July 31, 2008
So, let's see what's new in PLoS Genetics, PLoS Computational Biology, PLoS Pathogens and PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases this week. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. Here are my own picks for the week - you go…
July 31, 2008
There is a new study out there - Open access publishing, article downloads, and citations: randomised controlled trial - that some people liked, but Peter Suber and Stephan Harnad describe why the study is flawed (read Harnad's entire post for more):
To show that the OA advantage is an artefact of…
July 31, 2008
Apparently, even journalists reporting on it learned the details (and how to properly frame it) from this episode of This American Life. Worth listening to (or reading the transcript).
July 31, 2008
Interesting idea:
"Save It" Global Warming message by 10 yr old from 1skycampaign on Vimeo.
[Via - read the post as well]
July 31, 2008
...does not mean we should. Actually, as their lying is supposed to be their downfall, we need to make extra care not to provide any contra-examples that they can use against us in order to immunize themselves from the charge.
July 31, 2008
Do you want to spend two hours chatting with Grrrl, Janet, Professor Steve Steve (or two or three of them), me and many more SciBlings and readers?
If yes, this is where you should go:
We'll be meeting at 2:00 pm on Saturday, August 9, at the Arthur Ross Terrace at the American Museum of Natural…
July 31, 2008
At Stripped Science. Here is one (I guess this is within the Fair Use principle, you'll have to click on the link and go there to see the other strips):
July 31, 2008
On this list (which is now full and closed)?
Well, my name. Darn!
July 31, 2008
Broca's Area, 1865:
This doesn't sound too out there to us now, but at the time it caused a lot of controversy. The problems wasn't the localization to the inferior frontal lobe, it was Broca's claim that it was the LEFT inferior frontal lobe. This didn't sit well with a lot of scientists at the…
July 31, 2008
Excellent article by Jasmina Tesanovic about the final gasps of the Serbian Radicals (the right-wing nationalists and war-mongers) :
A couple of days ago, journalists from various press groups were beaten up by Radical goons; at that point the new government declared Serbian journalists to be…
July 31, 2008
The 92nd Skeptics' Circle is up on The Lay Scientist
July 31, 2008
Sometimes people ask me what do I have against Green OA (repositories) as opposed to Gold OA (journals) and I have a couple of stock answers to that, usually including a caveat that I do not really have anything against Green OA per se, but the way it is implemented is not good, yet makes people…
July 31, 2008
Do you remember this study (also see it here, here, here) we did a few years ago?
Well, I just got my hands on some pictures from the time we did it - just individual animals, not pairs as they fought (we had to pay attention to score behaviors, not waste time on taking pictures):
July 30, 2008
The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding.
- Francis Bacon
July 30, 2008
Searching For Shut Eye: Possible 'Sleep Gene' Identified:
While scientists and physicians know what happens if you don't get six to eight hours of shut-eye a night, investigators have long been puzzled about what controls the actual need for sleep. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania…
July 30, 2008
Best time to appreciate Open Access? When you're really sick and want to learn more about what you have.:
* Complete OA still a long way off. One thing I re-learned during this was that it is incredibly frustrating to see how much of the biomedical literature is still not freely available…
July 30, 2008
Sorry, can't help it:
July 30, 2008
The NYTimes (also International Herald Tribune which I mentioned before) piece on book-reading, the Web and literacy of the new generation, has provoked quite a lot of interesting responses:
SciCurious:
But this change in internet language has happened very quickly, almost as as fast an an invading…
July 30, 2008
Mate Parlov died yesterday. A boxer, a gentleman, and a poet.
July 30, 2008
This picture was taken four years ago:
July 30, 2008
PZ just had a book review published in Nature:
Science and evolution have an advocate in Kenneth Miller, one of North America's eminent knights-errant, a scientist who is active in defending evolutionary theory in the conflict between evolution and creationism. He has been at the centre of many…
July 30, 2008
The 46th edition of the Fourth Stone Hearth is up on Testimony of the spade
The 182nd edition of The Carnival Of Education is up on The Chancellor's New Clothes
Carnival of Mathematics #37 is up on Logic Nest
Carnival of Space #64 is up on Music of the Spheres
The newest edition of Carnival Of The…
July 30, 2008
Science Communicators of North Carolina:
Tuesday, August 19
6:30-8:30 p.m.
Science Cafe: Monster Storms - Hurricanes in North Carolina
Dr. Ryan Boyles, State Climatologist and Director of the State Climate Office at NC State University with Dr. Anantha Aiyyer, an Assistant Professor in the…
July 29, 2008
We usually see only the things we are looking for - so much so that we sometimes see them where they are not.
- Eric Hoffer
