clock | September 16, 2008The Giant's Shoulders #3 is up on Entertaining Research
Grand Rounds Vol. 4 No. 52 is up on Nurse Ratched's Place
clock | September 16, 2008A few seconds ago, the
Millionth Comment was posted on Scienceblogs.com (go there and make yourself eligible!).
Join us for the party!
And if you intend to come to the NC party, please filll this form so we can get the head count and give you prizes!
Also, here....
clock | September 16, 2008 Before the days of Times Select, David Brooks used to provoke long rants twice a week. This post from October 24, 2004 is one of those.
David Brooks is so predictable. Every week or so, he comes up with a new scheme to explain the polarization of America. Each time he uses what seems to be different criteria, but are really just different terms. The funniest (and the worst) so far was the division into "spreadheet" and "paragraph" people (link: http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/opinion/9660863.htm?1c ). This week, he came up with yet another one (link: http://www.nytimes.com/…
clock | September 15, 2008The New York Times is read by the people who run the country. The Washington Post is read by the people who think they run the country. The National Enquirer is read by the people who think Elvis is alive and running the country ...
- Robert J. Woodhead
clock | September 15, 2008The Power of Political Misinformation:
As the presidential campaign heats up, intense efforts are underway to debunk rumors and misinformation. Nearly all these efforts rest on the assumption that good information is the antidote to misinformation.
But a series of new experiments show that misinformation can exercise a ghostly influence on people's minds after it has been debunked -- even among people who recognize it as misinformation. In some cases, correcting misinformation serves to increase the power of bad information.
Why the Facts Don't Matter in Politics:
What's interesting about…
clock | September 15, 2008 This post from October 21, 2004 laments the lack of spatial and temporal context for Lakoff's theory of political ideology.
As I have complained before, Lakoff's theory leaves me wanting for a spatial and a temporal context. In other words, I believe that current analysis will remain untested without a comparative study between USA and other countries, as well as without a historical study of changes in two forms of worldviews over the past couple of hundred years of history here, as well as the past couple of millenia around the world.
The only reference to any differences between the…
clock | September 15, 2008Do not do whatever this cartoon is depicting or else!
Funny Pie Chart
Worst 'Before and After' pics ever
Only in Russia
Found around the Internets today....
clock | September 15, 2008Carnival of Evolution, #2 is up on Evolutionblog
Carnival of the Green #145 is up on Walkable Neighborhoods
clock | September 15, 2008A Morning-Specific Phytohormone Gene Expression Program underlying Rhythmic Plant Growth:
In plants, stems elongate faster at dawn. This time-of-day-specific growth is controlled by integration of environmental cues and the circadian clock. The specific effectors of growth in plants are the phytohormones: auxin, ethylene, gibberellins, abscisic acid, brassinosteroids, and cytokinins. Each phytohormone plays an independent as well as an overlapping role in growth, and understanding the interactions of the phytohormones has dominated plant research over the past century. The authors present a…
clock | September 15, 2008There are 9 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:
Snake Cathelicidin from Bungarus fasciatus Is a Potent Peptide Antibiotics:
Cathelicidins are a family of antimicrobial peptides acting as multifunctional effector molecules of innate immunity, which are firstly found in mammalians. Recently, several cathelicidins have also been found from chickens and fishes. No cathelicidins from other non-mammalian…
clock | September 15, 2008How Corals Adapt To Day And Night:
Researchers have uncovered a gene in corals that responds to day/night cycles, which provides some tantalizing clues into how symbiotic corals work together with their plankton partners. Corals are fascinating animals that form the largest biological constructions in the world, sprawling coral reefs that cover less than 0.2 % of the seafloor yet provide habitats for more than 30% of marine life. In shallow waters that don't have abundant food, corals have developed a close relationship with small photosynthetic critters called dinoflagellates.
Giant…
clock | September 15, 2008Encephalon #54 is up on Neurophilosophy
Carnival of Space #70 is up on OrbitalHub
clock | September 15, 2008
First, there was the First NC Science Blogging Conference. Then, there was the Second NC Science Blogging Conference. And yes, we will have the Third one - renamed ScienceOnline'09 to better reflect the scope of the meeting: this time bigger and better than ever.
ScienceOnline'09 will be held Jan. 16-18, 2009 at the Sigma Xi Center in Research Triangle Park, NC.
Please join us for this free three-day event to explore science on the Web. Our goal is to bring together scientists, bloggers, educators, students, journalists, writers, publishers, Web developers and others to discuss,…
clock | September 15, 2008Two years ago, when we all got together and did this, the result was this.
Last year, when even more of us got together and did this, the result was this.
Now, with the new editor, we are ready to do this again!
The Open Laboratory 2008 is in the works. The submissions have been trickling in all year, 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…
clock | September 15, 2008A Vote For Science is a new blog here on scienceblogs.com, dedicated to science issues in the current election:
With less than two months left before the next U.S. president is elected, ScienceBlogs wanted to dedicate a space to campaign politics. A Vote For Science is a group blog that will focus on the candidates' science policies. It is managed by many interested ScienceBloggers, as well as guest blogger Ivan Oelrich of the Federation of American Scientists.
clock | September 15, 2008A couple of weeks ago, Barack Obama answered the 14 science questions. Now we hear that McCain has answered them as well. If you can believe they still care about Reality (or will let McCain care, if elected), check his answers (side-by-side with Obama's) here.
Compare and contrast....
clock | September 15, 2008The party is getting close -next Saturday. You can still tell us if you are going to join us either here or here.
Meeting time/place: 1pm right inside the North America entrance.
clock | September 15, 2008Sleep researchers rarely pay attention to stuff like sleep position and sleep behavior, as opposed to EEG data, sleep duration, timing and patterns. But now Darren reviews that neglected aspect of animal sleep.
Also see my post on the same topic about the sleep behavior in whales.
clock | September 14, 2008This post was first written on October 28, 2004 on Science And Politics, then it was republished on December 05, 2005 on The Magic School Bus. The Village vs. The University - all in your mind.
Eric at Total Information Awareness wrote two excellent posts on something that touches me personally, yet has much broader consequences on the country as a whole: the well-organized and well-funded assault of the Right on the University (check some links in the comments section, too): Freedom Fighters and Academic Freedom Fighters.
There were a couple of other articles on the same topic, e.g.,The…
clock | September 14, 2008Not to know what has been transacted in former times is to be always a child. If no use is made of the labors of past ages, the world must remain always in the infancy of knowledge.
- Marcus Tullius Cicero