An Epic Ballade of Texas

I am happy to announce that my first research article as a postdoctoral fellow is now fully published, available online and anywhere highly-specialized molecular biology journals are sold. If you happen to be at a library or a university, you may be able to access the paper in all its online glory by clicking here . Otherwise, check out the PDF , and/or read on! This paper was a bit of a family affair. As you can see above, I am the "first author" of this paper, but my wife also appears as a "middle author" ( i.e. she had substantial scientific contributions to the paper- this was while she was working in my lab the year before entering graduate school). [In case you missed it the first time] Moreover, while he is not acknowledged in the paper, my brother Brian gave a helping hand as well. I needed to run a program in Linux, but the program was no longer being updated/supported, and thus the OS needed substantial modifications to run the program. Who ...

I am in the third year of my postdoctoral fellowship, and each year I have traveled to the International RNA Society Conference. My first year it was held in Ann Arbor, Michigan; my second year it was held in Davos, Switzerland; and this year, it was held in beautiful Quebec City, Canada. The purpose of the trip was to present the work I've been doing, and to learn about the work that others around me are doing. For example, here's my lab-mate giving a talk:  The official itinerary consisted of sitting for talks, then eating, then sitting for more talks, then snacking, then more talks, then more eating. The food was quite good, including- yes- poutine: Of course I also took a number of strategically-placed breaks from the meeting to do some exploring of the city. Conveniently enough, the convention center was located right across the street from Quebec's Parliament building:   Then right across from the Parliament building you reach the old town. You ...

Did you know that I released a real-life album this year? Well I did. It's called Seven Unsung Presidents, and it's still available at places like Amazon and CDBaby . And now I am releasing a music video for one of the songs, just like a real-life musician should. By the power of stop-motion photography utilized in this video I am able to do all sorts of enchanting things: I can do magic tricks, juggle, and even play the drums. Check it out: [Thanks to my lovely wife, who was director of photography for this film.]

With each passing year since moving away from Southern California, the winters seem to just keep getting longer. As I write these words in the waning days of April, the flowers are blooming and the trees are budding, but the weather has dipped back down into the chilly forties. Parental Visit With overly-optimistic enthusiasm, I suggested that my parents come visit us in Cambridge sometime in April to see the city in bloom. They came in early April, at which point we had no flowers, few buds, and chilly temperatures. Nevertheless, we managed to do quite a few fun things. In addition to the usual touristy things, we decided to rent some Hubway Bikes to ride around town and along the Charles River. [Hubway Bikes, just down the street from our house] We had an authentic New England experience, eating donuts from Dunkin'. [David the Dunkin' Donuts Delivery Dad] We also took a day trip out to Lexington/Concord/Lincoln, where we visited Walden Pond, of Thoreau/W...

Well folks, it's finally happened! My first-ever album is completely finished. The CDs have been printed, the cases delivered, the MP3s distributed online, etc. It is an album about Seven Unsung Presidents. The stories that have never been told and the stories that were once told but have long since been forgotten.   And I am happy to announce that the album is now available wherever fine music is sold. This includes, but is not limited to, iTunes ( here ), Amazon MP3 ( here ) and Google Play ( here ). My recommendation for the best deal is to get it at CD Baby, where you can obtain either the physical CD or the MP3 album. [For the physical CD, click the button above, and on the CD Baby page, click the green "CD-RP" button] If you somehow missed the promotional video, you can find it at raisejericho.tumblr.com . And don't think you've heard the end of me celebrating this album. I still plan to release a music video or two in the next few mo...

Home With Family And Friends Meg and I spent some time back in California for the holidays and had ourselves a lovely little time. We did lots of fun things, including celebrating Dad's retirement (!) We celebrated Christmas with the Shearer family. We played basketball. And, among other things, I took Meg on her first-ever trip to Disneyland (and she was NOT DISAPPOINTED!) [See how much FUN she's having?] [See how much she's losing by?] Home (Cambridge) With Family And Friends A few weeks later I celebrated my 30th birthday. I assumed I was going to spend a quiet birthday evening with my wife, but right before dinner, my brothers showed up at my doorstep! [Surprise!] And then, just in time for dessert, Rafael and Carol showed up! It was a complete surprise (twice!) to me, orchestrated by my wife. And we had a great time. We spent the weekend hanging out and touring Cambridge/Boston, and despite the cold and snow, my So...

For the last five years, on and off, I have been working on a series of songs about unsung U.S. Presidents. Perhaps you remember one of those songs, Old Tippecanoe, featured on National Public Radio a few years ago. [The artist as Old Tippecanoe] I have continued to write and record in the intervening years, and am happy to report that I’m just about ready to release the finished product. The album will be called Seven Unsung Presidents, and I will use my musical pen name, Raise Jericho. So the album will be Seven Unsung Presidents, by Raise Jericho. Get excited! My 30 th birthday present to myself will be to spend the requisite money to make this a professional-like product, including real-life CDs in real-life cases (maybe even shrink-wrap!), and digital availability on all the hip online places- iTunes, Amazon MP3, CDBaby, etc. My expected release date is 1/27/2014 (we’ll see whether or not I make it). I have set up a website at raisejericho.tumblr.com , where eve...