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
November 30, 2007
Category: SBC-NC'08
[Bumped up for visibility - and it makes it easier for me to keep updating with new entries] Now that the Science Blogging Conference is getting very close, it is time to remind you that the new edition of...
Posted by Coturnix at 10:27 PM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Medicine
Tomorrow is the World AIDS Day: The WAC's slogan for their work is "Stop AIDS: Keep the Promise". This is an appeal to governments, policy makers and regional health authorities to ensure that they meet the many targets that have...
Posted by Coturnix at 9:46 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Science Reporting
The editors of American Scientist magazine invite you to join them next week for the current installment of the fabled Pizza Lunch Seminar. This time, they have invited Alan Finkel, a neurologist at UNC Hospital, to describe his studies on...
Posted by Coturnix at 5:14 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Science News
Let's see what is new in PLoS Pathogens, PLoS Genetics, PLoS Computational Biology and PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases: A new installment in the "Ten Simple Rules" series: Ten Simple Rules for Graduate Students Choosing to go to graduate school is...
Posted by Coturnix at 4:44 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Books
Reed has assembled more than 30 judges and provided a secret online place for them to start working today on the difficult job of choosing the 50 best posts, one poem and one cartoon for the 2007 Open Laboratory science...
Posted by Coturnix at 4:16 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Science News
Ocean Fertilization 'Fix' For Global Warming Discredited By New Research: Scientists have revealed an important discovery that raises doubts concerning the viability of plans to fertilize the ocean to solve global warming, a projected $100 billion venture. Separating The Therapeutic...
Posted by Coturnix at 4:11 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Open Science
Peter Suber reports that the Charleston Advisor gave its 2007 Lemon Award to PRISM. I first learned about this from an e-mail: "The Charleston Advisor (TCA) announced its seventh annual Reader's Choice Awards for products and services in academic libraries,...
Posted by Coturnix at 2:39 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Science Practice
CBC has started a series of interviews (later available as podcasts) with scientists and others about the nature of science, the public undrestanding of science and related issues. Let me know what you think and feel free to blog about...
Posted by Coturnix at 2:35 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Animal Behavior
Kate describes an unusual reproductive system in topi antelopes in which the fertile females are extremely promiscuous (but choosy) and aggressive. Not what you learned in school under the "mate choice" and "male-male competition" topics in your Animal Behavior classes.......
Posted by Coturnix at 2:28 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Carnivals
Philosophia Naturalis #15 is up on Sorting Out Science Friday Ark #167 is up on the Modulator Change of Shift: Vol 2, Number 12 is up on Doctor Anonymous...
Posted by Coturnix at 9:27 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Rhythmic Human
Shift Work May Be Cancer Risk: In an announcement to be published Saturday in the journal Lancet Oncology, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the World Health Organization, will label shift work as a "probable cause" of...
Posted by Coturnix at 9:18 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: SBC-NC'08
There are 50 days until the Science Blogging Conference. The wiki is looking good, the Program is shaping up nicely, and there is more and more blog and media coverage already. The anthology should be published in time for the...
Posted by Coturnix at 9:02 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: History
Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born on this day in 1835. The picture is from his visit to Nikola Tesla's lab:...
Posted by Coturnix at 8:53 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Clock Quotes
Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world. - Joel Barker...
Posted by Coturnix at 3:54 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 29, 2007
Category: Animal Behavior
When I first read about a new paper about the behavior and ecology of maned wolves, I immediately thought of the blogger most uniquely qualified to write about it. Anne-Marie's research is on maned wolves and in her latest post...
Posted by Coturnix at 1:54 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Carnivals
I and the Bird #63 is up on The Greenbelt The 147th edition of The Carnival of Education is up on Matt-a-matical Thinking....
Posted by Coturnix at 9:08 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: SBC-NC'08
There are 51 days until the Science Blogging Conference. The wiki is looking good, the Program is shaping up nicely, and there is more and more blog and media coverage already. The anthology should be published in time for the...
Posted by Coturnix at 9:07 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Clock Quotes
Time will explain it all. He is a talker, and needs no questioning before he speaks. - Euripides...
Posted by Coturnix at 3:45 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 28, 2007
Category: Science News
Gene Study Supports Single Main Migration Across Bering Strait: Did a relatively small number of people from Siberia who trekked across a Bering Strait land bridge some 12,000 years ago give rise to the native peoples of North and...
Posted by Coturnix at 11:35 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Blogging
A milestone for Abel PharmBoy and Happy Birthday to Olduvai George! Chris asks: how to get alienated kids from inner cities interested in nature? This year saw a sharp rise in the number of multi-author scientific papers. This reflects the...
Posted by Coturnix at 11:05 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Philosophy
When Wilhelm Johannsen coined the word "gene" back in 1909 (hmmm, less than two years until the Centennial), the word was quite unambiguous - it meant "a unit of heredity". Its material basis, while widely speculated on, was immaterial for...
Posted by Coturnix at 2:44 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: SBC-NC'08
There are 52 days until the Science Blogging Conference. The wiki is looking good, the Program is shaping up nicely, and there is more and more blog and media coverage already. The anthology should be published in time for...
Posted by Coturnix at 8:50 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Clock Quotes
Until the 20th century, few people needed money. Apart from salt and iron, everything could be paid for in kind. Economic activity was more a means of making the time pass than of making money, which might explain why one...
Posted by Coturnix at 3:56 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 27, 2007
Category: Science News
On the effects of night-shift, on melanopsin and light perception, on time perception, on limb regeneration in the Axolotl, a meta-analysis of the soil ecology literature and, a first for PLoS ONE, an article by a prominent philosopher of science that I expect to be discussed on blogs over the next few days
Posted by Coturnix at 9:04 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Science News
Bear Hunting Altered Genetics More Than Ice Age Isolation: It was not the isolation of the Ice Age that determined the genetic distribution of bears, as has long been thought. This is shown by an international research team led...
Posted by Coturnix at 8:29 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Carnivals
Carnival of Space #30 is up on Bad Astronomy Blog The 79th Edition of Carnival of the Godless is up on Sexy Secularist! Friday Ark #166 is up on Modulator Grand Rounds 4.10 are up on Prudence, M.D. Carnival of...
Posted by Coturnix at 6:59 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: SBC-NC'08
There are 53 days until the Science Blogging Conference. The wiki is looking good, the Program is shaping up nicely, and there is more and more blog and media coverage already. The anthology should be published in time for the...
Posted by Coturnix at 8:52 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Clock Quotes
The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once. - Albert Einstein...
Posted by Coturnix at 3:59 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Housekeeping
Idiosynchrony BedBugger Out of the Mountains Eclectic Glob of Tangential Verbosity The Dendritic Arbor...
Posted by Coturnix at 12:20 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 26, 2007
Category: North Carolina
I'll be there, of course: Join Congressman Brad Miller for a discussion hosted by Ruby Sinreich of OrangePolitics.org and Brian Russell of Yesh.com about the impact of blogging on today's political environment. When: Thursday, November 29, 5:30pm - 7:30pm Where:...
Posted by Coturnix at 9:40 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Psychology
..that is adolescence. And the research on what adolescents find attractive. For a few years. Until they gain the gift of speech and hearing, look up, and find beauty in the mind. Unfortunately, some never do....
Posted by Coturnix at 9:25 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Science News
Yup, it's Monday evening: Light Activates Output from Evening Neurons and Inhibits Output from Morning Neurons in the Drosophila Circadian Clock: Living organisms have evolved circadian clocks that anticipate daily changes in their environment. Their clockwork is fully endogenous, but...
Posted by Coturnix at 7:42 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Open Science
Peter Suber reports the announcement of a new initiative by SAGE and Hindawi, starting a number of new Open Access journals. The platform will be unveiled in early December. They have decided not to switch their older, more established journals...
Posted by Coturnix at 1:31 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Creationism
John Scalzi (as well as this) Thomas Robey Jason Rosenhouse...
Posted by Coturnix at 10:10 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Open Science
Cameron Neylon is putting together a proposal for a UK research council to fund a network with the general theme of 'e-science enabling open science'. The network would fund meetings and travel with the specific aim of driving the open...
Posted by Coturnix at 9:13 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Animal Behavior
That is, if you are a shrew and do not want to be just a dead data-point for some ingenious young ecologists....who at least clean up the tricky trash left by drunk drivers....
Posted by Coturnix at 9:00 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: SBC-NC'08
There are 54 days until the Science Blogging Conference. The wiki is looking good, the Program is shaping up nicely, and there is more and more blog and media coverage already. The anthology should be published in time for the...
Posted by Coturnix at 8:55 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Clock Quotes
I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing. - Agatha Christie...
Posted by Coturnix at 4:06 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 25, 2007
Category: SBC-NC'08
Alan Kellogg has a cool contest for you: Bora still has some 55 days to go before the conference, and still he posts about the folks coming. Will he have groups and/or individuals to write about by the time the...
Posted by Coturnix at 8:37 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: SBC-NC'08
There are 55 days until the Science Blogging Conference. The wiki is looking good, the Program is shaping up nicely, and there is more and more blog and media coverage already. The anthology should be published in time for the...
Posted by Coturnix at 9:02 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Clock Quotes
Get a good night's sleep and don't bug anybody without asking me. - Richard M. Nixon...
Posted by Coturnix at 3:53 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 24, 2007
Category: Science News
Bioclocks Work By Controlling Chromosome Coiling: There is a new twist on the question of how biological clocks work. In recent years, scientists have discovered that biological clocks help organize a dizzying array of biochemical processes in the body. Despite...
Posted by Coturnix at 10:58 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: History of Science
Or, Happy Evolution Day! It's time for a party! It is easy to look up blog coverage - if you search for "Origin of Species" you mostly get good stuff, if you search for "Origin of the Species" you get...
Posted by Coturnix at 4:57 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Technology
Call me traditional, but I love books. I have about 5000 of them. If I see a long blog post or a scientific paper or an article that is longer than a page or two, I print it out and...
Posted by Coturnix at 3:44 PM • 11 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: SBC-NC'08
There are 56 days until the Science Blogging Conference. Before I return to highlighting some of the people who will be there, let me finish with this Thanksgiving series of posts about the Friday pre-conference events - leaving the best...
Posted by Coturnix at 2:04 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Clock Quotes
For I see now that I am asleep - that I dream when I am awake. - Pedro Calder n de la Barca...
Posted by Coturnix at 3:52 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 23, 2007
Category: Technology
...the computers and the Web: If you are not clear about the difference between the Net (aka Internet), the Web (aka World Wide Web) and the Graph (aka Social Graph), then this post is a must read (via Ed). He...
Posted by Coturnix at 8:23 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: SBC-NC'08
There are 57 days until the Science Blogging Conference. Continuing with the Thanksgiving break in highlighting some of the people who will be at the Conference in January (and the list is growing - already at 144 registered participants), here...
Posted by Coturnix at 3:58 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Books
Well, I certainly like it very much when a reader checks out my Amazon wish list and picks out a present for me. I like presents! But this morning I got a LARGE package, full of books from the Wish...
Posted by Coturnix at 2:51 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Clock Quotes
I always find that statistics are hard to follow and impossible to digest. The only one I can ever remember is that if all the people who go to sleep in church were laid end to end they would be...
Posted by Coturnix at 4:03 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 22, 2007
Category: Personal
I tend to give annual thanks on New Years' (I may have skipped a couple of years, but this year I have a lot to be thankful for, so come back here on December 31st for the extensive list). Enjoy...
Posted by Coturnix at 1:09 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: SBC-NC'08
There are 58 days until the Science Blogging Conference. Since it is a holiday, I decided to take a little break in introducing people who have registered so far and instead showcase some parts of the program - especially stuff...
Posted by Coturnix at 12:55 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Society
Group eating - how to carve a turkey. Group eating - pros and cons of pack-hunting. Group eating: not just vertebrates. Group eating: calculate your inclusive fitness....
Posted by Coturnix at 12:35 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Clock Quotes
Health is the first muse, and sleep is the condition to produce it. - Ralph Waldo Emerson...
Posted by Coturnix at 4:06 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 21, 2007
Category: Carnivals
The Four Stone Hearth #28 is up on Hot Cup Of Joe Tangled Bank #93 is up on From Archaea to Zeaxanthol Skeptics' Circle #74: The Evolution of Thanksgiving is up on Med Journal Watch Carnival of The Liberals #52...
Posted by Coturnix at 10:45 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Open Science
It's been a while since I came back from Boston, but the big dinosaur story kept me busy all last week so I never managed to find time and energy to write my own recap of the Harvard Conference. Anna...
Posted by Coturnix at 11:47 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: SBC-NC'08
There are 59 days until the Science Blogging Conference. The wiki is looking good, the Program is shaping up nicely, and there is more and more blog and media coverage already. The anthology should be published in time for the...
Posted by Coturnix at 8:57 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Clock Quotes
All men whilst they are awake are in one common world: but each of them, when he is asleep, is in a world of his own. - Plutarch...
Posted by Coturnix at 4:05 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 20, 2007
Category: Carnivals
Gene Genie #20 is up on Bitesize Bio Grand Rounds 4:09 are up on Mexico Medical Student The 104th Carnival of the Green is up on Savvy Vegetarian Carnival of Homeschooling: Thanksgiving Week 2007 is up on HomeschoolBuzz...
Posted by Coturnix at 11:15 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Science News
There are 34 articles published in PLoS ONE this week. As always, look around, read, rate, comment, annotate.... Here are my picks for the week (no need to repeat the dinosaur paper here, of course): A Viscoelastic Deadly Fluid in...
Posted by Coturnix at 9:53 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks