clock | September 2, 2008A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation.
- Hector Hugh Munro (1870-1916)
clock | September 2, 2008There are 12 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:
Low Frequency Groans Indicate Larger and More Dominant Fallow Deer (Dama dama) Males:
Models of honest advertisement predict that sexually selected calls should signal male quality. In most vertebrates, high quality males have larger body sizes that determine higher social status and in turn higher reproductive success. Previous research has emphasised…
clock | September 2, 2008Too Sexy For My Books
The Earthly Paradise
Your Daily Art
The Art History Blog
Lines and colors
Passing Gaz
clock | September 2, 2008Providing Surgical Services Should Be Global Public Health Priority:
When you think of public health efforts in developing countries, you probably think of childhood vaccinations, programs for clean water, malaria and TB eradication campaigns. Surgery is rarely considered as a tool for improving the health of the world's poorest people. Prompted by an article in their on-line journal suggesting that it should be, the editors of PLoS Medicine have added their voice to the discussion.
clock | September 2, 2008In Business Week:
That is why isolating people in organizational silos is one of the biggest obstacles to innovation. Companies that are serious about innovation do everything possible to break down silos and encourage communication and collaboration across the organization and beyond.
But read the rest of the article as well. Sound familiar to any of you?
clock | September 2, 2008Festival of the Trees #27 is up on Exploring the World of Trees
Grand Rounds Vol. 4 No. 50 are up o n A Chronic Dose: A Chronic Illness Blog
clock | September 1, 2008Our whole life is an attempt to discover when our spontaneity is whimsical, sentimental irresponsiblity and when it is a valid expression of our deepest desires and values.
- Helen Merrell Lynd (1896-1982)
clock | September 1, 2008Towards a Data Sharing Culture: Recommendations for Leadership from Academic Health Centers:
Sharing biomedical research and health care data is important but difficult. Recognizing this, many initiatives facilitate, fund, request, or require researchers to share their data [1-5]. These initiatives address the technical aspects of data sharing, but rarely focus on incentives for key stakeholders [6]. Academic health centers (AHCs) have a critical role in enabling, encouraging, and rewarding data sharing. The leaders of medical schools and academic-affiliated hospitals can play a unique role…
clock | September 1, 2008I asked if anyone knows any art history blogs? I am aware of many history blogs, and some art blogs, but no art history blogs.
Neil responded with the discovery of this post - why have there been no great art history bloggers?
And then found two: Your Daily Art and The Art History Blog.
Anyone know any others?
clock | September 1, 2008General election is in two months. Both campaigns are in a frenzy. Media is covering it full speed. Even low-information voters are slowly starting to pay attention. At this point, every word every candidate says is analyzed and over-analyzed and can potentially be disastrous if the opposing side spins it in their TV ads. This is not the time to venture into unnecessary topics. Caution is the key.
Nobody who cherishes reason, logic, empiricism and rationality is crazy to vote for the train wreck that is the McCain/Palin ticket. Such people are going to vote for Obama even if they think…
clock | September 1, 2008September Scientiae Carnival is up on Lab Cat
Carnival of the Blue #16 is up on The Saipan Blog
Carnival of the Green #143 is up on Savvy Vegetarian
clock | September 1, 2008Focused--The Sequel:
Another week, another Frank Luntz/AARP focus group of undecided voters--this one in Minneapolis and with some bad news for John McCain: they don't like the choice of Sarah Palin for vice president.
Afterwards Luntz, good Republican that he is, made the case that Palin could win all these people back with a good convention speech, but that seemed far-fetched to me. They really saw this pick as a gimmick--and one that reflected badly on John McCain's judgment.
clock | September 1, 2008When Republican delegates check-in to their hotel rooms in St. Paul this week, they will receive a "thank you" message on their televisions. An ad called "Thanks For The Memories," produced by Campaign for America's Future, will broadcast unforgettable moments from the last eight years that conservatives wish the country would forget.
With Hurricane Gustav on the nation's mind, the ad reminds viewers of the bungled response to Hurricane Katrina. It also highlights skyrocketing gas prices, soaring home foreclosures, the infamous "mission accomplished" banner and tells conservatives, "You've…
clock | September 1, 2008A century ago, yet nothing has changed: William James, March 1903:
..............Human nature is once for all so childish that every reality becomes a sham somewhere, and in the minds of Presidents and Trustees the Ph.D. degree is in point of fact already looked upon as a mere advertising resource, a manner of throwing dust in the Public's eyes. "No instructor who is not a Doctor" has become a maxim in the smaller institutions which represent demand; and in each of the larger ones which represent supply, the same belief in decorated scholarship expresses itself in two antagonistic passions,…
clock | September 1, 2008From Politico:
At a press availability in Monroe, Mich., Barack Obama said: "Back off these kinds of stories."
"I have said before, and I will repeat again: People's families are off-limits," Obama said. "And people's children are especially off-limits. This shouldn't be part of our politics. It has no relevance to Gov. Palin's performance as a governor or her potential performance as a vice president. So I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories. You know my mother had me when she was 18, and how a family deals with issues and teenage children, that shouldn't be a topic…
clock | September 1, 2008'Armored' Fish Study Helps Strengthen Darwin's Natural Selection Theory:
Shedding some genetically induced excess baggage may have helped a tiny fish thrive in freshwater and outsize its marine ancestors, according to a UBC study published today in Science Express. Measuring three to 10 centimetres long, stickleback fish originated in the ocean but began populating freshwater lakes and streams following the last ice age. Over the past 20,000 years - a relatively short time span in evolutionary terms - freshwater sticklebacks have lost their bony lateral plates, or "armour," in these new…
clock | September 1, 2008Heart of Darwin:
Even the founding father of evolutionary theory was not born a gloomy old man. I began to wonder if it might be possible to walk Darwin's London and get a sense of him as a young man caught up in the fray. The landmarks of his life turned out to be all around.