ksharpe
Posts by this author
August 9, 2006
If you were stranded on a desert island and could only bring seven recent ScienceBlogs posts with you, well, these would be the ones to choose.
"Extra Special K?"
This just in: treatment-refractive depressives respond reall well to...ketamine!?
"Where's the threshold for action?"
Kevin Vranes on…
August 8, 2006
Editor's picks for your reading pleasure on Tuesday, August 8:
"Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut"
Benjamin Cohen on a book that stands up after a dozen readings.
"Buy Stock in Abloy"
Tim Lambert reports on a report that new innovations in thievery have made the pin-tumbler lock obsolete.
"Psychics…
August 7, 2006
Wake up and smell the content: a good week's reading starts here.
"Hurricane-Climate Books"
Two new titles look ahead to the one-year anniversary of Katrina's wrath.
"20,000 Year Old Australian Footprints"
The Willandra Lakes World Heritage Area in New South Wales, Australia, turns up traces of…
August 2, 2006
Author and science writer David Dobbs has written for the New York Times Magazine, Scientific American Mind, Slate, Audobon, and others. He is the author of the books Reef Madness: Charles Darwin, Alexander Agassiz, and the Meaning of Coral; The Great Gulf: Fishermen, Scientists, and the Struggle…
August 2, 2006
Five posts so red-hot I wouldn't recommend touching the screen while you read them.
"Science Is Not a Path to Riches"
"They're not getting out based on a rational assessment of career possibilities, they're getting out because they don't like the first class or two that they take. By the time they…
August 2, 2006
What movie do you think does something admirable (though not necessarily accurate) regarding science? Bonus points for answering whether the chosen movie is any good generally.
August 1, 2006
"Testosterone and Euphoria"
Another rumple in the mysterious case of Floyd Landis.
"Early childhood exposures and a healthy life"
Aetiology on the links between infectious and chronic disease; many avenues of research converge to show that our health is strongly influenced by our exposures in the…
July 31, 2006
Just what your case of the Mondays needs:
"Darwin has nothing to do with science....There's not a shred of evidence that Darwin was a scientist."
Ben Cohen heard a guy on the radio claim that there was 'no evidence that Darwin was a scientist.' And he asks: What? What does that even mean? He is…
July 29, 2006
What to read when you're drinking coffee in your jammies:
"Antisense Oligonucleotide Therapy for ALS patients?"
Lou Gehrig suffered from ALS, as does Stephen Hawking. A new treatment promises relief for some sufferers of this intractable disease.
"Mountaintop [Coal] Removal, Part II: Is a stream…
July 28, 2006
"How to Get a Ph.D. and Never Pay a Dime For It!"
If you're in the sciences and you're paying for your Ph.D., says Shelley, you're getting fleeced. Plus, there looks to be a lively discussion shaping up in comments.
"Science and Hard Work: II"
Is science hard work? Steinn compares a summer job in…
July 27, 2006
"Compared To Your Pet Iguana, You Are Practically Blind"
How poorly do mammals see? More poorly than we ever could have imagined before discovering melanopsin. Visial photoreception is only the tip of the iceberg.
Speaking of complexity: "A Simple Story Gets Complicated"
Promiscuity in some…
July 26, 2006
Today on ScienceBlogs:
Ten leading climate scientists say: even those who disagree about global warming can admit that overdevelopment on the coasts sets us up to lose life and property to hurricanes
A Tale of Two Job Searches (Having A Family and an Academic Career, Part 4)
Morgan Spurlock (of…
July 26, 2006
I heard that within 15 years, global warming will have made Napa County too hot to grow good wine grapes. Is that true? What other changes are we going to see during our lifetimes because of global warming?
July 25, 2006
Today on ScienceBlogs:
The Chronicle of Higher Education is running a symposium on the benefits of academic blogging
When vocalizing, rhesus macaques use regions of the brain that correspond to language centers in the human brain
A medical anthropologist in Minnesota undertakes a study "to examine…
July 24, 2006
Today on ScienceBlogs:
Genetically-modified mosquitoes to control mosquito-borne diseases?
Mirror neurons: why have these flashy little cells received "massive, overblown publicity"?
Giant, gross, super-cool close-ups of bugs!
PZ Myers waxes lyrical about growing older, along with one's kids
A…
July 20, 2006
Eight new posts of note, hand-picked for your blog-reading enjoyment:
Abel Pharmboy reports that the FDA is (finally!) recognizing the potential for negative interactions between antidepressants and migraine medications
At Pure Pedantry, Jake says "so what?" to newly-released letters shedding…
July 19, 2006
It's the latest and the greatest of them all!
Jake Young reports breaking news from the AP: President Bush does veto the stem cell bill
Dr Free-Ride follows up on a story about allegations of widespread plagiarism in the Engineering Department at Ohio University
Shelley Batts on New Orleans…
July 19, 2006
If you could have practiced science in any time and any place throughout history, which would it be, and why?
July 18, 2006
Eight of the freshest (in both senses) from the last 24 hours:
Framing Science takes a look at the relationship between hot weather, and news-media attention paid to global warming
PZ Myers offers his gloss on pending stem cell legislation
Pure Pedantry reports that getting enough sleep appears to…
July 17, 2006
It's an embarrassment of riches on ScienceBlogs today. Below, your quick guide to a few of the posts that are making us feel so flush.
Benjamin Cohen at The World's Fair links to an article about the portrayal of physicists in film, and talks up the Society for Arts, Literature, and Science, which…
July 16, 2006
A few weekend posts worth digging back for:
Shelley and Evil Monkey discuss the theory that exposure to environmental toxins such as pesticides could be responsible for the rise in prevalence of Parkinson's disease, especially among the young.
Janet continues the discussion of the position of…
July 12, 2006
Is every species of living thing on the planet equally deserving of protection?
July 12, 2006
Did you know about the network banner?
One of the features of Seed Media Group websites (that's ScienceBlogs.com, Seedmagazine.com, and Phylotaxis.com to you) is called the network banner. It's the thin gray strip you see at the top of your screen.
What is the network banner? What does it do?
Well…
July 11, 2006
There's so much good stuff on ScienceBlogs today that I'm moved to do something drastic: namely, to post, and point out the contributions that have been rocking my morning.
This one got by me the first time, but I'm glad I found it: a Retrospectacle article about how to cook up your own vitamin C.…
July 10, 2006
The ScienceBlogs Donors Choose Challenge officially ended on July 1. By the final count, the ScienceBloggers raised $23,005.16 for educational projects in public-school science teachers' classrooms. The $23,005 will be joined by $10,000 in matching funds donated by Seed. And DonorsChoose has…
July 6, 2006
On July 5, 1996, Dolly the sheep became the first successfully cloned mammal. Ten years on, has cloning developed the way you expected it to?
June 28, 2006
What are some unsung successes that have occurred as a result of using science to guide policy?
June 28, 2006
Earlier this month, ScienceBloggers Jake Young of Pure Pedantry and Shelley Batts of Retrospectacle got to talking about how, given how many neuro-philes now blog at Sb, it could be fun to start a homegrown neuroscience blog carnival.
Jake picked up the ball and ran, organizing most of Sb's other…
June 16, 2006
Looking around ScienceBlogs today and yesterday, you may notice a crop of new, blue-and-white buttons on many of the blogs. No, it's not the latest in blog-homepage fashion (though they are pretty spiffy looking). The badges signify blogs that are participating in the ScienceBlogs/DonorsChoose…