August 11, 2006
Kevin leaves the countryside for a little vacation in the capital.
Beijing
1 August
It's August, absolutely the best month to be in the sandhills - I'm quite envious of Stateside people. We arrived in Beijing around 3pm today. We had taken the hard sleeper, so there were six of us in one room. When…
August 11, 2006
Before the days of Times Select, David Brooks used to provoke long rants twice a week. This post from October 24, 2004 is one of those.
David Brooks is so predictable. Every week or so, he comes up with a new scheme to explain the polarization of America. Each time he uses what seems to be…
August 10, 2006
The find of a knife flake together with a mammoth dated at 16,000 yo, spurs new speculations about pre-Clovis humans in the Americas. This is the clearest description I ever found of a possible alternative hypothesis to Bering-Clovis.
August 10, 2006
This is an interesting idea:
A novel way to advance the circadian cycle has been proposed as a way to solve the problem associated with the early starting times of middle and high schools. It has been recognized for some time that teen age students do not really wake up until well past the time…
August 10, 2006
A nice new study on ecological aspects of circadian rhythms:
To a tiny tadpole, life boils down to two basic missions: eat, and avoid being eaten. But there's a trade-off. The more a tadpole eats, the faster it grows big enough to transform into a frog; yet finding food requires being active, which…
August 10, 2006
Getting back to civilization...means having a Big Mac and realizing that watching MI3 dubbed in Chinese does not mean you miss anything of the brilliant plot and dialogue....
Yichang
(E-chong)
30 July
Today Vanessa and I left for Yichang. I got up around 6am and the bus left around 6:30. The driver…
August 10, 2006
As the temperatures rise, different organisms respond differently. Some migrate to higher latitudes or altitudes. Others stay put but change the timing of reproduction and other seasonal activities. As a result, ecosystems get remodeled.
So, for instance, insect pollinators and flowers they…
August 10, 2006
This - "Apart From Being An Idiot, Horowitz Is Also An Unwiped Anal Orifice With Hemorrhoids" - is the worst and nastiest blog-post title I ever used. But I was furious. See why.... (first posted here on March 05, 2005, then republished here on December 10, 2005):
Chris is so nice. Way too nice.…
August 10, 2006
I hope PZ will comment on this study:
A humble aquarium fish may be the key to finding therapies capable of preventing the structural birth defects that account for one out of three infant deaths in the United States today.That is one of the implications of a new study published online August 8 in…
August 10, 2006
This is interesting:
Landscapes And Human Behavior:
On Arizona State University's (ASU) Polytechnic campus, graduate student families in the cluster of six houses abutting lush lawns and ornamental bushes spend time together talking while their kids play outside. Meanwhile, the families in a nearby…
August 10, 2006
My second guest-blogging post on Echidne Of The Snakes, about the potential to have Hooters fund some breast cancer research. Purposefully written to provoke. Cross-posted under the fold...
Abel PharmBoy of Terra Sigillata asked:
Can Hooters support the fight against breast cancer all without…
August 10, 2006
My first post guest-blogging on Echidne Of The Snakes, cross-posted under the fold.
I did not know that Dr.B is just a little bit younger than me. Her wisdom makes me feel like a child.
Usually when I see that a post already has 170 comments I don't even start reading them, but the comments on…
August 9, 2006
In less than two weeks, Archy (the person - John McKay, not the blog, nor the cockroach) is going to have a biiiiiig birthday party.
He is not asking for presents - he only wants you to come to his place for the party and help him reach a goal.
And while you are there, you are supposed to look…
August 9, 2006
Change of Shift, Volume One, Number Four is up on It's A Nursing Thing
Carnival of Education #79 is up on California LiveWire
August 9, 2006
If yes, than Carnival of GRADual Progress is for you.
August 9, 2006
PubliusLancemy wifeMike DunfordEzra, Ezra, Ezra, EzraNicholas Beaudrot , Nicholas BeaudrotMikeJohnEdJimVintageMbairBlueinMoChrisinDetSharMGCShakespeare's SisterEchidneLindsay, Lindsay, LindsayPam, PamEd Cone, Ed ConeJoshDrum, Drum
August 9, 2006
This is what we got yesterday:
PD-16 Plenax
Agfa Ansco Corporation, Binghamton, NY.
1930's
Lens: Hypar Anistigmat f6.3 103mm
T B 25 50 100
616 film
2 1/4 x 4 1/4 in.
One of those was sold on e-bay relatively recently for $85. Is there any possibility that one can find a stash of the old film used…
August 9, 2006
Every now and then, especially when the Right Wing comes up with another one of thos silly lists of supposedly conservative rock songs, a lot of people take a look at pop and rock (and hip-hop) songs and do some sociological analysis on them, trying to glean the way society is changing by the way…
August 9, 2006
Dominant Meerkats Render Rivals Infertile:
When pregnant, dominant female meerkats subject their subordinates to escalating aggression and temporary eviction causing them to become overly stressed and as a result infertile, a new study finds.
Does Environment Influence Genes? Researcher Gives Hard…
August 9, 2006
From today's Quotes Of The Day:
As something of a student of history, I need to remember a number of numbers. Few of them remain easily in mind, although I normally can remember 1066, 1492, and 1776. It happens that on this day in 1776, Lorenzo Romano Amedeo Carlo Avogadro was born at Turin, Italy…
August 9, 2006
After getting over his sickness, Kevin moves on with his research...
Xiagu, revisited
26 July
No fever this morning. We finally left for Xiagu. The primary purpose of Xiagu was to get the exact coordinates of that one Azemiops Mai Dachuan had found back in 2002. We were traveling with a full load,…
August 9, 2006
This post from January 21, 2005, is about insects, parasitoids and the mental approach to science:
This really cool science post (Speaking of sex differences reminds me of a seminar I attended a few years ago, about a parasitoid wasp that injects a single egg (together with some toxins and a DNA…
August 8, 2006
Lindsay is liveblogging from the Lamont HQ. My wife, who is not interested in nitty-gritty details of everyday politics and has no idea where Lieberman stands on any issue and has not heard a single word spoken by Liebermann, said that Joe's loss is totally unsurprising to her. She said that Joe…
August 8, 2006
A couple of months ago I wrote about a study in primates, suggesting that there is a circadian clock in the adrenal gland. This was hyped like a big break-through, but, while that was a good and useful study, it did not show anything surprising, e.g., that the adrenal is a pacemaker, only that it…
August 8, 2006
Do you remember the old Five-Year Plans ('Petoletka') in the communist countries? Well, five years is far too long for the ADHD world of the 21st century, not to mention the hyperspeed of the Internet and the Blogosphere. So, I decided to try organizing my blogging in Five-Day Plans. What do you…
August 8, 2006
Haifa, more recent
August 8, 2006
Under the fold...
August 8, 2006
I refuse to write blog posts about the Middle East for a variety of reasons. No matter what I say, there will be a flame war in the comments - if you think that flame-wars in comments are bad when dealing with creationists, animal rightists or Wingnuts, just try tackling Israel! I'll be acused of…
August 8, 2006
Researcher Studies Sleep Deprivation's Effect On Decisions:
Everyone needs sleep, but temporary periods with no sleep can be a reality of military operations. To get answers on sleep questions for the military as well as civilians, for nearly four years Dr. Sean Drummond, a Department of Defense-…
August 8, 2006
Gray Birds Cover 40,000 Miles Annually:
"Sooty shearwaters may not look like much, but when it comes to travel they put marathoners, cyclists and pretty much everyone else to shame.
These gray, 16-inch birds cover 40,000 miles annually in search of food, the longest migration ever recorded…
