December 7, 2008
Nina Simon explains:
Getting a good comment is like getting a million puppies in the mail. I am so so so grateful whenever you write back and share your thoughts with all those faceless people and with me. But I've also learned not to rely on or have an unhealthy relationship with that gratitude. I…
December 7, 2008
...you need to find the useful information by following the links in this post.
December 7, 2008
This kind of he-said-she-said False Equivalence journalism is infuriating and is the prime reason why nobody trusts the corporate media any more which is why the newspapers are dying:
Academic Elites Fill Obama's Roster:
.....All told, of Obama's top 35 appointments so far, 22 have degrees from an…
December 7, 2008
Triangle bloggers will meet at Carrboro Creative Coworking on Wednesday, December 10th at 6pm. Please join us if you can.
December 7, 2008
Festival of the Trees #30 is up on A Neotropical Savanna
The 16th Edition of the Cancer Research Blog Carnival is up on Bayblab
December 7, 2008
Past Religious Diversity And Intolerance Have Profound Impact On Genetics Of Iberian People:
New research suggests that relatively recent events had a substantial impact on patterns of genetic diversity in the southwest region of Europe. The study, published on December 4th in the American Journal…
December 6, 2008
It's life isn't it? You plow ahead and make a hit. And you plow on and someone passes you. Then someone passes them. Time levels.
- Katharine Hepburn
December 6, 2008
Deborah Howell, the WaPo Ombudsman (for a few more days), wrote her thoughts on science reporting in the Washington Post (and in general) - Making Sense of Science Reporting:
The job of science reporters is to take complicated subjects and translate them for readers who are not scientifically…
December 6, 2008
Creation Museum, step aside! Welcome to Dinosaur Kingdom, a Virginia roadside amusement park in which plastic dinosaurs eat plastic Union soldiers:
Dinosaur Kingdom is a twist on the biblical Creationist view that people and dinosaurs lived together. Here, people live with dinosaurs -- but only…
December 6, 2008
Thanks to DrugMonkey for the reminder. We do this meme every year in December - the only rule is to "post the link and first sentence from the first blog entry for each month of the past year." Here we go (ClockQuotes are usually the first post of the day and thus of the month, so there is not…
December 6, 2008
Even after Sam-I-Am persuades me to try them?
On the other hand, can we learn something from this book about selling science? Evolution? Are our anti-Creationist tactics, for instance, better or worse than Sam's? Or is his strategy inappropriate for this topic?
December 6, 2008
You build a mine where the ore is. And facilities right next to the mine, to extract the metals from it. And a factory next to it that turns the raw metal into parts and objects. And a train station or a port next to it, so you can move the objects to the stores you built where the people are.…
December 6, 2008
Michelle asks: What Kind of Online Superhero Are You?
The easiest way to think of this is through superheroes, of course. In many comics such as Superman, Spiderman, and Batman, the protagonist has double life. The characters seem to cherish both roles-the closeness of relationships with others in…
December 6, 2008
Danielle Lee was profiled in The St.Louis American the other day. Among else, the article says:
Recently, she was invited to co-moderate a panel on diversity in the sciences at the third annual ScienceOnline conference in Research Triangle Park, N.C. In January, scientists, science bloggers,…
December 6, 2008
erv and Ed Yong discuss science, blogging, science communication, HIV, and, er, vampires....
December 6, 2008
Have you ever heard of Cummingtonite?
Cummingtonite or magnesium iron silicate hydroxide is a metamorphic amphibole with the chemical composition (Mg,Fe)7Si8O22(OH)2. Monoclinic cummingtonite is compositionally similar and polymorphic with orthorhombic anthophyllite, which is a much more common…
December 6, 2008
Why The 'Perfect' Body Isn't Always Perfect: How Hormones Interact With Waist-to-hip Ratios In Women:
Having an imperfect body may come with some substantial benefits for some women, according to a new article in the December issue of Current Anthropology. The hormones that make women physically…
December 5, 2008
Madness is consistent, which is more than can be said of poor reason. Whatever may be the ruling passion at the time continues so throughout the whole delirium, though it should last for life. Our passions and principles are steady in frenzy, but begin to shift and waver as we return to reason…
December 5, 2008
An Injection of Hard Science Boosts TV Shows' Prognosis:
It's no fiction: Scientific fact has usurped science fiction as TV's favorite inspiration for prime-time story lines. And to keep everything on the up and up, show writers and producers are hiring scores of researchers and technical…
December 5, 2008
Everyone who's ever taken a Neuroscience class in college remembers the strange case of H.M.
H.M. suffered from epilepsy. Back in 1953, his brain was operated on - some large chunks (the hippocampi) were removed. Epilepsy was gone. So was his memory.
He could remember his life before surgery,…
December 5, 2008
More:
Millions of birds could die from oilsands development: report
Report Finds Millions of Birds will be Lost from Tar Sands Development
December 5, 2008
Not so long ago, the four existing anthropology bloggers were wondering "where are the others?" Now, there are so many that one can pick the Top 100 and still leave some excellent blogs out! Check them out. Who is missing from the list?
December 5, 2008
And blogging about! Obligatory readings of the day:
The Evolution of Poisonous Birds:
This research elegantly demonstrates that the evolution of just one character -- in this case, toxicity -- can profoundly affect the evolution of a suite of other characters, ranging from body size and behavioral…
December 5, 2008
Oh, there was before? Anyway, the story that everyone on science blogs is talking about these days is that CNN has ditched their science and tech team. I was going to comment on it, but Chad puts it the best and there is no way I can best it. So go on over and add your 2c to the interesting…
December 5, 2008
There are 9 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…
December 5, 2008
For almost 20 years, The Quagga Project has been working on recreating this extinct species of zebra:
The Quagga Project was officially launched in South Africa in 1987,
with Reinhold Rau at its helm. It has the aim of recreating quagga by
selective breeding from plains zebra; ultimately returning…
December 5, 2008
Euan analyzed connectivity of science blogs using their blogrolls, revealing a Big Head, a Skinny Neck and a Long Tail, as expected in every community. Linkfests, carnivals, aggregators, commenting on each other's blogs, signing up for ResearchBlogging.org, showing up at meetups and conferences -…
December 5, 2008
From PopSci: Return of the (Televised) Nerds:
The show not only delivers a healthy dose of nerd-culture references, it also offers up some legitimate scientific content, something that's pretty rare in mainstream television. How many TV nerds do you see engaging in real scientific banter? It's more…
