December 27, 2008
The Touch That Doesn't Heal :
Is there anecdotal evidence that unconventional therapies sometimes yield positive outcomes? Yes. There's also anecdotal evidence that athletes who refuse to shave during winning streaks sometimes bring home championships. It was George D. Lundberg, a former editor of…
December 27, 2008
So, let's highlight some of the participants of this year's ScienceOnline09 conference:
Eva Amsen is a newly-minted PhD in Biochemistry at the University of Toronto, and she blogs on Easternblot, Expression Patterns and Musicians and Scientists.
Melissa Anley-Mills is the News Director in the…
December 27, 2008
Visual Areas Of Brain Respond More To Valuable Objects, Brain-imaging Shows:
Dollar signs for eyes - cartoonists have been drawing them for years, and the artists, while whimsical, may have been onto something. According to new research from UC San Diego, areas of the brain responsible for vision…
December 26, 2008
Christmas is a time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell the government what they want - and their kids pay for it.
- Richard Lamm
December 26, 2008
So, let's see what's new in PLoS Genetics, PLoS Computational Biology and PLoS Pathogens 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 and look for your own favourites:
I…
December 26, 2008
New Year's Day, a time to reminisce about the past year, perhaps to analyze its ups and downs, and in the blogosphere: to link to one's "Best of" posts for all of those who missed them.
I posted 2960 posts so far this year - with six days to go I may reach 3000. It is not easy sifting through all…
December 26, 2008
Premature Babies Have Altered Sensory Responses In Later Life:
Premature infants who need intensive care or surgery are less sensitive to thermal (hot and cold) sensations later in life, according to research conducted at UCL (University College London). The study, published in the journal Pain,…
December 25, 2008
She played Bach. I do not know the names of the pieces, but I recognized the stiff ceremonial of the frenchified little German courts and the sober, thrifty comfort of the burghers, and the dancing on the village green, the green trees that looked like Christmas trees, and the sunlight on the wide…
December 25, 2008
Larry, Amanda, John, Mike and others are comenting, quite positively, on the recent Scientific American article - Evolution of the Mind: 4 Fallacies of Psychology by David J. Buller. And I agree - this is an excellent, well-deserved and well-thought smack-down of Evolutionary Psychology and I am…
December 25, 2008
If so, record it, or write it down, upload a podcast or post on your blog. And:
After the overwhelming response to the National Day of Listening, we are hoping to pass on a new holiday idea: For everyone who did an interview surrounding the National Day of Listening (or are thinking about…
December 25, 2008
Why Do We Believe in Santa?:
Having kids believe there's a jolly man in a red suit who visits on Christmas Eve isn't detrimental, although some parents can feel they're outright lying to their children, according to a new analysis by Serge Larivee. "When they learn the truth, children accept the…
December 24, 2008
I sometimes think we expect too much of Christmas Day. We try to crowd into it the long arrears of kindliness and humanity of the whole year. As for me, I like to take my Christmas a little at a time, all through the year.
- David Grayson
December 24, 2008
A review of nightlife and some awesome pictures:
December 24, 2008
I found this quite intriguing:
Those thinking that online social networking is a substitute for face-to-face interactions might want to think again. Recent research in psychology suggests there are some benefits to real-life socializing that the Internet just can't provide; researchers at Stanford…
December 24, 2008
The inner workings of the North Pole:
Of course, the elves are the backbone of Santa's work force. It's never clear to me that they are happy workers.
I hear occasional rumors that the elves have tried to organize a union, only to be thwarted by the man in red.
I'm not even sure Santa pays the…
December 24, 2008
Eleven years ago, two or three guys with awesome programming skilllz sat down and almost simultaneously, and not knowing of each other at the time, wrote the first blogging software. Dave Winer was one of those guys and, like the rest of them, strongly dislikes the "who was the first blogger"…
December 24, 2008
Naughty male Australian satin bower bird selectively steals blue items to decorate his nest. The female bower birds rate their partner by their home decor so they do a lot of stealing.
December 24, 2008
Dark Chocolate Is More Filling Than Milk Chocolate And Lessens Cravings:
New research at the Faculty of Life Sciences (LIFE) at the University of Copenhagen - shows that dark chocolate is far more filling than milk chocolate, lessening our craving for sweet, salty and fatty foods. In other words,…
December 23, 2008
Once upon a time - of all the good days in the year, on Christmas Eve - old Scrooge sat busy in his counting-house.
- Charles Dickens
December 23, 2008
VHS era is winding down - "The last big supplier of the tapes is ditching the format, ending the long fade-out of a product that ushered in the home theater.":
Pop culture is finally hitting the eject button on the VHS tape, the once-ubiquitous home-video format that will finish this month as a…
December 23, 2008
Duke University's John Staddon makes the case for less, and more effective, road signage in the U.S - using Durham roads and streets as examples:
From here, which I discovered here because I am fascinated by the science of traffic and driving. If only explaining the mathematical models of traffic…
December 23, 2008
In National Geographic:
A new investigation into the tangled sex lives of deep-sea squid has uncovered a range of bizarre mating techniques. The cephalopods' intimate encounters include cutting holes into their partners for sex, swapping genders, and deploying flesh-burrowing sperm. These and other…
December 23, 2008
For people like this:
From here
December 23, 2008
Michael Pollan will be on NPR's Talk of the Nation tomorrow to discuss his book Defense of Food.
December 23, 2008
A well-written press release on a very well done and exciting study:
Honey bees on cocaine dance more, changing ideas about the insect brain:
In a study published in 2007, Robinson and his colleagues reported that treatment with octopamine caused foraging honey bees to dance more often. This…
