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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

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Science Blogging Conference 08

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Books:

OpenLab 2007

The second science blogging anthology, the Open Laboratory 2007 is now up for sale on Amazon.com. As the profits will go towards the organization of ScienceOnline'09, it is the best if you guide your readers to buy it directly from...

It's a Jungle Out There

There is a good review of Amanda Marcotte's book on Powell's site: Fortunately, she manages to integrate enough fresh material to keep the book relevant to feminists of all ages. As she observes in her introduction, "Spotting sexism sounds easy,...

"Sex in Space" not so exciting after all...

Or so says Talia in her book review. I recently ordered a bunch of stuff from Amazon.com for me and others, and all orders arrived nicely except this book which never appeared (lost in space?). Perhaps I should not worry,...

Jablonka & Lamb

Anne-Marie wrote an excellent review of Evolution in Four Dimensions by Eva Jablonka and Marion Lamb. I tend to think that the use of the term "neo-Lamarckism" (just like the use of "neo-Darwinism") is unnecessary as it will raise hackles...

Not all blogs are tech blogs

In one of those "if you like this you may also like this" e-mails from Amazon.com, I got a suggestion I may like a book called Blogging Heroes: Interviews with 30 of the World's Top Bloggers. So, I took a...

Arthur C. Clark, RIP

Sir Arthur C. Clark has died at the age of 90....

It's A Jungle Out There

Amanda Marcotte's book is (finally) out for sale. As she says: Titled "It's A Jungle Out There: The Feminist Survival Guide To Politically Inhospitable Environments", and it's about what it seems to be about, a guidebook for those irritating situations...

Walking With Zeke

I bought a book yesterday. You should buy yourself a copy, too. The best writer in the blogosphere, on the most famous dog in the blogosphere. You'll be touched....

How Do You Shelve Your Books?

Wow! This is nuts! And this is nuts in a different way! Fortunately, Scott McLemee, Chad Orzel, Josh Rosenau and Brian Switek bring in some reality to the topic: what goes on the living-room bookshelf? Commenters chime in. Good stuff....

Books on careers in science

Anne-Marie reviews two books that appear to be useful in thinking about one's career in science: The Beginner's Guide to Winning a Nobel Prize, by Peter Doherty, and The Chicago Guide to Landing a Job in Academic Biology, by Chandler,...

1-2-3, the Goosed/Book meme

Oh-oh, it seems it's a meme season again! I'll dutifully do them, one at a time. Today - the good old 123 book meme, which memeticized over time into being called "Goosed meme". I was tagged by Lance Mannion who...

In which we proudly announce the Editor of the Open Laboratory 2008

Yes, that time has come....Going it alone in 2006 was far too much work for one person. Reed Cartwright was the first guest editor in 2007 and this was a perfect solution. So, going on into the new year and...

Everything you ever wanted to know about Wikipedia and Facebook but were too shy to ask

Two books - Facebook: The Missing Manual and Wikipedia: The Missing Manual arrived in my mailbox today. How did I get them? By being on Facebook, getting a message from the O'Reilly Facebook group and being one of the...

Open Lab 2007 - soon in a bookstore near you!

The day before yesterday, my copy of The Open Laboratory 2007, the second annual science blogging anthology, arrived in the mail. So yesterday, Reed and I met at a coffee shop and looked it over. It looks great! Reed knows...

Open Lab 2007 - Up For Sale!

Well, The Day has arrived! The Open Laboratory 2007, the 2nd anthology of the best science blogging of the year, is now up for sale on Lulu.com!

Open Lab 2007 - the winning entries for you to see!

Well, The Day has arrived! After reading all of the 486 entries at least once (and many 2-3 times) and after calculating all of the judges' ratings of all the posts, Reed Cartwright and I are happy to announce which...

Open Lab 2007 - all the entries are now in!

It is midnight, and the deadline for submission of blog posts for the 2nd Science Blogging Anthology is over. We have recieved 468 entries (after deleting spam - the total was 501) and a jury of 30+ judges has already...

U.S. history

I need to pick, buy and send a book on U.S. history to an old friend in Belgrade. It should be an objective, academic book, 600+ pages, not more than $50 used at Amazon. Is there such a thing and...

Golden Compass - it's about sex, really

This weekend, with 70 degrees F in Chapel Hill, it would have bin a sin to remain indoors. So I didn't. But in the end, at twilight today, my daughter and I went to see Golden Compass, the movie whose...

Chris Clarke on Joshua Trees

Chris Clarke is writing a book on Joshua trees. This requires money and Chris does not have enough. I know I want to read the book when it comes out. This is what blog-friends are for: donate now....

Open Lab 2007 is now being judged

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...

Happy birthday "Origin of Species"

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...

I want an e-Book, but Kindle is not it

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...

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

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...

Open Laboratory 2008

Now that the registration for the Science Blogging Conference is open, it is time to remind you that the new edition of the Science Blogging Anthology, "Open Laboratory 2007", is in the works and is accepting your suggestions. Although...

Thank you!

A dear reader checked out my amazon wish-list and sent me Dr.Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation, a book I wanted for a long time. Thank you!...

Potter, again

Now that I have finished reading HP7, I finally let myself go around and see what others are writing. Here is some of the best I found so far, to be read only if you have finished the book (or...

Danica McKellar exclusive for Scienceblogs

Tara of Aetiology, after reviewing Danica McKellar's book "Math Doesn't Suck", posted an exclusive blog interview with Danica, which you can (and should) read here....

Are you physically addicted to Harry Potter?

It is certainly possible. Compared to some people I know, I am definitely not. I have read each of the books once (more than halfway through the 7th - so do not give me spoilers yet!) and I have seen...

Thank you!

One more book is off my amazon.com wish list, thanks to one of my readers - Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan. Thank you so much! It is going straight up to the top of my "to read" stack, as...

Professor Steve Steve meets Harry Potter

Then, after all this walking, I finally went to Borders and got myself the seventh book of Harry Potter. But, lo and behold, when I got home, Steve Steve decided he was going to read it first, so all I...

Biologists Helping Bookstores

Ha! Check out this brand-new blog! Ste is going to bookstores, checking out the Science section and moving pseudo-science, anti-science and nonsense books from it to the New Age section. Just a couple of Behe books in the La...

Culinary Harry Potter

Get yourself some Harry Potter recipes so you have something to eat while reading The Book over the weekend....

More science of Harry Potter

I can't stay away (a charming spell?) from the series that Anne-Marie is churning out at a supernatural rate (what kind of magic?). Here are the latest three installments, totally enchanting: Conservation Biology The Botany of Wands Kin selection...

Science of Harry Potter

Both Eva and Anne-Marie have started a series of posts about the Science of Harry Potter, focusing on the genetics (i.e., patterns of inheritance) of wizardry vs. muggleness. Anne-Marie has already moved on to the second part of her series,...

Dawkins in San Francisco

Richard Dawkins is doing a reading/signing at Kepler's bookstore this Saturday. Any Bay Area bloggers wanna go?...

Storm World

Unfortunately, I will still be out of town for this, but if you are in the area on July 12th, you should go to Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh (it is in Ridgewood Shopping Center, 3522 Wade Ave.) at 7pm...

Why People Write?

I don't know, but Grrrl and Archy tried to answer that question......

World 2.0 at Rainbows End

Books: "Rainbows End" by Vernor Vinge. It's 2025 - What happened to science, politics and journalism? Well, you know I'd be intrigued. After all, a person whose taste in science fiction I trust (my brother) told me to read this...

Always wanted to go to Barcelona!

The Shadow of the Wind Thank you...

Storm World

My copy of the book just arrived in the mail. This answers my question of what to read in SF (at least until Harry Potter VII comes out...)....

Invisibility Cloak

When I was a kid I swallowed science-fiction by the crates. And I was too young to be very discerning of quality - I liked everything. Good taste developed later, with age. But even at that tender age, there was...

Thank you!

Another wonderful reader dipped into my amazon wish list and picked Hidden Camera by Zoran Zivkovic (no relation). Zoran was the first person in former Yugoslavia to get a PhD with science-fiction as a topic of his Dissertation. Soon after...

The first masked villain

Remember just the other day when I posted about Arsene Lupen, one of my childhood heroes? OK, Sherlock Holmes (called Herlock Sholmes for copyright reasons in the Lupen books) was a greater hero - there is probably not a single...

Arsene Lupen

This brief story on NPR today reminded me of some books I read as a child (in Serbo-Croatian translation) - though I have to admit that my brother loved them even more - in which the main character is Arsene...

Thank you!

This and this arrived in the mail today. A birthday present from one of my readers! Thank you!...

Lulu 2007 Blooker Prizes

Just announced!...

The Inter-Ghost Connection

The other day I was chatting with my brother (the smarter brother of Sherlock Holmes) on the phone, and he said something that may have some truth to it - I was predisposed, from early childhood, to understand and like...

Intuition

Zuska wrote a very good review of Allegra Goodman's book "Intuition" from a very different angle than any other review I have seen so far, including those by Grrrlscientist and myself. Thought-provoking and worth your time....

Query: popular physics books?

My son (13) is in his physics phase. As a biologist, I don't know much about physics beyond college classes, but our home library is huge, so he managed to dig out a bunch of physics-related books. Some he read,...

Kurt Vonnegut, RIP

Died at the age of 84. One of the best of the best. One of the 2-3 people in the world whose ALL works I own and have read at least once. He'll be missed....

How not to write a science book...

...or blog post, or any non-fiction for that matter. Dave Munger explains. As one of his commenters notes: " Actually, this fantastic post is like a DSM entry for diagnosing crappy science writing. "Must exhibit 7 of 9 symptoms for...

Feldman Skewered

It appears that scientists are not the only ones who do not grok framing. Jeffrey Feldman's book got blasted by some ninkompoop in NY Times yesterday. Jeff responds: Indeed, when I read that passage I wondered if the reviewer had...

Have you nominated a post for the 2007 Science Blogging Anthology yet?

First three months of the year are almost over and... we have only 14 entries so far for the next Science Blogging Anthology! Everything written and posted since December 20th 2006 is fair game. Have you written something really good...

Everyone's favourite nurse is back!

The first four books in the Cherry Ames series are back in print, published by Springer Publishing Company. Apparently, many people, upon reading them, decided to join the nursing profession. Mind you, that was between 1943 and 1968. when these...

Blooker Prize shortlist announced

Paul announces that the finalists for the 2007 Lulu Blooker Prize have been announced. Unfortunately, The Open Laboratory was finished after the deadline for submission. Perhaps we can submit it for the 2008 Prize!...

Happy Birthday Douglas Adams

Douglas Noel Adams was born at Cambridge, England on this day in 1952. After earning both bachelors and masters degrees there, he did some comedy acting and writing, including work with a couple of the Monty Python gang, and eventually...

Most Significant SF Books

Tikistitch, PZ Myers and John Wilkins are going through a list of "Most Significant SF & Fantasy Books of the Last 50 Years". Considering I am a big SF reader, I was surprised as to how few of those I...

That Gunk on Your Car

Jonah points to link by Kottke to series of close-up photos of insects splatered on windshields. The images are truly cool and not gross at all. This immediately reminded me of a funny, yet excellent book I read a few...

Science Anthologies Reviewed

John Dupuis, the Confessing Science Librarian, wrote a review of three science-writing anthologies, including the Open Laboratory 2006, which ended up in the highly respectable second place, nested between two professional collections. The beauty of online on-demand publishing is that...

Circadian Rhythm Degeneration Syndrome?

OK, it is a premise of a new SF novel. The book description does not look too promising, though I guess I should read it for professional reasons (I put it on my amazon wish-list for now): Last call from...

The Best Sneetches on the Beaches

An olde but fun (February 16, 2006):...

Wimp Factor

You know that I think that Wimp Factor is one of the most important yet least appreciated books about ideology and politics in recent years. So, I was really glad to see an excellent review of it by Amanda: Regardless...

Thank you!

One of the perks of being a scienceblogger is a steady stream of offers of preview copies of books, as well as willingness of publishers to send one if asked. I have a huge stack of them - some read,...

Atheist Books and the Overton Window

I have read "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins and "Breaking The Spell" by Daniel Dennett a couple of months ago, could not bear to slog all the way through "The End of Faith" by Sam Harris, and am still...

Thank You!

This book, Darwinian Reductionism by Alex Rosenberg, arrived in the mail today. I do not recall ordering it, and I know it used to be on my amazon.com wishlist, so the only explanation is that this is a gift from...

Harry Potter Mania on Blogs

Now that the Seventh Book is available for pre-order (and beating all the records, not to mention being #1 on Amazon), there is gooing to be a lot of blogospheric speculation about it, e.g., who dies, what happens and how...

Harry Potter, Vol.VII

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is now available for pre-order at Amazon. I ordered two copies (one for me, one to send to friends in Belgrade). Regular issue, not Deluxe. It ships July 21, 2007. Can't wait!...

Copycats!

Ha! We broke the ice and now others are following our example. The Best of Technology Writing 2007 is being planned (hat-tip: Pimm). I think this is great! Biotech articles are welcome as well, so send in your faves for...

Anthology update

Now that the Anthology is arriving at people's homes, getting read and even reviewed on blogs, I hope that more people will take a minute to post reviews or ratings on the actual book webpage. In one week, it has...

Of course...

What Kind of Reader Are You? Your Result: Obsessive-Compulsive Bookworm You're probably in the final stages of a Ph.D. or otherwise finding a way to make your living out of reading. You are one of the literati. Other people's grammatical...

Do-it-yourself Biology

When I was a kid, there was no such thing as "do it yourself" biology for home. Sure, you could do observational stuff, like go out in the woods with a butterfly net and a magnifi\ying glass, or plant some...