Seed Media Group

Search this blog

Profile

me.jpg

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

I Support the Public Library of Science

Buy the 2007 Science Blogging Anthology:

The Open Laboratory

Buy the 2006 Science Blogging Anthology:

The Open Laboratory

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

Archives

Blogroll

Subscribe via Email

Stay abreast of your favorite bloggers' latest and greatest via e-mail, via a daily digest.

Sign me up!

My Old Stuff

Read the archives of my old blogs:

Science And Politics

Circadiana

The Magic School Bus

Make Me Happy

Add this blog to my Technorati Favorites!

Add Scienceblogs to your Technorati Favorites!

Make Me Solvent

Amazon Honor System Click Here to Pay Learn More

A Blog Around The Clock swag store

Resources

Dictionary of Circadian Physiology

Basic Terms and Concepts in Math and Science

TalkOrigins

Find Science Blogs

I Support

Project Exploration

Project Exploration

Science Blogging Conference 08

Science Blogging Conference 07

Bloggie Stuff

Personal:

My friend on Ground Zero

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,...

Snowglobes

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...

Home!

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...

...then we take Berlin

Just landed in Berlin. Flew with JAT for the first time in decades. The best flight ever. I guess their pilots, after getting some real dogfight combat flying experience find piloting a B-737-300 way too easy......

In Trieste

Just arrived in Trieste. It's 1am here so I am about to go to sleep. The hotel is nice, but it charges exorbitant amounts of money for Internet access (50 euro for 5.5 hours)!!!! I complained at the desk -...

Where in the World....

...am I? Oh! I am here. Pictures of the menagerie to follow......

My Equestrian Past

This post from May 07, 2005, was one of the rare personal posts I have ever written. Under the fold.......

Update....

Just arrived at the Cambridge office of PLoS. Internet works fine so, after catching up with some work first, I will try to post yesterday's pictures later today. I also have another interview to post....

The Work-Place, or, Catching a Catfish Online

A May 9, 2007 post, wondering to telecommute or not. I will be offline for a couple of days so I will not be able to post at my usual frantic pace. Instead, I decided to write something that will...

Arrived safely...

Thanks to Anton for a pleasant drive to the airport last night. Had a great flight on a B 777 and arrived in London on time. Mo picked me up at Heathrow and we went walking around town, taking lots...

Whassup?

You must have noticed that there wasn't too much effort on this blog over the past couple of weeks (except for the elaborate and too successful April Fools hoax). I've just been so busy lately. So, here is a quick...

London, in a week

The trip to the UK is shaping up. Sing up here if you want to meet me during that week, or here if you want to meet me at the pub on April 9th (probably this one) or here if...

Meet me in London

If you live in the UK and would like to meet me on April 9th, go here to organize - add a comment with your preferences of place/time/menu/events.......

Europe, here I come!

My spring traveling schedule has now crystallized. This is my schedule - if you are in any of those places at just the right time, let me know and let's meet. I'll be arriving in London on April 9 early...

XOXOXO

The early orders of the XO laptop arrived quickly. My wife and daughter have been enjoying them for three months now. But the late orders got pretty much stuck - they were overwhelmed with the numbers. We got a couple...

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....

Annie Get Your Gun

Last night we went to Raleigh Memorial Auditorium and saw the opening ("student") night of "Annie Get Your Gun", starring Larry Gatlin, who is apparently some big name in country music, and Raleigh-born Lauren Kennedy who we last saw as...

Memories of War, Part V (guest post by Mom)

Many of you have been moved by my Mom's five-part guest-blogging on Holocaust Children (part I, part II, part III, part IV and part V), so I asked her to let me reproduce here her wartime story, as it appeared...

Memories of War, Part IV (guest post by Mom)

Many of you have been moved by my Mom's five-part guest-blogging on Holocaust Children (part I, part II, part III, part IV and part V), so I asked her to let me reproduce here her wartime story, as it appeared...

Memories of War, Part III (guest post by Mom)

Many of you have been moved by my Mom's five-part guest-blogging on Holocaust Children (part I, part II, part III, part IV and part V), so I asked her to let me reproduce here her wartime story, as it appeared...

Memories of War, Part II (guest post by Mom)

Many of you have been moved by my Mom's five-part guest-blogging on Holocaust Children (part I, part II, part III, part IV and part V), so I asked her to let me reproduce here her wartime story, as it appeared...

Memories of War, Part I (guest post by Mom)

Many of you have been moved by my Mom's five-part guest-blogging on Holocaust Children (part I, part II, part III, part IV and part V), so I asked her to let me reproduce here her wartime story, as it appeared...

Home again...

Conference was a blast. Did not spend much time at home, though, so it is nice to be back today. Dog was happy to see me:...

Unshaven vs. Reshaven?

Is "reshaven" a real word? This is, apparently a matter of some academic interest, according to Alex. I think "reshaven" is applicable in each of the following cases: a) when the shaven area is not an area usually shaven. Example:...

Sarma

Yup, I had sarma for dinner tonight. It's been a while since the last time I had some, but Mrs.Coturnix fixed it today, inventing her own recipe along the way. It was delicious!...

Holocaust Children, part V (guest post by Mom)

Here is the fifth and final installment of my Mother's travelogue. Feel free to ask questions. I will try to copy and post her published chapter from the book "We Survived" in about a month from now. Family Tuesday, November...

Holocaust Children, part IV (guest post by Mom)

Here is the fourth installment in the series - the fifth is coming tomorrow. Please comment and my Mom will respond. Fulfilled lives of Dina and Jovan Rajs Sunday, November 11th The Hotel Dining room could accomodate all 800 participants....

Holocaust Children, part II (guest post by Mom)

This is the second part of my Mom's travelogue from Israel last month: Trauma of baptized Jews Friday, November 9th The Conference continues to work in groups. The topics are interesting but I had to choose one for the morning...

Holocaust Children, part I (guest post by Mom)

A few weeks ago, my mother took a long trip to Israel to attend a conference of Holocaust Child Survivors. She wrote a diary of her trip and it was, in a slightly edited form (omitting most of the...

XOXO

On Friday morning, there was a bang on the door and the UPS guy shoved a little cardboard box into our hands. Yeay! Our first XO laptop arrived. It is my wife's, and she named it Svetlana, after the character...

The Meme Of Memes!

Matt and Mrs.Whatsit tagged me with the 7-meme and 8-meme and I have been struggling with the ideas as to how to respond. I am usually a sucker for memes. I always do them. But there is nothing - weird...

Have you hugged your horse today?

The other day, Kate wrote an interesting post about inter-species relationships, in particular the cases of inter-species adoption and parenting. In her post, she mentioned a paper that immediately drew my attention - Influence of various early human-foal interferences on...

Happy Thanksgiving!

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...

Good wine

Last Wednesday I went to Wine Authorities, the new wine store in Durham, for our monthly Durham Blogger Meetup. Afterwards, I could not help it but go home with three new bottles of wine. The best is the one I...

Boston trip - Part 1

OK, back home and rested - it's time for a pictorial report, in two parts. This one is social, the other part will be about the conference itself. All of it under the fold......

Meme of Four (again)

I don't think I ever refused a meme, even if I have done it already, especially if a lot of time passed, or one can provide new answers every time. But this one is tough, as I would barely change...

Back...

...from Boston. Exhausted. Dog happy to see me. Cats, too. Wife, too. Pictorial report tomorrow....

Checking in....

Landed safely in Boston. Anna picked me up at the airport and took me to a tour of Harvard (after a breakfast/lunch of crepes), and now I wish I did read the descriptions of Harvard Square under various weather conditions....

Miracle of Science!

I know, it's the name of a bar. In Boston. I'll be there tomorrow night around 8pm. Warming up for Publishing in the New Millennium: A Forum on Publishing in the Biosciences. Alex will be there. Anna will be there....

Meet me at Harvard on Friday

Back at Scifoo I met Anna Kushnir. And then we met again. And then, inspired by the conversations at Scifoo, Anna decided to organize a day-long, student-hosted conference about the future of scientific publishing - Publishing in the New Millennium:...

Breaking News: PLoS ONE Managing Editor visits the Chapel Hill office!

Yup, Chris Surridge, Managing Editor of PLoS ONE (and the author of the legendary comment) swung by the Chapel Hill office last night. Since my initial stint was in the San Francisco office, and Chris is working in the Cambridge...

Nesting

Biscuit and Marbles:...

Links and files from ConvergeSouth and ASIS&T

My brain is fried. My flight home was horrifying - the pilot warned us before we even left the gate that the weather is nasty and that he ordered the stewardess to remain seated at least the first 30 minutes...

'Way Station' or 'City'?

No time to experience Clifford Simak's Wisconsin, but Mocha (124 W. Wisconsin Ave.) in Milwaukee is very comfortable, mocha is excellent and wifi is strong (and free). I'll be able to check in the room in an hour or two...

Too fast from Greensboro to Milwaukee

I just realized that I stupidly did not notice that my flight to Milwaukee tomorrow is at 6am instead of 6pm and I apparently cannot change that now. So, I am in a panic, trying to get some work done...

Running, breathing and being a horse

Yesterday, Chris Clarke wrote a post that I read three times so far, then finally submitted it myself for Reed's consideration for the anthology. Most science bloggers are excellent writers, but rare is the gift that Chris displays in many...

Cool Animal Meme

This was Anton's idea, at the dinner the other night, but I will get it started here anyway. An interesting animal I had I never owned an unusual species of animal. As a little kid I had small turtle named...

Weekend!

Wow - this was a busy and exhausting week! But Trackbacks are in place and (mostly) working. I did not even have time to unpack everything from last weekend's pseudo-move - the house is nice and clean but still looks...

Happy Birthday!

To Chris (and yes, what a great birthday present!)....

15

Mrs. Coturnix and I (amidst all of the packing and cleaning), are also celebrating our anniversary today. I just put some champaign to chill and, just in time for this, the mailman brought us something to drink out of:...

Pseudo-moving!

Well, I was busy with work and everything, but behind the scenes, Mrs.Coturnix took some vacation time and started completely re-doing our apartment with a help of two of her best friends. It already looks better than ever and feels...

Marbles and Orange Julius - new pictures

New pictures, under the fold...

Tanja and Doug

I mentioned that I met Tanja and Doug on Sunday. They just sent me some pictures from the meeting (under the fold) and you can also see their wildlife pictures here....

MS Excel is the tool of the Devil!

There is a good reason why scientists in general despise MS Excel. It is cumbersome, non-common-sensical, and the stats cannot be trusted. The graphs are ugly. I am sure it took a lot of hard work to design Excel (and...

Meeting a reader/commenter in RealLife is always fun!

Yesterday I had lunch (and coffee and another coffee - this lasted a while because it was so much fun) with Tanja and her husband Doug. Regulars here probably recognize the commenter who goes by the handle "tanjasova" - that's...

My new office

Since I came back from California, I've been trying to get Time Warner to remove one of the firewalls from my cable connection so I can get into the belly of the beast of PLoS. The wifi in the apartment...

Final Scifoo Wrap-up

As I predicted, bloggers have waited a day or two before they wrote much of substance abour Scifoo. First, you don't want to miss out on any cool conversations by blogging instead. Second, the experience is so intense, one needs...

Friday Cat Blogging - never on Friday

Well, it's been a long time since I posted pictures of my cats, and a month since I last saw them and photographed them, so here they are (under the fold):...

Home!

Finally got home - after a month! So nice to see my wife again, and my son (daughter is at the beach). Dog and two of the cats (Orange Julius and Biscuit) were very happy to see me - I'll...

Taking over the Silicon Valley

I am writing here in my hotel room in Mountain View, getting ready for the beginning of the Science Foo Camp. I rode here in a cab (really a limo, driven by the most professional driver I have ever...

Last day in San Francisco

A pictorial guide to drinking bloggers...

A Repeat Treat

I started my stay in San Francisco with a dinner at Incanto and ended it tonight with a dinner at Incanto again. Last time, the duck fries were not on the menu, but this time I had better luck. Delicious!...

Framing San Francisco

Just came back home from a very pleasant dinner with Matt Nisbet. What luck that our trips to San Francisco coincided so well! Oh, and of course, Profesor Steve Steve was there as well......

Hi, Michelle!

Yesterday, I extricated myself from PLoS for lunch, because I really wanted to go and meet one of my most regular readers and commenters, who goes around here as Michelle. We had a most delightful conversation over lunch at Jack...

Earthquake

Well, if one stays in San Francisco for a month, it is bound to happen one day... On Friday early morning (just before 5am) I woke up to an earthquake. I've been through a bunch of earthquakes before - Balkans...

Science Envy

I missed this by weeks, but Dave asked a set of questions that I was pondering on, but found no time and energy to answer until now. PZ, Janet, Martin, Chad and RPM responded (I am assuming some people outside...

San Francisco - a running commentary #2

Wow - this was (and still is) a very busy week. On most days, I just crashed early, without having the energy to blog very much (at least very much for me). In the last dispatch, I forgot to mention...

San Francisco - a running commentary

OK, so I've been here for about a week now. It's been so far an exciting and overwhelming experience - there is so much to learn! And I am impatient with myself and want to get in the groove right...

So many things to do, if I only knew how to get there!

This Tuesday at 7pm, you can come with me and learn everything you want to know about sea urchins at the Ask a Scientist event. Then, next Friday or two, altough it is in the middle of the workday,...

Yup, I had the rabbit!

And some other non-descript meats. And great Italian wine. In the great atmosphere of Incanto. In the company of some wonderful people, including, among others, my SciBling Sandra Kiume:...

Just a few pictures from last night

Jennifer Ouellette has the whole story, but here are a few more pictures (under the fold). We met at Betelnut restaurant last night - Jennifer, Kristin Abkemaier (formerly of the 'Radioactive Banana' blog), Jeff and Curtis of the Jeff's Bench...

First day....

Enjoying the computer. Everything works! More pictures and stuff later - I am exhausted (and