June 30, 2008
On this day 150 years ago essays by Alfred Russel Wallace and Charles R. Darwin were read at the meeting of the Linnean Society in London. This was the first time in history that the idea of natural selection was presented to the world.
George Beccaloni and Wesley R. Elsberry wrote excellent…
June 30, 2008
Hat-tip: Brian
June 30, 2008
The Alternative Scientist
RepositoryMan
Bonnie J. M. Swoger
Marine Depot Blog
Curiosities of Biological Nomenclature
Gossamer Tapestry
June 30, 2008
SCIENCEBLOGS ACHIEVES RECORD GROWTH
NEW YORK (July 1) - ScienceBlogs (www.scienceblogs.com), the web's largest science community, announced today that traffic for the first six months of 2008 increased by more than 60% over the same period last year, with total visits through June 30 reaching…
June 30, 2008
Blake wrote a long and excellent post about the question. Brian, swansontea, SciCurious, PZ Myers and Chad have more. What they say....
June 30, 2008
Something happened in Siberia 100 years ago - exactly, on this day. I always found the event very intriguing. If you want to learn everything one needs and wants to know about the event, written in a way that will make you excited - go and read Archy's latest masterpiece (hmmm, anthology-worthy?).
June 30, 2008
The one I got for Mrs.Coturnix's birthday? Tanja has updated her website and now you can see both that mirror (in a much better photo) and a bunch of other mirrors and artwork she made recently.
June 30, 2008
As always on Monday night, there are new articles published in PLoS Biology and PLoS Medicine. Here are some of the highlights:
Shedding Light on Animal Cryptochromes:
Anyone who's neglected a houseplant for any length of time knows that plants can't survive without light. But it's more…
June 30, 2008
Mammalian Clock Protein Responds Directly To Light:
We all know that light effects the growth and development of plants, but what effect does light have on humans and animals? A new paper by Nathalie Hoang et al., published in PLoS Biology, explores this question by examining cryptochromes in flies…
June 30, 2008
Circus of the Spineless #34 is up on Gossamer Tapestry
The latest edition of Change of Shift is up on 20 Out of 10
The Carnival of the Liberals #76 is up on Situation Awareness
The 94th Carnival of the Godless is up on Earthman's Notebook
Friday Ark #197 is up on Modulator
Carnival of the Green #…
June 29, 2008
Professor Goddard does not know the relation between action and reaction and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react. He seems to lack the basic knowledge ladled out daily in high schools.
- New York Times
June 28, 2008
All brave men love; for he only is brave who has affections to fight for, whether in the daily battle of life, or in physical contests.
- Nathaniel Hawthorne
June 27, 2008
A man can believe a considerable deal of rubbish, and yet go about his daily work in a rational and cheerful manner.
- Norman Douglas
June 26, 2008
We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee.
- Marian Wright Edelman (b. 1939)
June 26, 2008
Marc Dingman is touching on my own favorite topic: It's All About Timing: Circadian Rhythms and Behavior
And SciCurios goes only millimeters below the suprachiasmatic nucleus: Diabetes Insipidus as a Sequel to a Gunshot Wound of the Head
Both posts well worth your time.
June 26, 2008
I will be out of town and offline for the next four days.
If you see spam or trolls that are really bad and need to be dealt with, or if there are technical problems with the blog in any way, just tell one of my SciBlings to alert the Overlords.
Be good. Have fun. I'll be back.
June 26, 2008
There is an exciting new study in Science that reshuffles the avian phylogeny pretty thoroughly - Grrrrl and Greg have excellent summaries.
As a part of the monthly topic being birds in June, there is an ongoing Journal Club on PLoS ONE.
And if that is not enough birds for you today, the new…
June 26, 2008
Thursday night - time to check in to see what is new in PLoS Genetics, PLoS Computational Biology, PLoS Pathogens and PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases:
The Exception That Proves the Rule: An Interview with Jenny Graves:
Close to 20 years ago, I was contacted by an Australian woman who was planning…
June 26, 2008
Huge Genome-scale Phylogenetic Study Of Birds Rewrites Evolutionary Tree-of-life:
The largest ever study of bird genetics has not only shaken up but completely redrawn the avian evolutionary tree. The study challenges current classifications, alters our understanding of avian evolution, and…
June 25, 2008
There was a time when a fool and his money were soon parted, but now it happens to everybody.
- Adlai Ewing Stevenson
June 25, 2008
Believe it or not, this appears to have something to do with their circadian rhythms!
Back in the 1960s and early 1970s, there was quite a lot of research published on the circadian rhythms in earthworms, mostly by Miriam Bennett. As far as I can tell, nobody's followed up on that work since. I…
June 25, 2008
ResearchBlogging.org is getting ready for a big upgrade, or so I hear. You can be a part of the process by helping shape up the new categories and subcategories - all you need to do is go to this blog post, see what is already there and post your suggestions in the comments.
June 25, 2008
Extreme Weather Events Can Unleash A 'Perfect Storm' Of Infectious Diseases, Research Study Says:
An international research team, including University of Minnesota researcher Craig Packer, has found the first clear example of how climate extremes, such as the increased frequency of droughts and…
June 25, 2008
The Tangled Bank #108 is up on Wheat-dogg's world
Carnival of Feminists No 59 is up on Philobiblon
The latest Grand Rounds are up on Shrink Rap
The 177th Carnival of Education is up on Where's the Sun?
The 130th Carnival of Homeschooling is up on Dewey's Treehouse
And don't forget to submit your…
June 24, 2008
Youth is not the age of pleasure; we then expect too much, and we are therefore exposed to daily disappointments and mortifications. When we are a little older, and have brought down our wishes to our experience, then we become calm and begin to enjoy ourselves.
- Lord Liverpool
June 24, 2008
As part of the monthly focus on birds, there is a new Journal Club in PLoS ONE this week.
Dr.Elizabeth Adkins Regan from Cornell and her postdoc Dr Joanna Rutkowska from Jagiellonian University have already posted their first comments on the paper by Keith Sockman (here at UNC): Ovulation Order…
June 24, 2008
There are 54 new articlespublished in PLoS ONE today. Here are my picks:
Climate Extremes Promote Fatal Co-Infections during Canine Distemper Epidemics in African Lions:
Extreme climatic conditions may alter historic host-pathogen relationships and synchronize the temporal and spatial convergence…
June 24, 2008
Single Insecticide Application Can Kill Three Cockroach Generations:
One dose of an insecticide can kill three generations of cockroaches as they feed off of each other and transfer the poison, according to Purdue University entomologists who tested the effectiveness of a specific gel bait.
To Find…
June 24, 2008
Ptak Science Books
What is 'Life'?
Susan's Zoo
Sports are 80 Percent Mental...
The Science of Sport
Global Sensemaking
June 23, 2008
That family glaze of common references, jokes, events, calamities - that sense of a family being like a kitchen midden: layer upon layer of the things daily life is made of. The edifice that lovers build is by comparison delicate and one-dimensional.
- Laurie E. Colwin
