Brain & Behavior
New book on sexuality in the animal kingdom
Posted by Dr. Dolittle on May 17, 2013 I was just digitally flipping through a new book called “Crime Against Nature“, which describes various reproductive behaviors in the animal kingdom. It is written by an artist, Gwenn Seemel, not a scientist, so I cannot vouch for the scientific accuracy of the book as a whole. However, the illustrations are quite nice and the content is seemingly scandalous,…
Dog DNA may hold clues to eczema for humans
Posted by Dr. Dolittle on May 13, 2013 Dr. Kerstin Lindblad-Toh at Uppsala University (Sweden) who specializes in comparative genomics and Dr. Åke Hedhammar, SLU (Sweden) recently identified a novel gene in German shepherd dogs, PKP-2, that encodes a protein (plakophilin-2) important for regulating proper skin structure and function. This protein was found to be associated with canine atopic dermatitis (i.e. doggy eczema), a…
Breaking News – The Onion
Posted by coby on May 7, 2013 Experimental Biology – Tuesday
Posted by Dr. Dolittle on April 23, 2013 Today’s symposia included a session on “Integrative Cardiovascular and Respiratory Physiology of Non-model Organisms” as well as the August Krogh Distinguished Lecture. This year’s Krogh lecture was given by Dr. Stan Lindstedt from Northern Arizona University. Dr. Lindstedt is arguably best known for publishing work showing that the metabolic rate of an animal is negatively…
Experimental Biology – Sunday
Posted by Dr. Dolittle on April 22, 2013 The Comparative and Evolutionary Physiology section held their Scholander Poster competition for young comparative physiologists today! It was exciting to see all of the students present their work. Here are some of the highlights: Raffaele Pilla, Dominic P, D’Agostino, Carol S. Landon, and Jay B. Dean from Molecular Pharmacology and Physiology, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL.…
Flying in all directions
Posted by Weizmann Science Writer on April 19, 2013 When we navigate through our environment, do we track mostly in two dimensions or in three? Clearly, we can move in all three dimensions, but does our internal map relate to the vertical direction in the same way as it does to the horizontal axes on the ground? That question has not yet been definitively…
Math and Science Are Not Cleanly Separable
Posted by Chad Orzel on April 12, 2013 One of the hot topics of the moment is the E. O. Wilson op-ed lamenting the way math scares students off from science, and downplaying the need for mathematical skill (this is not news, really– he said more or less the same thing a few years ago, but the Wall Street Journal published it to…
Jell-O Brains
Posted by Dr. Dolittle on April 10, 2013 I have to admit I love the science section of The New York Times. The topic today: Dr. Karl Deisseroth and colleagues at Stanford University have developed a technique called CLARITY that uses hydrogel to make the brain look like it is made of Jell-O. They have successfully applied this technique to a whole mouse brain as well as part of…
Mastermind by Maria Konnikova
Posted by Chad Orzel on April 7, 2013 I saw Maria Konnikova’s Mastermind on the book lottery stacks at Science Online, and the subtitle “How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes” practically screamed “This is relevant to your interests!” Not only am I writing a book about how to think like a scientist, one of the chapters I have in mind uses mystery novels…
Conspiracy belief prevalence, according to Public Policy Polling is as high as 51%
Posted by Mark on April 5, 2013 And it may even be more when one considers that there is likely non-overlap between many of these conspiracies. It really is unfortunate that their isn’t more social pushback against those that express conspiratorial views. Given both the historical and modern tendency of some conspiracy theories being used direct hate towards one group or another…
