March 15, 2009
Archy continues to post snippets of his research on the history of the discoveries and descriptions of mammoths:
The description of the mammoth as a subterranean animal that dies on exposure to surface air is almost identical to that given by the Chinese writer Tung-fang So in the second century BC…
March 15, 2009
Andrew Blum in WIRED:
...More than 2 million flights pass over the city every year, most traveling to and from the metropolitan area's three busiest airports: John F. Kennedy, Newark, and LaGuardia. And all that traffic squeezes through a network of aerial routes first laid out for the mail planes…
March 15, 2009
1985 talk by Terry Pratchett:
....One may look in vain for similar widespread evidence of wizards. In addition to the double handful of doubtful practitioners mentioned above, half of whom are more readily identifiable as alchemists or windbags, all I could come up with was some vaguely masonic…
March 15, 2009
Rocketboom interviewed a bunch of young researchers - here is one (check the "related videos" for others):
March 15, 2009
Daniel Lemire asks this question when observing a fallacy voiced in an editorial:
.....only a small fraction of the top 100 papers ranked by the number of citations (17 of 100) were published by single authors.....a published paper resulting from collaborative work has a higher chance of attracting…
March 15, 2009
Electronic Journal of Academic and Special Librarianship: The Business of Academic Publishing: A Strategic Analysis of the Academic Journal Publishing Industry and its Impact on the Future of Scholarly Publishing:
Abstract: "Academic libraries cannot pay the regularly escalating subscription prices…
March 14, 2009
Time is a wealth of change, but the clock in its parody makes it mere change and no wealth.
- Rabindranath Tagore, 1861 - 1941
March 14, 2009
Hmmm, this clock is kinda depressing:
March 14, 2009
Science Depends on the Diffusion of Knowledge:
According to the National Science Foundation, there are over 2.5 million research workers worldwide, with more than 1.2 million in the U.S. alone.1 If we look at all the articles, reports, emails and conversations that pass between them, we could count…
March 14, 2009
Timothy Burke: Journalism, Civil Society and 21st Century Reportage:
As the failure of many newspapers looms and public radio cuts its journalistic offerings, the complaint against new media by established journalists gets sharper and sharper. The key rallying cry is that new media can't provide…
March 14, 2009
Help scientists track plant and animal cycles:
The USA-National Phenology Network (USA-NPN) -- a University of Arizona, Tucson-based group of scientists and citizens that monitors the seasonal cycles of plants and animals -- is calling for volunteers to help track the effect of climate change on…
March 14, 2009
Dorothea found an intriguing survey - If it's not online... - in which physicists and astronomers say, pretty much, that 'if an article is not online then it is not worth the effort to obtain it'.
An interesting discussion (with a couple of more links added by others) ensued here.
What do you…
March 14, 2009
Henry Gee is diversifying. If some other people did it, they would not have lost all their money to Madoff.
So, what is Henry doing?
His blog on Nature Network is now re-named - I, Editor.
The End of The Pier Show can now be found elsewhere, or to be more precise, it is now here. Subscribe,…
March 14, 2009
Want!
In the meantime, go vote for the best SciBlings' pie.
March 14, 2009
The next edition of Praxis, the blog carnival about the life in and business of science, will alight on The Lay Scientist tomorrow, March 15th!
The next edition of The Giant's Shoulders, the blog carnival of history of science, will be on March 16th on The Evilutionary Biologist.
So hurry up and…
March 14, 2009
Fridges And Washing Machines Liberated Women, Study Suggests:
The advent of modern appliances such as washing machines and refrigerators had a profound impact on 20th Century society, according to a new Université de Montréal study. Plug-in conveniences transformed women's lives and enabled them…
March 13, 2009
Three o'clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do.
- Jean-Paul Sartre, 1905 - 1980
March 13, 2009
Now that the Open Lab 2008 is done and up for sale, it's time to turn our sights towards the next year.
If you read the comments on Sci's post and my post (as well as some chatter I picked up on Twitter/Facebook/FriendFeed and privately), the pick for the 2009 editor is a Big Hit! I am truly…
March 13, 2009
This is an interesting thread developing - I posted a longish comment there already if you are interested in my views.
This, of course, will involve the question of 'appropriate language', so please also re-visit this, this and this.
Related: Do you comment on your own blog?
March 13, 2009
There are 24 new articles in PLoS ONE today. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. You can now also easily place articles on various social services (CiteULike, Connotea, Stumbleupon, Facebook and Digg) with just one…
March 13, 2009
The newest member of the Family is Erik Klemetti, a geologist studying volcanoes. You can check out the archives of his old blog for the taste of things to come. But first go and say Hi to Erik at his new digs, here at scienceblogs.com, at Eruptions.
March 13, 2009
From an e-mail from SPARC and The Alliance for Taxpayer Access yesterday:
FIRST U.S. PUBLIC ACCESS POLICY MADE PERMANENT
2009 Consolidated Appropriations Act ensures NIH public access policy will persist
Washington, D.C. - March 12, 2009 - President Obama yesterday signed into law the 2009…
March 13, 2009
Science on the Campaign Trail:
In November 2007, a group of six citizens decided to do something to elevate science and technology in the national dialogue. They created Science Debate 2008, an initiative calling for a presidential debate on science policy. They put up a Web site, and began…
March 13, 2009
From SCONC:
Thursday, March 19
6pm
SCONC night at the Museum of Life and Science. Join your fellow science communicators for refreshments, socializing and a bit of brainstorming about Science in the Triangle - the museum's evolving experiment in community science journalism and scientific-…
March 13, 2009
The unmovable movers! Or so says Bill Hooker:
For instance: I use Open Office in preference to Word because I'm willing to put up with a short learning curve and a few inconveniences, having (as they say here in the US) drunk the Open Kool-Aid. But I'm something of an exception. Faced with a single…
March 13, 2009
Yes, this is how the academia works:
March 13, 2009
What I Was Doing Vs. What I Did: How Verb Aspect Influences Memory And Behavior:
If you want to perform at your peak, you should carefully consider how you discuss your past actions. In a new study in Psychological Science, psychologists William Hart of the University of Florida and Dolores…
March 12, 2009
Clocks slay time... time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life.
- William Faulkner, 1897 - 1962
March 12, 2009
Hat-tip: Miriam
March 12, 2009
Anne-Marie writes, in Hot Mommas Make Boys:
A study published in the latest edition of the Journal of Mammalogy reports the results of a 30 year study on a population of northern elephant seals (Mirounga angustirostris), which shows that the male:female pup ratio is significantly higher in years…
