I am the Online Community Manager at PLoS-ONE (Public Library of Science). My job is to try to motivate you to comment on the papers there. My scientific specialty is chronobiology (circadian rhythms and photoperiodism), with additional interests in comparative physiology, animal behavior and evolution. You can contact me at: Coturnix@gmail.com
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Dictionary of Circadian Physiology
Basic Terms and Concepts in Math and Science
October 31, 2006
Category: Medicine
Check out the freshly unvailed Open Healthcare Manifesto, designed to foster "open media" in healthcare and medicine and to implement "some sort of a new "integrity standard" ... needed to help people sort through the junk that openness unfortunately tends...
Posted by Coturnix at 1:57 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Blogging
You may be aware of the $5000 scholarship for students who are science bloggers. Now the 10 finalists have been announced and you should go here to cast your vote. I have initially nominated (and will vote for) Jenna (Jennifer...
Posted by Coturnix at 11:40 AM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Fun
The worst Tevye ever
Posted by Coturnix at 11:05 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Animal Behavior
Humans do it, great apes do it, dolphins do it, now elephants (also here) have also been shown to do it - recognize themselves in the mirror, i.e., realize that the image in the mirror is the image of themselves...
Posted by Coturnix at 10:33 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Medicine
When doctors get scary, than it is really scary - go check it out on Doctor Hébert's Medical Gumbo...
Posted by Coturnix at 10:27 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Blogging
I have a couple of subscription for Google News e-mail notifications for terms like "circadian" and what-not. This makes me informed fast enough for what I need (i.e., making a decision to blog or not about the news). Usually, I'd...
Posted by Coturnix at 10:05 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Science News
Groups And Grumps: Study Identifies 'Sociality' Neurons: A University of California, San Diego study has for the first time identified brain cells that influence whether birds of a feather will, or will not, flock together. The research demonstrates that vasotocin...
Posted by Coturnix at 9:50 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Rhythmic Human
Apparently, the timing of sporting events in Beijing, probably driven by needs of American TV audiences, did not take into consideration the best time of day for athletic performance. But who cares about athletes, or even about breaking Olympic and...
Posted by Coturnix at 8:57 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Blogging
Danica Radovanovic of Belgrade and Beyond is coming to the 2007 North Carolina Science Blogging Conference all the way from Belgrade! We can now have our own break-out session in Serbo-Croatian language. And we have not heard of each...
Posted by Coturnix at 7:59 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Science Practice
Bill Hooker has joined the blogging stable at 3 Quarks Daily - congratulations! He is starting with an excellent and well-documented article about Open Access Publishing....
Posted by Coturnix at 12:07 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 30, 2006
Category: History of Science
Archy sums it all up in An object lesson in Wiki research. Nice to see a professional historian take a look at history of pseudoscience....
Posted by Coturnix at 11:55 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Environment
Carnival of the Ghoulish Green is up on Groovy Green. Next week, the carnival celebrates its first anniversary by going back home to City Hippy....
Posted by Coturnix at 11:43 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Ideology
A hat-trick from Orcinus: Sara explores new frames in Adult Supervision. Funny, as well as insightful. Dave on Science And Republicans and Those Republican values....
Posted by Coturnix at 10:47 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Ideology
Three-in-a-row for Amanda Marcotte, on what liberalism is, totally brilliant (can someone hire her, please, for an editorial page?): The non-ideological era Liberalism in ascendance Who Counts?: ...what conservatives mean when they say they're for "small" government and liberals are...
Posted by Coturnix at 2:10 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
What it really means when we are talking about babies "sleeping through the night"
Posted by Coturnix at 10:58 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Neuroscience
The Synapse #10 is up on Neurocritic. Next week, it is the turn for Encephalon (the two neurocarnivals appear on alternate weeks) and it will be hosted by me, right here. Send your entries by November 5th at 5pm EST...
Posted by Coturnix at 10:07 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Science News
Trotting With Emus To Walk With Dinosaurs: One way to make sense of 165-million-year-old dino tracks may be to hang out with emus, say paleontologists studying thousands of dinosaur footprints at the Red Gulch Dinosaur Tracksite in northern Wyoming. Because...
Posted by Coturnix at 9:30 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Fun
In my part of the world, and most of the US and Europe as well, there was a general agreement that all clocks would be set an hour off back in April. This may have made sense in a world...
Posted by Coturnix at 9:07 AM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Blogging
Josh Staiger is coming to the 2007 North Carolina Science Blogging Conference. Are you? Technorati Tag: sciencebloggingconference...
Posted by Coturnix at 8:00 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 29, 2006
Category: Blogging
Just a quick note. I finally got to meet Chris Mooney, my fellow Seed Scienceblogger and the author of The Republican War on Science. On Saturday, we met early enough to have coffee and a little chat before his book-reading...
Posted by Coturnix at 9:46 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Personal
Marbles (left) and Biscuit (right):...
Posted by Coturnix at 7:10 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Carnivals
Panta Rei #4 is up on Down To Earth...
Posted by Coturnix at 12:28 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: North Carolina
The Tar Heel Tavern has a new host this week - Dr.R of Evolving Education has just posted the 88th edition. Go there, say Hi, and check out the best North Carolina blogging of the week....
Posted by Coturnix at 11:56 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Medicine
Radiology Grand Rounds #5 are now up on Sumer's Radiology Site....
Posted by Coturnix at 11:52 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Atheism
Carnival of the Godless #52 is up on Skeptic Rant. Check the invisible links....
Posted by Coturnix at 10:45 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Blogging
Connie Childrey is coming to the 2007 North Carolina Science Blogging Conference. Are you? Technorati Tag: sciencebloggingconference...
Posted by Coturnix at 7:52 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 28, 2006
Category: Science News
Insights Into Honey Bee Sex Gene Could Bring Sweet Success In Breeding: What makes a bee a he or a she? Three years ago, scientists pinpointed a gene called csd that determines gender in honey bees, and now a research...
Posted by Coturnix at 5:26 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Politics
Zeno has posted a nice, easy-to-understand primer on statistics and polling....
Posted by Coturnix at 4:13 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Blogging
Dave Johnson is coming to the 2007 North Carolina Science Blogging Conference. Are you? Technorati Tag: sciencebloggingconference...
Posted by Coturnix at 7:51 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 27, 2006
Category: Personal
Kefli was my second horse, back in Yugoslavia. I raised him from foal until he was almost 3 years old. I sold him a few days before I left for he US. I just got a picture of him, from...
Posted by Coturnix at 11:40 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Science Education
Tomorrow morning I am starting to teach again. Only the lab this time around, my colleague is teaching the lecture. And it is going to look pretty much the same as last couple of times I did it: Week 1...
Posted by Coturnix at 10:18 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Carnivals
Tangled Bank, Darwin or Wallace edition, is (finally) up on Thoughts From Kansas. There is something wrong with the intended host's website, so Josh volunteered to save the carnival and did a splendid job at such short notice....
Posted by Coturnix at 5:55 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Politics
In today's New York Times. (via Ed Cone)...
Posted by Coturnix at 2:51 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Ideology
A follow-up on last week's post on Regressives.
Posted by Coturnix at 11:00 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Science News
Cougar Predation Key To Ecosystem Health: The general disappearance of cougars from a portion of Zion National Park in the past 70 years has allowed deer populations to dramatically increase, leading to severe ecological damage, loss of cottonwood trees, eroding...
Posted by Coturnix at 9:00 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Blogging
Fred Stutzman, the Facebook expert from Unit Structures is coming to the 2007 North Carolina Science Blogging Conference. Are you? Technorati Tag: sciencebloggingconference...
Posted by Coturnix at 8:03 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Politics
If you go here and copy and paste the code into your blog, you will get something that looks like this:...
Posted by Coturnix at 1:39 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Books
Chris Mooney will be in the Triangle for three days - October 28-30th. Come to one of his book-readings: Saturday, October 28 7:00 PM-8:30 PM Quail Ridge Books 3522 Wade Ave. Raleigh, NC 27607 Sunday, October 29 4:00 PM-5:30 PM...
Posted by Coturnix at 12:41 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 26, 2006
Category: Blogging
There is a new study out on computer and internet use in Serbia (via). Several things immediately jumped out at me: how many people connect by modem, how many connect from home (as opposed to work, school, etc.), how big...
Posted by Coturnix at 11:39 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Creationism
Rev. BigDumbChimp alerts me that Ken Miller will be in Raleigh on November 6th, giving a lecture at NCSU at 7pm. Tickets are free but you have to have one in order to attend. You can get your tickets here....
Posted by Coturnix at 10:56 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Chronobiology
There is nothing easier than taking a bad paper - or a worse press release - and fisking it with gusto on a blog. If you happen also to know the author and keep him in contempt, the pleasure of...
Posted by Coturnix at 12:00 PM • 11 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Academia
A short but good article by my schools' President (April 25, 2006, also here)....
Posted by Coturnix at 11:02 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Science Education
From the press release (doc): The report, prepared by Potomac Communications Group of Washington, DC under a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant, provides a candid glimpse into the NSF's Urban Systemic Program (USP), the first national effort to reform how...
Posted by Coturnix at 10:00 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Science News
Researchers Give Name To Ancient Mystery Creature: For the first time, researchers at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, have been able to put a name and a description to an ancient mammal that still defies classification. Protein Important...
Posted by Coturnix at 9:00 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Birds
I And The Bird #35 is up on Migrations....
Posted by Coturnix at 8:38 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Blogging
Roy Hinkley of Moment of Science is coming to the 2007 North Carolina Science Blogging Conference. Are you? Technorati Tag: sciencebloggingconference...
Posted by Coturnix at 8:01 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Politics
...and Chris is in great form again....
Posted by Coturnix at 12:56 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Pseudoscience
...and no means to get back! See how that happened on the latest Skeptics' Circle - On a Mission from God, up on Left Brain/Right Brain. Then use the Quackometer (the last link at the bottom of the carnival) to...
Posted by Coturnix at 12:49 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 25, 2006
Category: Science News
Vegetables, Not Fruit, Help Fight Memory Problems In Old Age: Eating vegetables, not fruit, helps slow down the rate of cognitive change in older adults, according to a study published in the Oct. 24, 2006, issue of Neurology, the scientific...
Posted by Coturnix at 10:28 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Insects
The honeybee genome project has been finished and a bunch of papers are coming out tomorrow. As soon as they become available online I will comment, at least on the one paper that shows that the molecular machinery of the...
Posted by Coturnix at 9:36 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Personal
A couple of years ago I could beat my son at chess every time. Not any more. He's been studying from books, playing online and beating his sister relentlessly over the last few weeks. Then he challenged me. He won....
Posted by Coturnix at 9:10 PM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Politics
Go help Chris do a study on framing in politics....
Posted by Coturnix at 8:58 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Carnivals
The very first edition of the Four Stone Hearth, the anthropology carnival, is up on Anthropology Net. Carnival of the Liberals #24 is up on Perspectives of a Nomad Carnival of Education #90 is up on The Current Events in...
Posted by Coturnix at 8:23 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Balkans
It's been a year since this first appeared (September 21, 2005). I wonder if the "academy" is still open or what are they studying there.......
Posted by Coturnix at 10:59 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Politics
Publius is on the roll again with two posts, each putting a novel angle to a well-known story: DISTASTEFULLY CORRECT GIMME FICTION...
Posted by Coturnix at 8:42 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Blogging
Ndesanjo Macha of Digital Africa is coming to the 2007 North Carolina Science Blogging Conference. Are you? Technorati Tag: sciencebloggingconference...
Posted by Coturnix at 8:03 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 24, 2006
Category: Carnivals
Grand Rounds 3.5: A Visual Tour is up on Health Care Law Blog. Carnival of the Green #50 is up on How To Save The World. Carnival of Homeschooling #43 is up on About Homeschool. Four Stone Hearth will kick...
Posted by Coturnix at 4:49 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Blogging
There has been an exciting new addition fo the Conference Program - a new break-out session: Illustrating your posts: Rosalind Reid, editor of American Scientist Magazine, leads a discussion about using photographs, illustrations, video clips and other multimedia to offer...
Posted by Coturnix at 2:18 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Ideology
While we are discussing femiphobia, mysoginy and the "new male anger", you may want to take a break from hundreds and hundreds of comments on all the threads on all the posts (see the links within links on the last...
Posted by Coturnix at 12:16 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Fun
Here's a fun old one...(December 04, 2005):...
Posted by Coturnix at 11:45 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Chronobiology
As the paper linked to in the previous post explains, everything is connected - clocks, sleep, hunger, obesity and diabetes. An important part of understanding all these interconnections between clocks and food is to understand the food-entrainable clocks, i.e., how...
Posted by Coturnix at 10:42 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Sleep
Sleep: it's required: "....short sleep can hasten the arrival of the inevitable long sleep"...
Posted by Coturnix at 9:03 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Blogging
Eva of Easternblot is coming to the 2007 North Carolina Science Blogging Conference. Are you? Technorati Tag: sciencebloggingconference...
Posted by Coturnix at 7:59 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Housekeeping
2000 comments on this blog (2002 actually). Unfortunately, I did not pay attention, so I made the round-number comment myself. So I get the prize (whatever it was)....
Posted by Coturnix at 12:32 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 23, 2006
Category: Personal
I had a delightful lunch today with my blog-sparring-partner Mike Munger of Mungovitz End (see how my blog is labeled on his blogroll: "Coturnix's nonsense"). We had great time discussing politics, academia, Horowitz, blogging and the life in the Triangle....
Posted by Coturnix at 11:10 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Creationism
Hmmm, didn't it occur to him for a moment that "survival of the fittest" may be true back when Bruce Lee beat him up?...
Posted by Coturnix at 10:43 PM • 26 Comments •