A Coturnix Sampler...

The Big Blogging Gurus suggest that one should often link back to old posts. I do that, actually, quite often, but now that I have moved my blog here, all the old posts are elsewhere. Over the next few months I will re-publish some of my best posts here so they get archived on this blog. In the meantime it is nice to have the permalinks of the best (and most likely to be linked) posts, or at least most interesting posts all in one place.

I noticed that, when they moved to their new digs at SEED, several science bloggers posted their lists of "best of" posts. I found those lists very useful, even with bloggers I've been reading for quite some time, and even more for those new to me. I never dug through their archives before so this was an easy and quick way to get to know their older stuff.

I have compiled a list of "best of" political posts here, if you are interested, but since this is a science blog, I should showcase here the best, or at least most characteristic science-related posts. This is an attempt at such a list, putting together some of science blogging from "Science And Politics", "Circadiana" and "The Magic School Bus". I hope you find it useful. See it "under the fold"...

I often report on new cool research with just brief commentary:
Do We Also Taste Just Like Chicken?
Bipolar Disorders
Zebrafish Research at BU
Circadian Rhythm in Visual Sensitivity
Melanopsin
I Am Seeing Red
Beached Whale Recycling
Now this is some cool science!
How Period and Timeless Interact in Fruitflies
Circadian Rhythms, or Not, in Arctic Reindeer
Persistence In Perfusion
Ah, Zugunruhe!
Ants are amazing!
Diet, Excercise, Temperature and Longevity
Exciting Science News
Bear Hybrids

More often, I use the reports on new research to make connections to the Big Picture, or to other areas of science or beyond:
Malaria and Melatonin: Co-evolution Around The Circadian Clock
Diversity of insect circadian clocks - the story of the Monarch butterfly
Serotonin, Melatonin, Immunity and Cancer
Revenge of the Zombifying Wasp
Lithium, Circadian Clocks and Bipolar Disorder
Some hypotheses about a possible connection between malaria and jet-lag
Penguins have to rush sex - 'quicky' is the new norm
Parasite of my parasite is not my friend

Sometimes it is not new research, but blog posts, books, articles, or some old historical stuff that prompts me to write a long post:
What Are Gonads For (Among Else)?
Evolution Project And A Truly Fair And Balanced Fox
Lysenko Gets A D-Minus On My Genetics Test
The Mighty Ant-Lion
Did A Virus Make You Smart?
Development of the human sleep patterns
Science of Fiction, or, why we still read Sherlock Holmes
Diurnal rhythm of alcohol metabolism
Circadian Clocks in Microorganisms
Lunar Rhythms in the Antlion
Circadian Rhythms in Human Mating
What is a 'natural' sleep pattern?
Do sponges have circadian clocks?
Clocks in Bacteria I: Synechococcus elongatus
Clocks in Bacteria II: Adaptive Function of Clocks in Cyanobacteria
Clocks in Bacteria III: Evolution of Clocks in Cyanobacteria
Clocks in Bacteria IV: Clocks in other bacteria
Clocks in Bacteria V: How about E.coli?
Happy Bicycle Day!
Beauty: Not Just Feather-Deep

I like to review whole lines of research in plain English:
(Non) Adaptive Function of Sleep
Bipolar? Avoid night shift
Clocks, Migration and the Effects of Global Warming
Seasonal Affective Disorder - The Basics

Sometimes I even post my own hypotheses or even my own unpublished data:
Does circadian clock regulate clutch-size in birds? A question of appropriatness of the model animal.
Influence of Light Cycle on Dominance Status and Aggression in Crayfish
Chossat's Effect in humans and other animals

My most popular post ever, on all of my blogs, is this one, combining the recent research, review of whole lines of research over the decades, and social and personal relevance of such research:
Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sleep

I have no qualms about putting in my two cents in controversial areas of science:
More On Female Orgasm
Does Tryptophan from turkey meat make you sleepy?
Sleep Schedules in Adolescents
More on Adolescent Sleep
How sexy advertising works

Of course, science reporting in the media drives me crazy, sometimes strongly enough to write about it:
Sixth Sense? Give Me A Break!
Sex On The Brain of the science reporters
Clock in the primate adrenal
Eight Hours a Circadian Rhythm Do Not Make
Art and the New Biology of Mind
Barbaro and Bernardini

I have written many times on topics related to science education:
Teaching Scientific Method
Some Thoughts On Use Of Animals In Research And Teaching
Dr.Love-of-Strange, or How I Learned To Love The Malaria...
My first high-school teaching experience
Great Men, History of Science
Great Men, History Of Science, Take Two
Teaching Evolution Successfully
Teaching Biology To Adults
An attempt at communicating science to lay audience on a blog
Teaching Biology Lab - Week 1
Teaching Biology Lab - Week 2
Teaching Biology Lab - Week 3
Teaching Biology Lab - Week 4
When Should Schools Start in the morning?
Another win for academic freedom
Education against politicized science
Not more scientists, but more science-literate citizens
You can help educational programs
Teaching Biology without Evolution...
On the Scientific Method in Biology
Teaching the bare bones of Biology
How I Taught Evolution Last Week
Teaching Update
Yet another teaching update: mid-term
Teaching Update

As I teach Introductory Biology, I post my lecture notes on the blog:
Biology and the Scientific Method
Cell Structure
Protein Synthesis: Transcription and Translation
Cell-Cell Interactions
From One Cell to Two: Cell Division and DNA Replication
From One Cell to Many: Cell Differentiation and Embryonic Development
From Genes to Traits: Genotype and Phenotype
From Genes to Species: Evolution
What Creatures Do: Animal Behavior
Organisms In Time and Space: Ecology
Origin of Bioloigcal Diversity
Evolution of Biological Diversity
Current Biological Diversity

I have reviewed (or at least noted) some books:
Books: Collapse by Jared Diamond
Books: Biased Embryos and Evolution by Wallace Arthur
Tomasello - Part I
Tomasello - Part II
Books: Evolution's Rainbow by Joan Roughgarden
Amazing science thriller!!!
Rabies, the novel
Previewing Books on Blogs

I have listed science-related books on occasion:
Holiday Reading: Science Books
Reading Recommendations: Books about Clocks and Sleep
Essential Science Fiction
What Is Lab Lit?

I have mused about the way science and Internet are connected:
Blogs and the Future of Science
Quorum Sensing and the Blogosphere as a Superorganism
Science BloggerCon?
Publishing hypotheses and data on a blog - is it going to happen on science blogs?
Blogs as cited references in scientific papers
More on publishing data on blogs
Even more on science online publishing
And even more on science online publishing
Science Blogging
Free online science publishing
Publish in Open Access Journals if you want to get cited!

Some bloggers bash Creationists every day. It's not my style, but I could not resist taking a stab at it myself a few times:
Definition Of Theory As In Theory Of Evolution
Evolution/Creation Discussions on DailyKos
Why Creationists Need To Be Creationists
Do We Need An Anti-Creationist Think-Tank?
Creationism Is Just One Symptom Of Conservative Pathology
Reverend William Paley's Circadian Clock
On Bush' Endorsement of Intelligent Design Creationism
A Creationist wins a Teaching Award!

And Creationism is not the only pseudoscience I paid attention to:
What This Blog is NOT About: Biorhythms
REM sleep and paranormal phenomena
The end of Polyphasic Sleep

I came here from Yugoslavia 15 years ago, but I still have one ear out to the news from over there. Sometimes, they make news in science...or pseudoscience, that warrant blogging about:
I Take This Personally
Saga Continues
Serbs Like Darwin After All
Darwin In Serbia, He Said, She Said
More On Darwin In Serbia
Astrology Academy in Serbia
A new meaning of 'having a buzz'
Anti-Darwinian Lunacy in America: View from Serbia
A Pyramid in Bosnia?
Update on the Pyramid in Bosnia
Even more on the Bosnian Pyramid
Bosnian Pyramid, part 4
Bosnian Pyramid, part 5
Bosnian Pyramid, Part 6
Quick pyramid update
Eh, the Bosnian Pyramid....
Pyramid in the NYTimes, and commentary
Bosnian Pyramid - Update n+1

This essay was so long, I had to split it into four parts. I wrote it in 1999 so it is seven years out of date and both science and the philosophy of science have moved on since then, but it is well referenced and it is an interesting snapshot of the Zeitgeist, as well as the only time anyone put together heavy-duty history of science, philosophy of science, evolutionary biology and chronobiology all in one place:
What Would Darwin Do (WWDD)
WWDD1: Darwinian Method
WWDD2: Darwin On Time
WWDD3: Whence Clocks
WWDD4: Power of Darwinian Method

Circadiana is a science-teaching blog-to-be, so you can learn the basics of chronobiology there:
What Is Chronobiology
Basic Concepts and Terms
Clock Evolution
On Methodology
Forty Five Years of Pittendrigh's Empirical Generalizations
Circadian Organization
To Entrain Or Not To Entrain, That Is The Question
Circadian Organization In Mammals
Circadian Organization in Non-Mammalian Vertebrates: Birds
Circadian Organization in Japanese Quail
Entrainment
Phase-Shifting Effects of Light
Constructing a Phase-Response Curve
Using The Phase Response Curve
Interpreting The Phase Response Curve
PRC Atlas
Short History of Clock Genetics
Seasonality
Photoperiodism - Models and Experimental Approaches

One of those posts, a simple, educational post with not great axe to grind may actually be the most valuable one after all. Why? Because it is a reference in a scientific paper! Do you know of any other blog posts that have been cited in scientific literature?
Blog-post as a scientific reference

Of course, sometimes I try to connect science and politics in various ways:
Political Brain
Political Brain No.2
Political Brain No.3
Candidates' Circadian Profiles
Early To Rise Early To Bed...
God, Genes and Conservatives
Genocentrism Aids Anti-Abortion
Lefty and Righty excesses of pseudo-science
Political Affiliation on Campus
Fear = Bad; Anger = Good
Should Republicans be allowed to have (or adopt) children?
Republican War on Science - Fighting Back
Framing Science

I have collected links when more-or-less important events happened:
Size Does Matter, or Does It?
Penis Blogging Week Continued
One-stop shopping for blog responses to the NYT series on Intelligent Design Creationism
It's Over in Dover
Darwin Day Blog Celebrations
I tried to teach Bart Simpson algebra seven years in a row...
Danube Floods the Balkans
Anti-atheist sentiment on the Left?!
Good Links on NSA spying
Battle Cry

I like giving shout-outs to my blog-friends, including science bloggers, so here are a few link-fests:
Evolution/Creation Debate
Evolution of the Intelligent Blog Design
IDC Blog Craze
Evolution Today
Link-Love: Weekend Science Blogging
Link-Love: A little bit of science blogging
Link-Love: some more science blogging
Link-Love: science-blogs down the alphabet, Part III
Link-love: more Alphabet Soup of science blogs
Link-Love: science-blogs down the alphabet, Part V
Link-Love: Continuing with the Alphabet of Science Blogs
Link-Love: Continuing with the Alphabet of Science Blogs - Part VII
Link-Love: Science Blogs Qs and Rs
Link-Love: Continuing with the Alphabet of Science Blogs - Part IX
Link-love: Catching up with the shifty alphabet of science blogs
Link-Love: More science blogging - Part XI
Link-Love: Science blogging - Part XII

Or do you just want to look at pretty pictures of strange critters, with or without accompanying prose or poetry?
Monday Cool Insectivore Blogging
Coturnix- Japanese Quail
Cockroaches
Quail
Ambystoma

I have hosted a number of science-related carnivals:
Tangled Bank #19
Tangled Bank #26
Tangled Bank #54
Circus of the Spineless #6
I And The Bird #19
Animalcules, Volume 1, Issue 4
Grand Rounds #47
Grand Rounds v.2 n.20
Skeptic's Circle #5
Skeptic's Circle #23
Skeptic's Circle #33
...and many more...

Finally, I have written personal posts that are science-related and this one is my all-time favourite:
How To Become A Biologist
which also got published on LabLit.com as
How to become a biologist

See also some other posts about me and my family:
I, Coturnix
Where Did My Son Get His Smarts?
From The Mouths Of Babes...
At The Science Fair
My Equestrian Past
39
Fear of Flying
Bryant Park
Seed