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
May 11, 2008
Category: Academia
I will be going to a scientific conference next week. Believe it or not, this will be the first purely scientific meeting I'll attend since I quit grad school and started blogging (all the others had to do with science...
Posted by Coturnix at 11:14 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Serbs vote for closer ties with Europe in huge turnaround: Serbs voted for closer ties with Europe instead of isolation for the second time in three months in Sunday's snap parliamentary poll, in a stunning turnaround that negated pre- election...
Posted by Coturnix at 5:13 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Microorganisms
It takes 38 minutes for the E.coli genome to replicate. Yet, E.coli can bo coaxed to divide in a much shorter time: 20 minutes. How is this possible? Larry poses the riddle and provides the solution. The key is that...
Posted by Coturnix at 4:11 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Carnivals
The 31st Gene Genie is up on Adaptive Complexity The 64th Carnival Of The Liberals is up on Sir Robin Rides Away Friday Ark #190 is up on Modulator...
Posted by Coturnix at 3:30 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Science News
Dying Bats In The Northeast U.S. Remain A Mystery: Investigations continue into the cause of a mysterious illness that has resulted in the deaths of thousands of bats since March 2008. At more than 25 caves and mines in the...
Posted by Coturnix at 2:42 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Personal
I have finally found the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything. Much better than on this day last year. If I remember correctly, so will Melissa and Jennifer on this exact day as well....
Posted by Coturnix at 9:01 AM • 14 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Clock Quotes
The last time anybody made a list of the top hundred character attributes of New Yorkers, common sense snuck in at number 79. - Douglas Noel Adams...
Posted by Coturnix at 3:51 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 10, 2008
Category: Clock Zoo
We have recently covered interesting reproductive adaptations in mammals, birds, insects, flatworms, plants and protists. For the time being (until I lose inspiration) I'll try to leave cephalopod sex to the experts and the pretty flower sex to the chimp...
Posted by Coturnix at 6:57 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Science News
Young People Are Intentionally Drinking And Taking Drugs For Better Sex, European Survey Finds: Teenagers and young adults across Europe drink and take drugs as part of deliberate sexual strategies. New findings reveal that a third of 16-35 year...
Posted by Coturnix at 1:28 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Clock Quotes
Take time every day to do something silly. - Philipa Walker...
Posted by Coturnix at 3:58 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 9, 2008
Category: Academia
Holden Thorp is a chemist and an overall great guy. Good news for NC science and education....
Posted by Coturnix at 11:21 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Fun
Our governor agrees. At least in the print version of this article which has a somehwat different title: "Easley supports college for aliens". I wonder why they changed it for the Web version - is the editorial position that having...
Posted by Coturnix at 11:17 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Food
A special issue of The Independent on local food scene: The road to real food Farm to table challenges Farmers' helpers One missing link: organic grains...
Posted by Coturnix at 10:18 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Clock Quotes
If we think we regulate printing, thereby to rectify manners, we must regulate all regulations and pastimes, all that is delightful to man. - John Milton...
Posted by Coturnix at 3:52 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 8, 2008
Category: EuroTrip '08
Recordings from the Open Access panel in Trieste are now available online. The order was a little different - I went last....
Posted by Coturnix at 10:11 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Personal
For 9/11 Wall, a Little Support and a Permanent Place: Steven M. Davis of Davis Brody Bond Aedas, the museum architects, advocated saving a large part of the wall, as did the engineers, Milan Vatovec, of Simpson Gumpertz & Heger,...
Posted by Coturnix at 9:16 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Politics
Legislature wants polar bear study: The state Legislature is looking to hire a few good polar bear scientists. The conclusions have already been agreed upon -- researchers just have to fill in the science part. That's how little Johnny Alaska...
Posted by Coturnix at 9:12 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Open Science
The latest issue of Epidemiology features a (only somewhat tongue-in-cheek) article by Miguel A. Hernan: Epidemiologists (of All People) Should Question Journal Impact Factors. Well worth reading and thinking about: Developing a good impact factor is a nontrivial methodologic undertaking...
Posted by Coturnix at 9:03 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Fun
Yup, watch the press conference announcing Tom Waits' tour....
Posted by Coturnix at 9:00 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Science News
PLoS ONE paper The Herbicide Atrazine Activates Endocrine Gene Networks via Non-Steroidal NR5A Nuclear Receptors in Fish and Mammalian Cells will be one of the topics covered by Science Friday on NPR tomorrow - tune in if you can, or...
Posted by Coturnix at 6:27 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Fun
Thanks to a dear reader, I will have hours of fun!...
Posted by Coturnix at 9:11 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Academia
Anna Kushnir is now to be referred to as Doctor Anna Kushnir!...
Posted by Coturnix at 8:36 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Carnivals
May Scientiae Carnival is up on A Cat Nap 170th Carnival of Education is up on Bellringers Carnival of the Recipes: Spring-Fever Edition is up on Everything And Nothing...
Posted by Coturnix at 8:30 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Science News
Why Face Symmetry Is Sexy Across Cultures And Species: In humans, faces are an important source of social information. One property of faces that is rapidly noticed is attractiveness. Research has highlighted symmetry and sexual dimorphism (how masculine or...
Posted by Coturnix at 8:21 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Carnivals
If you're there before it's over, you're on time. - James J. Walker...
Posted by Coturnix at 3:55 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 7, 2008
Category: Genetics
The genome of the Platypus has been sequenced: The first analysis of the genome sequence of the duck-billed platypus was published today by an international team of scientists, revealing clues about how genomes were organized during the early evolution of...
Posted by Coturnix at 3:50 PM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Blogging
The challenge from skullsinthestars is up - pick up a very old, classic science paper and write a blog post about it. Put it in a proper historical, theoretical, methodological and philosophical context. You can always go back to blogging...
Posted by Coturnix at 11:36 AM • 12 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Politics
I wanted to write this, but Abel did it much more eloquently....
Posted by Coturnix at 10:41 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Personal
My daughter collects snowglobes. Or, to be precise, we collect snowglobes for her when we travel. She has a few from New York City, one from San Francisco, one from Murtle Beach, one from Milwaukee. I badly messed up when...
Posted by Coturnix at 10:08 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Microorganisms
Considering this I am kinda baffled by this. There is tons of microbial metagenomics and genomics in PLoS journals....
Posted by Coturnix at 9:49 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Open Science
Open Access Directory (OAD) is a wiki that contains all the information one may need and want in regard to Open Access Publishing, from jobs to research questions. You should bookmark it and check it out regularly....
Posted by Coturnix at 9:36 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Open Science
Peter Suber relays the announcement (and add some more) of the Open Humanities Press, a collection of seven Open Access journals (a humanities PLoS of sorts) in critical and cultural theory. Humanities bloggers have been way ahead of science bloggers...
Posted by Coturnix at 9:32 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Science News
There are 56 new articles published in PLoS ONE this week and it was hard to make the picks as this seems to be a very, very good week with lots of cool papers. Here are some of the highlights...
Posted by Coturnix at 8:31 AM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Clock Quotes
About the time we think we can make ends meet, somebody moves the ends. - Herbert Clark Hoover...
Posted by Coturnix at 3:51 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 6, 2008
Category: Science News
Dinosaur Bones Reveal Ancient Bug Bites: Paleontologists have long been perplexed by dinosaur fossils with missing pieces - sets of teeth without a jaw bone, bones that are pitted and grooved, even bones that are half gone. Now a Brigham...
Posted by Coturnix at 11:36 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Carnivals
International Carnival of Pozitivities - edition 2.11 - is up on DropDeadHappy Grand Rounds 4:33 are up on Suture for a Living Carnival of Homeschooling: Week 123 is up on Melissa's Idea Garden...
Posted by Coturnix at 7:02 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Politics
I am about to go to vote. You can watch the NC results here. Update: Pam is liveblogging the election. If you have experiences from the polling places around NC today, post them in her comments....
Posted by Coturnix at 8:47 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Clock Quotes
One of the misfortunes of our time is that in getting rid of false shame we have killed off so much real shame as well. - Louis Kronenberger...
Posted by Coturnix at 3:50 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 5, 2008
Category: Science News
Birds Do It, Bees Do It, but Candida albicans Does It Differently: The yeast Candida albicans lives an unnoticed and mostly harmless life as a member of our gut flora. However, mainly in an immunocompromised host, it can proliferate and...
Posted by Coturnix at 6:17 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Science News
Roaring Bats: New Scientific Results Show Bats Emitting More Decibels Than A Rock Concert: Researchers studying the echolocation behavior in bats have discovered that the diminutive flying mammals emit exceptionally loud sounds -- louder than any known animal in...
Posted by Coturnix at 6:16 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Carnivals
Tar Heel Tavern - NC Primary Edition - is up on Terra Sigillata Carnival of the Blue #12 is up on Island Of Doubt Carnival of the Green # 126 is up on Bean Sprouts...
Posted by Coturnix at 2:25 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Animal Behavior
You really think I am going to put this above the fold? No way - you have to click (First posted on July 7, 2006):...
Posted by Coturnix at 8:57 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Clock Quotes
Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one. - Marcus Aurelius...
Posted by Coturnix at 4:07 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 4, 2008
Category: Chronobiology
When teaching human or animal physiology, it is very easy to come up with examples of ubiqutous negative feedback loops. On the other hand, there are very few physiological processes that can serve as examples of positive feedback. These include...
Posted by Coturnix at 4:53 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: EuroTrip '08
Grunewald station in Berlin is a small, unasuming train station that looks like thousands of such stations around the world. But it is at this spot that thousands of Jews were loaded onto trains to Auschwitz and other places, initially...
Posted by Coturnix at 11:57 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: History
Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe where, by design, concrete slabs that are initially perfectly aligned, due to sinking of the soil, adopt all sorts of different angles. Looking down the "aisles", one sees people, children playing hide-and-seek, and...
Posted by Coturnix at 11:46 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Carnivals
The Boneyard XIX is up on Familiarity Breeds Content Festival of the Trees #23 is up on 10000 birds Circus of the Spineless #32 is up on Deep Sea News Friday Ark #189 is up on Modulator...
Posted by Coturnix at 11:38 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: EuroTrip '08
More pictures from the Museum:...
Posted by Coturnix at 10:43 AM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: EuroTrip '08
Catriona and I, obviously, had fun here:...
Posted by Coturnix at 10:33 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: EuroTrip '08
Time to put up some of the pictures. Catriona took me around Berlin, for whatever one can see in just a day and a half - the Brandenburg gate, a slab of the Berlin wall, etc.......
Posted by Coturnix at 10:14 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Chronobiology
This post from March 27, 2006 starts with some of my old research and poses a new hypothesis....
Posted by Coturnix at 7:58 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Clock Quotes
Sometimes the child in one behaves a certain way and the rest of oneself follows behind, slowly shaking its head. - James E. Shapiro...
Posted by Coturnix at 3:50 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 3, 2008
Category: Personal
Dog happy to see me. And others, of course. After 25.5 days, 4 countries, 5 airports, 8 flights by 5 airline companies, 2 panels, 2 lectures, 4 radio interviews, 2 newspaper interviews, 2 blogger meetups, and many good meals, I...
Posted by Coturnix at 10:56 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Mis-clock-ceptions
Believe me, I love the word "circadian". It is a really cool word, invented by Franz Halberg in the late 1950s, out of 'circa' (Latin - "about") and diem ("a day"), to denote daily rhythms in biochemistry, physiology and behavior...
Posted by Coturnix at 4:50 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Clock Tutorials
This April 09, 2006 post places another paper of ours (Reference #17) within a broader context of physiology, behavior, ecology and evolution. The paper was a result of a "communal" experiment in the lab, i.e., it was not included in...
Posted by Coturnix at 7:56 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Clock Quotes
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old Times is still a-flying: And this same flower that smiles today, Tomorrow will be dying. - Robert Herrick...
Posted by Coturnix at 3:59 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 2, 2008
Category: Chronobiology
You and I, as well as all of our mammalian brethren, have just a few photopigments, i.e., colored molecules that change shape when exposed to light and subsequently trigger cascades of biochemical reactions leading to changes in electrical properties of...
Posted by Coturnix at 4:55 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Clock Tutorials
Hypotheses leading to more hypotheses (from March 19, 2006 - the Malaria Day):...
Posted by Coturnix at 7:53 AM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Clock Quotes
See, the problem is that God gives men a brain and a penis, and only enough blood to run one at a time. - Robin Williams...
Posted by Coturnix at 3:59 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 1, 2008
Category: Chronobiology
If you really read this blog 'for the articles', you know some of my recurrent themes, e.g., that almost every biological function exhibits cycles and that almost every cell in every organism contains a more-or-less functioning clock. Here is a...
Posted by Coturnix at 4:50 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Carnivals
Tangled Bank #104 is up on Dammit Jim! Grand Rounds Vol. 4 No. 32 are up on Doc Gurley I and the Bird #74 is up on Consworld Change of Shift: Volume 2, Number 22 is up on Life...
Posted by Coturnix at 4:16 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Housekeeping
Antimonite Palachinka Because I said so The Skeptical Adaptationist Dammit Jim!...
Posted by Coturnix at 4:09 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Clock Tutorials
You probably realize by now that my expertise is in clocks and calendars of birds, but blogging audience forces me to occasionally look into human clocks from a medical perspective. Reprinted below the fold are three old Circadiana posts about...
Posted by Coturnix at 7:57 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Clock Quotes
I have left orders to be awakened at any time in case of national emergency, even if I'm in a cabinet meeting. - Ronald Wilson Reagan...
Posted by Coturnix at 3:57 AM • 0 Comments •