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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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Philosophy:
John Wilkins is in Arizona attending a Philosophy of Biology conference (another one of those "I wish I could be there" things) and liveblogging the whole thing: When philosophers really embarrass themselves Liveblogging the conference: Mishler Liveblogging the conference: Piotrowski...
Posted on March 16, 2008 11:58 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Olivia Judson wrote a blog post on her NYTimes blog that has many people rattled. Why? Because she used the term "Hopeful Monster" and this term makes many biologists go berserk, foaming at the mouth. And they will not, with...
Posted on January 26, 2008 3:40 PM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
From Sage Ross, via John Lynch come exciting news about a new Open Access Journal - Spontaneous Generations: A Journal for the History and Philosophy of Science Spontaneous Generations is a new online academic journal published by graduate students at...
Posted on January 22, 2008 8:59 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Thanks to John Wilkins, I want to point you to an excellent review on the current state of research (both scientific and philosophical) in Animal Cognition....
Posted on January 8, 2008 9:23 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
First: the difference between theory and practice. Second: the theory. Third: still to come, I hope, a YouTube video of Steinn demonstrating the practice of parallel parking....
Posted on December 23, 2007 1:34 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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 on November 28, 2007 2:44 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Three good talks at Duke this Fall: This year's series explores how advances in neuroscience, genomics, robotics, and artificial intelligence are not only changing our conception of what it is to be human but also creating possibilities for changing 'human...
Posted on October 18, 2007 4:17 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Galilei kicked us out of the Center of the Universe. Darwin kicked us off the Pinnacle of Creation Freud kicked the Soul out of our Brains. Few remain adherents of Geocentrism. The opponents of evolution are legion and very vocal...
Posted on October 3, 2007 2:37 AM • 36 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
BBC reports that scientists working in the UK government have adopted a Scientific Ethics Code, written by Professor Sir David King. Here is the Code: Act with skill and care, keep skills up to date Prevent corrupt practice and...
Posted on September 14, 2007 9:50 AM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Come see Sapolsky, Deacon, de Waal, Rosenberg, Dennett, Fox Keller and others talk about what it means to be human (or chimp).
Posted on September 14, 2007 9:16 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
John Wilkins just published a paper (..."a review of the centenary festschrift for Mayr...") and got a book accepted for publication (the book grew out of series of excellent blog posts about species definitions - who says that blogging is...
Posted on August 15, 2007 10:19 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
All you need to know about Philosophy of Science (but were too afraid to ask) you can read in John Wilkins' triptych: Philosophy is to science, as ornithologists are to birds: 1. Introduction Philosophy is to science, as ornithologists are...
Posted on June 10, 2007 3:30 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Google was really no help in finding the exact quote, but everyone in the animal behavior field has heard some version of the Harvard Rule of Animal Behaviour: "You can have the most beautifully designed experiment with the most carefully...
Posted on May 15, 2007 10:36 PM • 21 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
OK, this is really ancient. It started as my written prelims (various answers to various questions by different committeee members) back in November 1999, and even included some graphs I drew. Then I put some of that stuff together (mix...
Read on »
Posted on February 12, 2007 10:52 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
So, why do Creationists and other quacks try so hard to sound all 'scienc-y'?
Read on »
Posted on December 22, 2006 11:08 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Sandra Porter is having fun collecting all the new-fangled biological subdisciplines that end with "-omics". The final product of each such project also has a name, ending with "-ome". You have all heard of the Genome (complete sequence of all...
Posted on December 3, 2006 10:26 PM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
John bemoans the state of science journalism, with some added history of the Atlantis hypothesis....
Posted on October 14, 2006 4:55 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Fundamental Questions in Biology. Here is a quote from the end: The questions that biologists from diverse subdisciplines are asking have commonalities that make clear the continued existence of fundamental challenges that unify biology and that should form the core...
Posted on September 12, 2006 10:32 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Not just in the USA. Visceral queeziness coupled with religious sentiment coupled with scientific ignorance appears in other parts of the world as well, as in the UK The Scottish Council on Human Bioethics, a professional group based in Edinburgh,...
Posted on August 11, 2006 10:21 PM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
This is by far the most popular of the four installments in this series because it contains the nifty puzzle exercise. Click on the spider-web-clock icon to see the comments on the original post. Just like last week, I have...
Read on »
Posted on July 22, 2006 9:59 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
If you are bored, read this. Know thyself!...
Posted on July 19, 2006 12:30 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
