of references). In short, adapting transposon mutagenesis to higher eukaryotic organisms is revolutionizing our understanding of ourselves.

So lets go back to the beginning, if you doubt evolution and believe in creation/ID you must not allow any medical benefits arising from this research to be used on you. How do you justify the approach taken by Ivics and colleagues without evolution? From evolutionary theory, it makes perfect sense to take Ivics' approach. In order to think you can regenerate an active Mariner from these disparate sequences from different species, you have to assume that there was an original active Mariner in the ancient history of the ancestor of these species. After speciation occurred the Mariners could accumulate mutations that inactivated them. However, these mutations occurred independently in the different lineages. Because this happened, it is possible to predict what the ancestral active sequence was by determining the consensus sequence. Now its possible that the ancestor sequence was already non-functional, but that is not the case here. Regardless, how do you begin this research project from a creationist perspective.....you don't, it makes no sense whatsoever. What about an ID perspective? Well I guess if you believe the designer is a sloppy lazy stupid drunk, then maybe you could go down the right path, but I have yet to hear an IDiot say they thought god was either sloppy, lazy, stupid, or drunk much less all four simultaneously.

Grants and productivity

AAARRGGGHHHH. I want to be posting more, but with a grant deadline looming and papers to get out (and most importantly, being a papa) there's really no time to blog. Hopefully things will calm down early next month. That said, this is my first experience submitting an NIH R01 electronically. With all the modern technology, you'ld think it would be easier to get done. However, our grant office needs the grant 5 business days ahead, not to mention our departmental office needs a couple of days to look it over before it goes to the grant office. So, my June 5th deadline is really a May 27th deadline. The "old" way, I could still make corrections to the grant right up until June 4th 6PM, and then FEDEX it to NIH.

Academic Freedom Bill Discussion Tomorrow morning

If you are interested in hearing some discussion about the Orwellian Academic Freedom Bills being introduced in several states, including Minnesota, then you should tune into AM950 KTNF for the Atheists Talk radio show tomorrow morning at 9AM (CST). Greg Laden will be the guest.