Education
gregladen | May 28, 2008Special Events; Summer Camps; Exhibits' Field Trips; Nature Play; Nature Tots
Read all about it:
BioBlitz
Friday, June 13, 5 p.m. through Saturday, June 14, 5 p.m.
BioBlitz is part scientific survey, part community event, and part festival. This year, BioBlitz participants will help survey part of the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge. Newly acquired by the refuge, this beautiful land is a scientifically interesting site that is surrounded by the rapidly developing Carver County. The data collected will be used to help manage the site. Activities will take place all day. For…
sporte | May 27, 2008In part I, I wrote about the shortage of technicians in the biotechnology industry and the general awareness that this problem is getting worse. This part will address the challenge of getting more students into programs that will prepare them for jobs in the biotech field. I've also been asked to write a bit more about finding jobs in companies, that post will be a bit later. Before proceeding, there are two points that need a bit of discussion. The first point is the whether there's a shortage at all and the second applies to the kind of shortage.
It's hard to see the forest when you're…
terrasig | May 25, 2008So here's a bizarre convergence of the controversies surrounding cognitive performance-enhancing strategies and the end-of-grade (EOG) testing stress on teachers and students.
Esther Robards-Forbes reports in yesterday's Charlotte (NC) Observer that a third-grade teacher was arrested for contributing to the delinquency of minors by giving three students adult-strength multivitamin pills in advance of their EOG tests:
A third-grade teacher at Marvin Elementary in western Union County was arrested and suspended from his job after he was accused Friday of handing out vitamin pills to three…
clock | May 23, 2008Gene Mutations In Mice Mimic Human-like Sleep Disorder:
Mutations in two genes that control electrical excitability in a portion of the brain involved in sleep create a human-like insomnia disorder in mice, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have found. The findings may help scientists better understand the disorder and provide an animal model for developing treatments.
Food-related Clock In The Brain Identified:
In investigating the intricacies of the body's biological rhythms, scientists at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) have discovered the existence of a "food-related…
pharyngula | May 19, 2008Robert Bakker is one of the good guys, a paleontologist who really does an excellent job of communicating enthusiasm for science. I saw him talk at St John's University a few years ago, and he clearly inspired the kids in attendance — I greatly enjoyed the talk too, even though one of his hooks was to incessantly emphasize the religious backgrounds of famous dinosaur hunters. It's a strategy, all right? If he can get more kids to follow through on science, more power to him.
However, he also illustrates another unfortunate phenomenon: religion turns even good scientists' brains to mush. In a…
grrlscientist | May 19, 2008tags: Birds in the News, BirdNews, ornithology, birds, avian, newsletter
Yellow-Throated Laughing Thrush, Garrulax galbanus.
Image: John Del Rio. [larger view].
Birds in Science News
A team of researchers recently described fossils from two Lower Eocene parrots that were discovered in Denmark. Analysis of the fossils reveals that one of the ancient parrots, named Mopsitta tanta, is the largest fossil parrot found so far and it has the most northerly distribution yet known. Further, it resembles modern parrots almost as closely as younger fossils found from the Miocene, making it the…
neurotopia | May 19, 2008FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Mary Detweiler,
The Alliance for Science
info@allianceforscience.org
Falls Church, VA -- May 17, 2008. The non-profit Alliance for Science announced the results this week of its second annual National High School Essay Contest. Students were asked to write a 1,000 word essay on either "Agriculture and Evolution" or "Climate and Evolution". Neal Desai, a 10th grader at the Pembroke Hill School in Kansas City, Missouri won the top prize. Neal's insightful essay addressed the tradeoffs between the benefits obtained from genetically modified crops and the potential…
oracknows | May 19, 2008I realize that I've been very, very remiss in attending to a task that I've been meaning to get to since late January. There are several reasons, albeit not excuses, for why I have failed to do this task. Perhaps the most powerful impediment to my overcoming my inertia and just diving in and doing what needs to be done is that it depresses me to no end to contemplate what needs to be contemplated to complete this task. Moreover, although I have completed a great deal, I sense that I have barely even scratched the surface of what needs to be done to complete the task, which also continuously…
jstemwedel | May 15, 2008Because it strikes me as somehow related to my last post, and because Memorial Day is the Monday after next, I'm recycling a post I wrote last year for WAAGNFNP:
On Memorial Day, because I really needed to do something beside grade papers for awhile, I decided to go to the nursery to buy some plants. First, though, because the kids (who had the day off from school) were actually entertaining themselves pretty well, I poured myself another coffee and decided to actually read some of the articles in The Nation issue on climate change.
Confronted with the news that jets are evil and carbon…
laelaps | May 15, 2008
As regular readers of this blog know, I have an extreme affinity for museums and always welcome the news of a long-lost specimen that was locked away in storage turning out to be something new and significant. In 2006 one such discovery occurred when Mike Taylor (seen left, holding the specimen) came across a sauropod vertebra named BMNH R2095, a fossil that would turn out to be something so entirely different that one year later it was assigned the name Xenoposeidon. Mike Taylor has done much more than bring Xenoposeidon to light, however, and I caught up with him to ask a few questions…
clock | May 14, 2008Wild Three-Toed Sloths Sleep 6 Hours Less Per Day Than Captive Sloths, First Electrophysical Recording Shows:
In the first experiment to record the electrophysiology of sleep in a wild animal, three-toed sloths carrying miniature electroencephalogram recorders slept 9.63 hours per day--6 hours less than captive sloths did, reports an international team of researchers working on the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute's Barro Colorado Island in Panama.
Educated People In US Living Longer, Less Educated Have Unchanged Death Rate:
A new study finds a gap in overall death rates between…
nisbetmc | May 13, 2008
At the BIO 2008 International Convention coming up in June in San Diego, I will be participating in a panel on the communication challenges facing biotechnology. Below are the details on the panel, followed by a 500 word summary of the key points of my presentation. Readers should find the themes familiar.
Communication Challenges: Defining the Industry for Policymakers and the Public
Conference Breakout Sessions
Track Policy
Date/Time 6/19/2008 4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Location San Diego Convention Center
Room 25 A
One of the key mandates offered up by policymakers taking part in a special session…
hrynyshyn | May 12, 2008The latest Pew survey on Americans' attitudes toward the climate crisis is so depressing, I am reminded of that old Busby Meyers song, "What's the use of getting sober, when you're gonna get drunk again?" I mean, really. Why bother? But because the only alternative to carrying on is to not carry on, here's my attempt at giving the numbers a positive spin.
The Pew study found that "[T]he proportion of Americans who say that the earth is getting warmer has decreased modestly since January 2007, mostly because of a decline among Republicans." Since January, the percentage who recognize reality…
sa smith | May 11, 2008There was some talk on anonymous blogging on SciBlogs a while back. I wasnt here at the time, so Im going to pipe up now.
I dont blog anon or with a pseudonym. Im Abbie Smith. I chose not to blog anon because if someone REALLY wanted to out me, it wouldnt be that hard, and 'Abbie Smith' is common enough it provides a slight buffer against stalkers. Some people have expressed concerns-- "Arent I worried someone will read my blog, not like me, and not hire me??" "What does your school think?" "What does your boss think??"
If you are saying controversial things under a pseudonym, those are…
sporte | May 9, 2008Workforce shortages are a growing problem in the biotech industry. Communities are concerned that a lack of trained workers will either keep companies away or cause companies to move. If companies do have to move, it's likely those jobs might be lost forever, never to return. According to Robert Reich, former U.S. secretary of labor, now a professor at UC-Berkeley, biotech companies that can't hire in the U.S. will recruit foreign workers or open research centers overseas (Luke Timmerman, Seattle PI).
The reason for concern is that biotech jobs, in general, are pretty good. They pay well…
ksharpe | May 7, 2008It's the pithiest headlines of the past week at our European partner site, ScienceBlogs.de!
Friedrich Schiller's Skull Still at Large
A two-year investigation to determine which of two skulls belonged to the celebrated German poet Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805) has found that neither is a match. This prolonging of a 180-year-old mystery doesn't thrill Ludmila Carone: "It is not that I do not appreciate Schiller's works. But the man is dead and a dead skull is not expected to create new literature."
Schools Resist Standardized Rankings
Germany's teachers don't like to be graded. As the…
grrlscientist | May 7, 2008tags: Field Guide to the Natural World of New York City, nature, field guide, NYC, Leslie Day, Mark Klingler, book review
What do you think of when you heard the words, "New York City"? Money? Skyscrapers? Broadway plays? Restaurants? Millions of people living in tiny apartments? Fire hydrants spurting water on hot muggy days? Rotting garbage on the sidewalks? How about birds: do any of you think of birds and other wildlife? Most people don't. Many people, especially visitors, are unaware of the wealth of green spaces and parks in NYC, along with their resident and migratory wildlife. However…
"Why aren't there more clinical trials studying the effect of CAM on cancer?" cries the CAM advocate
oracknows | May 6, 2008I've lamented time and time again just how much money the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) wastes on basic research and clinical trials of modalities that are, from a scientific viewpoint, so highly implausible that the chances of finding a clinically useful or relevant--or even a consistent statistically significant--effect (for example, homeopathy or reiki) or on therapies for which there is already abundant negative evidence (chelation therapy, for example) are vanishingly small. In this fifth year of a flat or declining NIH budget and of scientists facing…
terrasig | May 4, 2008Well, we kept the polls open as long as possible and some bloggers voted early and often while others waited 'til the last minute. We've had some locals and some out-of-staters with recollections of North Carolina. So, without further adieu, the NC primary edition of the Tar Heel Tavern:
NC Politics
Political bloggers in the state were not surprisingly among the first to submit entries. Perennial NC blogging fave, The Olive Ridley Crawl, gives us NC Primary - Vote for a Non Panderer.
Jim Buie submitted several of which I picked Obama, in Raleigh, Shows He's No Elitist Egghead and In NC,…
jstemwedel | May 1, 2008This post is standing in for a lecture and class discussion that would be happening today if I knew how to be in two places at once. (Welcome Phil. 133 students! Make yourselves at home in the comments, and feel free to use a pseudonym if you'd rather not comment under your real name.)
The topic at hand is the way relationships in research groups influence the kind of science that comes out of those groups, as well as the understanding the members of the group have of what it means to do good science. Our jumping off point is an article by Vivian Weil and Robert Arzbaecher titled "…