Science as culture, science in culture
easternblot.net was a blog about the overlap of science and culture. Scientists in books or film, science travel, creative science projects, science in art, and the overlap between music and science are some of the things you can find on easternblot.net.
The blog is no longer actively updated, but has continued on as a newsletter called Mixture. Sign up here to get that sent right to your inbox.
This website also has a section about science communication, which is probably most interesting to other scientists or science communicators/writers. The topics are quite diverse, because even though easternblot.net has been around since 2005, this site also includes some of the archives from the old Expression Patterns blog that was hosted on Nature Network from 2007 to 2012.
Who created this site?
This site was created by science writer Eva Amsen. Find out more about her on her personal website.
Eastern what? Eastern blot?
An eastern blot is a non-existent biochemical technique. Mr. Southern invented the Southern blot to detect DNA of different sizes. Later, northern blot was used for a similar method involving RNA, and western blot for protein, but there is no eastern blot, because there is no fourth molecule in the DNA/RNA/protein set.
A note about all the techniques that are called “eastern blot”: Too many different things are all called “eastern blot” by people who wanted to market their method as something to do with blotting and biochemistry. It’s too confusing. You can insist that it has something to do with glycolosation detection, but someone else might think you mean that you just switched the poles on a western blot. The name “eastern blot” only makes perfect sense for a technique that detects a fourth type of molecule in the DNA/RNA/protein set, but such a technique cannot exist, because that molecule does not exist.