Question for the Lab Rats: Trackback

I am in the process of installing a Trackback capability in my blog and have a question for you lab rats who are more blog savvy than me.

Here is what I have done so far:

I am aware that Blogger does not allow for that capability so I googled for a solution and found that one can install Greasemonkey in Firefox, add a userscript for Trackback, and presto: you have Trackback abilities in Blogger.

Indeed, I did exactly that and now above my "compose" box, there is a box where I can enter trackbacks. But every time I go to a website and click on trackback, it takes me to the comment section of that post. I thought I was supposed to obtain a URI to put in the trackback box which then pings the site to let them I included something from their site on my blog. What am I doing wrong?

Anybody? Anybody? Bueller? Bueller?

P.S. To those who have emailed with questions, etc., I am in the process of answering your emails. I am just running a little behind. OK, a lot behind but it has been a bad couple of weeks in terms of organization and getting things done in a timely fashion. ;-)

From Around the Web

Here are some interesting tidbits that I found while exploring the blogosphere/Web when I should have been in lab finishing up my reaction:

1) "The Simple Dollar" is a great site by Trent Hamm. I chose to highlight his quick primer on estate planning.

Many of these things--like the master document with personal letters--I have had on my to-do list for a long time now and I just have not gotten around to it. If I croaked tomorrow, my parents would have a huge mess to sort out and wouldn't have a clue where to find my financial accounts. And yes, this would fall to my parents as I am single and quickly approaching the age where I have a better chance of getting struck by lightning twice on the same day a year apart or dying in a terrorist attack than finding a mate.


2) "In the Pipeline"--a blog by Derek Lowe is a good site for the chemist and non-chemist alike. In this post, he highlights the recent announcement by Merck that they are closing down their natural products program.

The announcement makes me a little sad. When I was in grad school, I worked for a professor who was an organic chemist---but he applied it to natural products. Natural products (compounds found in nature from sources like marine sponges, plants or insects) were the rage in those days. In fact, in 2003, Chemical and Engineering News published an article about which companies had programs devoted to natural products.

I love natural product synthesis. Yes, I know--I am biased as my dissertation was on one such compound. But I love the challenge inherent in the synthesis of these kinds of molecules. Take a look at some of the structures in the CE&N article. Mother Nature makes some of the most beautiful and complex structures.

However, I am under no illusions. While attempting to synthesize these molecules, we expand our knowledge of organic chemistry and possibly broaden the methodologies in our synthetic arsenals. We may even be able to identify new biological targets or a new signal pathway based on a natural product's activity.

But the fact is Taxol and Vancomycin are the exceptions rather than the rule. Many natural products suffer from poor bioavailability, metabolic instability, or toxic side effects not to mention the sheer synthetic effort that must be applied to a large majority of them (read: too expensive to make; cost of drug would be astronomical).


3) For those needing an introduction to chemistry, here is my pick for Viral Video of the Day--I found it on The Chemistry Blog and embedded it here. It is an hysterical ad commissioned by the EU's Marie Curie Actions research program. BTW, this is my first attempt to embed a movie, so if you have problems viewing it, let me know.

Chemistry Can Be Fun - video powered by Metacafe

EDITED at 2:37AM 5/19/08:

Apologies to Mitch at The Chemistry Blog. While writing this post, I had several tabs open in IE to blogs that carried the video/linked to the video and as a result, I credited the wrong one. This error was corrected in the above post.

In the News: Larissa Schuster

From CNN.com:

http://tinyurl.com/4bfb8n

Chemist gets Life for Husband's Acid Vat Murder

A biochemist was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole Friday for killing her estranged husband by knocking him out and stuffing him into a vat of acid, possibly while he was still alive.

(snip)

Prosecutors said Schuster and her former lab assistant, James Fagone, first immobilized Timothy Schuster with a stun gun and a chloroform-soaked rag. Then they bound his hands and feet, dumped his body headfirst into a barrel while he was still breathing and poured hydrochloric acid on him.

At work, my colleagues and I have been watching this story unfold. If you are into grisly details, you can google this lady's name and read the blogs of local reporters covering her trial. It is truly horrific what she was convicted of doing. It is hard to fathom that someone could do this to another living being.

I don't know which is worse: (1) that a biochemist used her powers for evil instead of good or (2) that she didn't know that there are better things one can use to dissolve a body than concentrated HCl. She was trained in the chemistry of biological systems and that was the best she could come up with?**


**I say this somewhat tongue-in-cheek but in my lab at work, we were able to come up with a dozen things off the top of our heads that would have worked better. Just sayin'.

An Open Letter to Judge Joseph Doherty

For those who are unaware, the following open letter is regarding a criminal case stemming from an incident of dog abuse in Connecticut. The crime occurred in January 2008, but public outcry has been building since the case first came to light. The following are links that discuss the case:

http://www.wfsb.com/news/15048042/detail.html (some graphic pics)
http://www.pet-abuse.com/cases/12959/CT/US/ (site updates as case proceeds through the courts)

To the Honorable Joseph Doherty:

I am, admittedly, a HUGE dog lover. However, I do not see how anyone claiming to be human could read about the case of Saverino Cruz and the pit bull "Baby" and not be outraged. Even the most jaded individuals would be shocked at the details of this case.

I have read several accounts describing what occurred in January and I am aware the man at the center of this case is an illegal immigrant. I am also aware that many of the taxpayers in Connecticut would balk at paying the expense of incarcerating a citizen of another country (but when you established so-called "sanctuary cities" in defiance of federal law, I would suggest that you invite such problems but that is a soapbox for another day).

But please consider the facts of the case. This man found out while at work that his son was injured. Did he go straight to the hospital to check on his son? No, he left work in the middle of the day and went home to deal with the dog. I would submit he already had a vague notion of what he was going to do. Furthermore, he had the entire drive home to come to his senses. Instead, he brutalized a chained and caged dog.

I ask you to consider one other point: what happens when another human angers this man (animal abuse is a known indicator of future violent behavior)? If he doesn't serve time (or worse, gets off scot-free as his lawyer proposes), the greatest tragedy will not be that some one got away with animal abuse. It will be that the justice system had the opportunity to stop this man before he kills/maims someone's child, wife, mother, father, etc. and instead allowed it to slip away.

In the News: Pipeline Woes

From Chemical and Engineering News (Ann Thayer reporting):

http://pubs.acs.org/cen/news/86/i18/8618notw9.html

Major drug companies have been taking their lumps recently as drug candidates fail to impress regulators and falter in clinical trials. These setbacks bode ill for the industry overall. At FDA's current approval rate, the number of new drug entities reaching the market in 2008 could hit a new low.

Merck & Co. is among the hardest hit. The company received a nonapprovable letter from FDA on April 28 for its new cholesterol-lowering drug Cordaptive, a combination of niacin and laropiprant.

(snip)

On April 25, the FDA also said no to an allergy drug containing Merck's Singulair and Schering-Plough's Claritin. This letdown comes after the partners reported poor clinical results in March for the cholesterol-lowering combination drug Vytorin.

(snip)

Meanwhile, Bristol-Myers Squibb and its partner Medarex learned that FDA wants additional clinical data to demonstrate the benefit of ipilimumab, an antibody designed to improve immune responses against cancer cells. The request means the companies will not be able to file for approval this year.

Bad news came earlier in development for other firms. Partners Genentech and Biogen Idec said last week that Rituxan failed to meet any of the goals in a late-stage trial of lupus patients. The antibody drug is approved for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. And Sanofi-Aventis reported initial results showing no benefit from its new antidepressant, saredutant.

So will this latest news mean more layoffs in the pharmaceutical industry?

Merck has already annouced it will cut 1,200 jobs from its sales force as its stock price dropped 7% on the day of the FDA announcement. Stay tuned for more on pipeline woes.....