Jalees is a German with Pakistani roots. He currently lives in the USA and spent some of his childhood in Nigeria. He lives in a state of perpetual confusion and enjoys talking to people who are also confused. When he is not reading books, Jalees works as a stem cell biologist and as a physician at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). He regularly blogs about science at The Next Regeneration and about a variety of topics on his personal blog Fragments of Truth. Email: jalees.rehman [at] gmail.com
by Jalees Rehman Research institutions in the life sciences engage in two types of regular scientific meet-ups: scientific seminars and lab meetings. The structure of scientific seminars is fairly standard. Speakers give Powerpoint presentations (typically 45 to 55 minutes long) which provide the necessary scientific background, summarize their group's recent published scientific work and then…
by Jalees Rehman But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams. William Butler Yeats – from “Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven“ Have you ever wondered how the content of your dreams differs from that of your friends?…
by Jalees Rehman In the summer of 2010, over 20 million people were affected by the summer floods in Pakistan. Millions lost access to shelter and clean water, and became dependent on aid in the form of food, drinking water, tents, clothes and medical supplies in order to survive this humanitarian disaster. It is estimated…
by Jalees Rehman Does morality depend on the time of the day? The study “The Morning Morality Effect: The Influence of Time of Day on Unethical Behavior” published in October of 2013 by Maryam Kouchaki and Isaac Smith suggested that people are more honest in the mornings, and that their ability to resist the temptation…
by Jalees Rehman Back in 2001, when we first began studying how regenerative cells (stem cells or more mature progenitor cells) enhance blood vessel growth, our group as well as many of our colleagues focused on one specific type of blood vessel: arteries. Arteries are responsible for supplying oxygen to all organs and tissues of…
by Jalees Rehman “Do not put your work off till tomorrow and the day after; for a sluggish worker does not fill his barn, nor one who puts off his work: industry makes work go well, but a man who puts off work is always at hand-grips with ruin.” Hesiod in “The Works and Days“…
by Jalees Rehman Ramadan is the month of fasting and a time for spiritual growth among Muslims. The traditionalist approach to “spiritual growth” is for Muslims to complement their fasting with performing additional prayers at night and regular reading of the Quran throughout the month. My own approach is somewhat different, I tend to complement…
by Jalees Rehman We often laud intellectual diversity of a scientific research group because we hope that the multitude of opinions can help point out flaws and improve the quality of research long before it is finalized and written up as a manuscript. The recent events surrounding the research in one of the world's most…
by Jalees Rehman Konrad Heitkamp was taken aback by the extraordinary ordinariness present in the lobby of the Zurich hotel. In November of 1943, life in Zurich seemed unperturbed by the fact that the countries surrounding Switzerland were embroiled in one of the most devastating wars in the history of the world. Heitkamp realized that…
by Jalees Rehman A book is a mirror: if a fool looks in, do not expect an apostle to look out. Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742-1799) Reading literary fiction can be highly pleasurable, but does it also make you a better person? Conventional wisdom and intuition lead us to believe that reading can indeed improve us.…
by Jalees Rehman Geteiltes Leid ist halbes Leid (“Shared sorrow is half the sorrow”) is a popular German proverb which refers to the importance of sharing bad news and troubling experiences with others. The therapeutic process of sharing takes on many different forms: we may take comfort in the fact that others have experienced similar…
by Jalees Rehman On the evening of March 3 in 1514, Steven is sitting next to Friar Clay in a Nottingham pub, covering his face with his hands. “I am losing the will to live”, Steven sobs, “Death may be sweeter than life in this world of poverty, injustice and war.” “Do not despair, my…
by Jalees Rehman Summer grass: That's all that remains Of warriors' dreams. –Basho My favorite scientific experiments are those which resemble a haiku: simple and beautiful with a revelatory twist. This is why the haiku is very well suited for expressing scientific ideas in a poetic form. Contemporary haiku poets do not necessarily abide by…
by Jalees Rehman Two scientific papers that were published in the journal Nature in the year 2000 marked the beginning of engineering biological circuits in cells. The paper “Construction of a genetic toggle switch in Escherichia coli” by Timothy Gardner, Charles Cantor and James Collins created a genetic toggle switch by simultaneously introducing an artificial DNA plasmid…
by Jalees Rehman The Autocomplete function of Google Search is both annoying and fascinating. When you start typing in the first letters or words of your search into the Google search box, Autocomplete takes a guess at what you are looking for and “completes” the search phrase by offering you multiple query phrases. The queries…
by Jalees Rehman The unprecedented increase in the mean life expectancy during the past centuries and a concomitant drop in the birth rate has resulted in a major demographic shift in most parts of the world. The proportion of fellow humans older than 65 years of age is higher than at any time before in…
by Jalees Rehman Beware of what you share. Employers now routinely utilize internet search engines or social network searches to obtain information about job applicants. A survey of 2,184 hiring managers and human resource professionals conducted by the online employment website CareerBuilder.com revealed that 39% use social networking sites to research job candidates. Of the…
by Jalees Rehman The United States Census Bureau recently released the results from its 2012 survey of income, poverty and health insurance in the United States. One of the most disheartening results is the high prevalence of poverty in the United States. The term “poverty” is of course a relative term. The poverty thresholds in…
by Jalees Rehman The “Reclaim Scientism” movement is gaining momentum. In his recent book “The Atheist's Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life without Illusions“, the American philosopher Alexander Rosenberg suggests that instead of viewing the word “scientism” as an epithet, atheists should expropriate it and use it as a positive term which describes their worldview. Rosenberg…
by Jalees Rehman A child drops a chocolate chip cookie on the floor, immediately picks it up, looks quizzically at a parental eye-witness and proceeds to munch on it after receiving an approving nod. This is one of the versions of the “three second rule”, which suggests that food can be safely consumed if it…