I know. They have gotten a bit of negative publicity recently. But CSHL is a great place. Here are some reasons.
- Dolan DNA Learning Center. A pioneer in many aspects of biotechnology and genomics education.
- Banbury Center. Just on the other side of the harbor from the main lab. The Banbury Campus is a truly spectacular place to hang out. I would know. I must have gone there a dozen times while working on my textbook. It has great places to walk to, like down a big hill to a secluded beach. And it is always peaceful and pleasant.
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View Larger Map - The main campus. Also a very pleasant place to hang out. Not quite as nice maybe as Banbury, but still very peaceful and conducive to science.
- Meetings and Courses. They have quite a collection of well known meetings and courses. Personally, I have a place near and dear to my heart for the main Genomes meeting, which I used to go to often. It was the place where I first talked about “Phylogenomics” as a means to predict gene function and this was how I got my first taste of the lab.
- Books from CSHL Press Of course I am a bit biased since they just published my evolution textbook, but the general quality of what they publish is very very very high. So many of these books have been key parts of my education including “A short course in bacterial genetics,” “Molecular biology of the gene“, “A genetic switch“, The Archaeal Laboratory Manuals, “Molecular cloning: a laboratory manual” and many others. They publish some good journals too, but since they are not fully Open Access journals, I will not mention them here but hopefully these will become more Open as time goes on.
- Caumsett State Park. Just around the corner from the Banbury Campus it is a delightful location. When I was working on my textbook and living on the Banbury Campus I would try to bike to Caumsett every day for a break. http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&time=&date=&ttype=&q=cold+spring+harbor,+ny&ie=UTF8&t=h&om=1&s=AARTsJp3e5KgjeAd4nPGwvhPk7OmTHUonA&ll=40.927132,-73.470726&spn=0.038909,0.051498&z=13&output=embed
View Larger Map - Biking down (and up) Snake Hill Road. See Google Map here. It is very steep and curvy and very fun and short enough to go up without killing yourself
Alex Gann. He was the original editor for my Evolution textbook. Conjure up an adjective to describe anybody you know. That adjective remarkably describes Alex too. He is anything and everything, good and bad, all rolled into one.
Barbara McClintock. I am not sure what it is about her that is so fascinating but her persistence about jumping genes is awe inspiring. And of course, she was right about something very important when lots of people told her she was wrong.
The lab was named after a Billy Joel album. How cool is that?
Jonathan Eisen's Lab 