clock | April 7, 2009There are 26 awesome 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.
If you are reluctant to post ratings, notes and comments, perhaps you should read this first.
You can now also easily place articles on various social services (CiteULike, Connotea, Stumbleupon, Facebook and Digg) with just one click. Here are my own picks for the week - you go and look for your own favourites:
The Dusk Chorus from an Owl Perspective: Eagle Owls Vocalize When Their White Throat Badge Contrasts Most:
An…
clock | April 7, 2009Carnival of the Blue #23 is up on Deep Sea News
Scientia Pro Publica #1, The Science, Nature and Medicine Blog Carnival, is up on Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted)
Carnival of the Green #174 is up on GreenDeals Blog
Grand Rounds Vol. 5 No. 29 are up on Getting Closer to Myself
clock | April 7, 2009In TIME, a couple of days ago - How Obama Is Using the Science of Change:
Two weeks before Election Day, Barack Obama's campaign was mobilizing millions of supporters; it was a bit late to start rewriting get-out-the-vote (GOTV) scripts. "BUT, BUT, BUT," deputy field director Mike Moffo wrote to Obama's GOTV operatives nationwide, "What if I told you a world-famous team of genius scientists, psychologists and economists wrote down the best techniques for GOTV scripting?!?! Would you be interested in at least taking a look? Of course you would!!"
Moffo then passed along guidelines and a sample…
clock | April 7, 2009Lifeless Cells Ensure Sharp Vision:
Seemingly dead cells perform a surprising task in the lens of a fish eye. Every morning and evening they change the lens's capacity to refract light in order to enhance color perception during the day and night vision when it's dark. This is shown in new research from Lund University in Sweden.
Lice Genomes Uniquely Fragmented: How Did It Evolve?:
Parents and school nurses take note. Lice are a familiar nuisance around the world and vectors of serious diseases, such as epidemic typhus, in developing regions. New research indicates that lice may actually…
clock | April 6, 2009Humor is, I think, the subtlest and chanciest of literary forms. It is surely not accidental that there are a thousand novelists, essayists, poets or journalists for each humorist. It is a long, long time between James Thurbers.
- Leo C. Rosten
clock | April 6, 2009This is very interesting, referring to Canadian system:
Cost of the NSERC Science Grant Peer Review System Exceeds the Cost of Giving Every Qualified Researcher a Baseline Grant:
Using Natural Science and Engineering Research Council Canada (NSERC) statistics, we show that the $40,000 (Canadian) cost of preparation for a grant application and rejection by peer review in 2007 exceeded that of giving every qualified investigator a direct baseline discovery grant of $30,000 (average grant). This means the Canadian Federal Government could institute direct grants for 100% of qualified applicants…
clock | April 6, 2009It's Monday night, so let's see what just got published in PLoS Biology, PLoS Medicine, PLoS ONE and PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases:
Cryptochrome Mediates Light-Dependent Magnetosensitivity of Drosophila's Circadian Clock:
Magnetic fields influence endogenous clocks controlling the sleep-wake cycle of animals, but the underyling mechanisms are unclear. Birds that can do magnetic compass orientation also depend on light, and the blue-light photopigment cryptochrome was proposed to act as a navigational magnetosensor. Here we tested the role of cryptochrome as a light-dependent magnetosensor…
clock | April 6, 2009Tuesday, April 21, 2009
6:30-8:30 pm with discussion beginning at 7:00 followed by Q&A
Location: The Irregardless Café, 901 W. Morgan Street, Raleigh 833-8898
Think Globally - Eat Locally
How much do you know about the food you eat? Were pesticides applied? Do you know where it was grown and how far it traveled to get to you? How much did its transportation contribute to global warming?
What can we do to bring about the revival of locally produced foods and all the benefits they bring - better taste, nutrition, stronger local economies and relationships with local farmers, reduced…
clock | April 6, 2009Circus of the Spineless 37 is up on Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted)
Carnival of Space #97 is up on Cheap Astronomy
clock | April 6, 2009Babies Born To Women With Anxiety Or Depression Are More Likely To Sleep Poorly:
A study in the April 1 issue of the journal SLEEP suggests that babies are more likely to have night wakings at both 6 months and 12 months of age if they are born to women who suffered from anxiety or depression prior to the pregnancy.
Bird Feathers Produce Color Through Structure Similar To Beer Foam:
Some of the brightest colors in nature are created by tiny nanostructures with a structure similar to beer foam or a sponge, according to Yale University researchers.
Straw Bale House Survives Violent Shaking At…
clock | April 5, 2009This is a tough game. There are times when you've got to play hurt, when you've got to block out the pain.
- Shaquille O'Neal
clock | April 5, 2009One of the (many) motivations for writing the epic post about New Journalism last week was to try to end once for all the entire genre of discussing the "bloggers vs. journalists" trope.
I have collected the responses to the piece here and it is quite flattering that the post got hat-tips from people who have studied the topic for a long time, like Ed Cone, Kirk Ross, Michael Tobis, Henry Gee, Dave Winer and Dan Conover, among others.
My SciBling Dave Dobbs wrote a very good post (recommended) in reply - you need to go and read it.
One of Dave's questions was, to paraphrase, why are there…
clock | April 5, 2009Jay Rosen tweets:
New method: slow blogging at PressThink, daily mindcasting at Twitter, work room at FriendFeed. Example: post in gestation http://is.gd/okca
This is how I understand that:
Step 1 is mindcasting on Twitter (often misunderstood for time-wasting lifecasting, e.g., this), Step 2 is aggregation of a number of imported tweets and digestion of them on FriendFeed, Step 3 is aggregation of several FF threads into a more coherent blog post.
The next step, Step 4, could potentially be to aggregate the ideas and knowledge from several blog posts and publish as an article in the…
clock | April 5, 2009I know everyone and their grandmother has already posted this. But, if there is going to be a virally spread internet meme, this one is much better than most:
clock | April 4, 2009Enjoy the successes that you have, and don't be too hard on yourself when you don't do well. Too many times we beat up on ourselves. Just relax and enjoy it.
- Patty Sheehan
clock | April 4, 2009April Scientiae is up on Candid Engineer in Academia
Friday Ark #237 is up on Modulator
clock | April 4, 2009
No Sponge In Human Family Tree: Sponges Descended From Unique Ancestor:
Since the days of Charles Darwin, researchers are interested in reconstructing the "Tree of Life", and in understanding the development of animal and plant species during their evolutionary history. In the case of vertebrates, this research has already come quite a long way. But there is still much debate about the relationships between the animal groups that made their apparation very early in evolutionary history, probably in the late Precambrian, some 650 to 540 million years ago.
Beverage Consumption A Bigger Factor…
clock | April 3, 2009A horse which stops dead just before a jump and thus propels its rider into a graceful arc provides a splendid excuse for general merriment.
- Duke of Edinburgh
clock | April 3, 2009So, let's see what's new in PLoS Genetics, PLoS Computational Biology, PLoS Pathogens and PLoS ONE this week. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. Here are my own picks for the week - you go and look for your own favourites:
Harmonics of Circadian Gene Transcription in Mammals:
Circadian rhythms confer adaptive advantages by allowing organisms to anticipate daily changes in their environment. Over the last few years, many groups have used microarray technology to systematically identify genes under circadian…