clock | October 31, 2008After making several potential designs in silico, my daughter chose one and we carved it. In order to participate in the Happy Hallo-Meme, we brought out the camera - first picture immediately after, the second once the darkness arrived and we lit up the candle inside:
Of course, Juno in costume was a hit with neighbors....
clock | October 31, 2008Mathematician Cracks Mystery Beatles Chord:
It's the most famous chord in rock 'n' roll, an instantly recognizable twang rolling through the open strings on George Harrison's 12-string Rickenbacker. It evokes a Pavlovian response from music fans as they sing along to the refrain that follows:
It's been a hard day's night
And I've been working like a dog
The opening chord to A Hard Day's Night is also famous because for 40 years, no one quite knew exactly what chord Harrison was playing. Musicians, scholars and amateur guitar players alike had all come up with their own theories, but it took a…
clock | October 31, 2008So, let's see what's new in PLoS Genetics, PLoS Computational Biology, PLoS Pathogens, PLoS ONE and PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases 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:
Curling Up with a Story: An Interview with Sean Carroll:
To meet Sean Carroll on his home turf in the early spring of Wisconsin is like encountering a bear cuddled up in his lair, waiting out the cold winter. I burrowed into the softly lit cave of small…
clock | October 31, 2008Duncan Hull and colleagues just published an excellent, must-read article - Defrosting the Digital Library: Bibliographic Tools for the Next Generation Web:
Many scientists now manage the bulk of their bibliographic information electronically, thereby organizing their publications and citation material from digital libraries. However, a library has been described as "thought in cold storage," and unfortunately many digital libraries can be cold, impersonal, isolated, and inaccessible places. In this Review, we discuss the current chilly state of digital libraries for the computational…
clock | October 31, 2008Apart from the rhetoric, apparently not:
The election is right around the corner, and voters around the country have been subjected to politicians, pundits and commercials laden with allegations of class warfare and claims about which candidates cater to the rich and which candidates will best serve the interests of the poor and the middle class. But a new study, co-authored by North Carolina State University researcher Dr. Chris Ellis, shows that it would be impossible for Congress and the White House to cater solely to any socioeconomic group - because people's preferences tend to be…
clock | October 31, 2008We are busy preparing for The Open Laboratory 2008. The submissions have been trickling in all year, and a little bit more frequently recently, but it is time now to dig through your Archives for your best posts since December 20th 2007 and submit them. Submit one, or two, or several - no problem. Or ask your readers to submit for you.
Then take a look at your favourite bloggers and pick some of their best posts - don't worry, we can deal with duplicate entries. Do not forget new and up-coming blogs - they may not know about the anthology - and submit their stuff as well.
As we did last…
clock | October 31, 2008Today is the last day! I know most of my readers are donating to Obama this year, but still, my challenge is on the very bottom of the Scienceblogs.com list....
clock | October 31, 2008
Daylight Saving Time: Clock-shifts Affect Risk Of Heart Attack:
Adjusting the clocks to summer time on the last Sunday in March increases the risk of myocardial infarction in the following week. In return, putting the clocks back in the autumn reduces the risk, albeit to a lesser extent. This according to a new Swedish study.
Programmable Genetic Clock Made Of Blinking Florescent Proteins Inside Bacteria Cells:
UC San Diego bioengineers have created the first stable, fast and programmable genetic clock that reliably keeps time by the blinking of fluorescent proteins inside E. coli cells. The…
clock | October 30, 2008All of us who grew up before World War II are immigrants in time, immigrants from an earlier world, living in an age essentially different from anything we knew before.
- Margaret Mead
clock | October 30, 2008I am sure that you have already heard about the despicable TV ad that Elizabeth Dole aired against Kay Hagan. You probably heard about it online, perhaps on Twitter or FriendFeed or blogs. Here's a quick selection:
My godless money. Take it or leave it.
The Worst Insult of All?
Thou shalt not bear false witness
NC: Hagan responds to 'Godless' ad; Dole's immigrant bashing
Elizabeth Dole ad falsely suggests opponent Kay Hagan is 'Godless.'
North Carolina Senate Race Degenerates Into Shouting Match About Atheists
GODLESS AMERICANS.
Sen. Liddy Dole (R-NC) attacks Sunday school teacher: 'There is…
clock | October 30, 2008There are 33 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. Here are my own picks for the week - you go and look for your own favourites:
The Political Gender Gap: Gender Bias in Facial Inferences that Predict Voting Behavior:
Throughout human history, a disproportionate degree of political power around the world has been held by men. Even in democracies where the opportunity to serve in top political positions is available to any individual elected by the majority of their constituents,…
clock | October 30, 2008On the Road: Charlotte, North Carolina:
An observation we've heard repeated in Obama offices across America, Crandall emphasized how beneficial the contested primary had been for building the foundation for record turnout. "We had real hints of it in the primary," Crandall said. The first-time voters the campaign energized for the May 6 vote foreshadowed what North Carolina is seeing today. Crandall remembers thinking "these are NOT your typical primary voters."
Pathetic yard sign captured in Raleigh - and Q of the Day:
By far I see more Obama stickers and signs in my town, including a…
clock | October 30, 2008In the end, I could not make it to the Obama rally in Raleigh, but other bloggers did.
If I did, I would have been one of the 28000 people to be the first to hear the "peanut butter and jelly" thing:
I think this is great framing - getting your mind back to the time you were a child. Who do you want to play with: a kid who shares his toys, or the old man who shouts "Get off my lawn!"? Do you prefer a parent who beats you every day, or a parent who teaches you how to get along with others?
clock | October 30, 2008Ed Cone interviews the security guru Bruce Schneier about voting machines:
There are a couple of reasons that things like automatic teller machines and gas pumps are more secure. The first one is, there's money involved. If someone hacks an ATM, the bank loses money. The bank has a financial interest in making those ATMs secure. If someone hacks a voting machine, nobody loses money. In fact, half the country is happy with the result. So it's much harder to get the economic incentives aligned.
The other issue about voting machines is that ballots are secret. A lot of the security in…
clock | October 30, 2008This is interesting:
But voter behavior is only part of the change drawing political attention to North Carolina. Presidential contenders are increasing their focus here because the state has more clout on the national stage than it did as recently as the 1980s. The same population boom that has helped alter the political landscape in North Carolina has also led to an increase in the number of electoral votes the state is allotted in the presidential election. While some states (such as Illinois and Pennsylvania) have been given fewer and fewer electoral votes since 1980, North Carolina has…
clock | October 30, 2008The Great Limbaugh Con by Charles M. Kelly, published in 1994, is even more current and up-to-date than it was then. And it is not really about Limbaugh himself - he serves only as a starting point. There are many Limbaughs out there now who parrot the same stuff and what he pioneered in the early 1990s is now a big industry for the Right.
Furthermore, some of the right-wing rhetoric that Rush invented is now not just a standard GOP advertising lingo, but also deeply ingrained in the nation's psyche and will take a lot of effort to neutralize. The book describes, for instance, exactly how…
clock | October 30, 2008
"Would you get on a plane with a pilot who has never flown?" the announcer asks. Yes, if the only other option is the guy who has proven repeatedly that he cannot keep his plane in the air:
(cartoon from The Star)