clock | August 23, 2008Update: Register, login and edit the wiki if you intend to show up tonight.
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Anton just sent a message to the Triangle blogging community:
The annual BlogTogether Backyard Barbecue is this Saturday, August 23 from 5pm on, at my home in Durham. I'll provide a cold keg of Carolina Brewery suds, a hot grill and tasty pulled pork barbecue, and a deck perfect for conversing into the night. More details at http://blogtogether.org/index.php/wiki.
In NC next weekend? Join us!
clock | August 23, 2008With Skate Eyes, Scientists Peer Into Human Disease:
Paradoxically, the photoreceptor cells in our retinas release more of their neurotransmitter, glutamate, in the dark, when there is nothing to see, than they do in the light. This is doubly surprising since although glutamate is a major signaling molecule in the retina and throughout the central nervous system, it is also a potent cytotoxin that, in large doses, can kill nearby cells.
New Algorithm Significantly Boosts Routing Efficiency Of Networks:
A time-and-money-saving question shared by commuters in their cars and networks sharing…
clock | August 22, 2008Egotism, n. Doing the New York Times crossword puzzle with a pen.
- Ambrose Bierce
clock | August 22, 2008They (meaning: CNN) say it's Biden. Yuck! The old-school hawk whose only 'supposed strength' is foreign policy which he proceeded to show he is ignorant of every night on TV during the 1990s spouting nonsense about the Balkans.
clock | August 22, 2008There are 7 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:
Bioactive Endophytes Warrant Intensified Exploration and Conservation:
A key argument in favor of conserving biodiversity is that as yet undiscovered biodiversity will yield products of great use to humans. However, the link between undiscovered biodiversity and useful products is largely conjectural. Here we provide direct evidence from bioassays of…
clock | August 22, 2008Watch what Clay Shirky said at Web 2.0 Expo SF 2008 (transcript here):
The quote that everyone likes, for a good reason, is the following:
I was having dinner with a group of friends about a month ago, and one of them was talking about sitting with his four-year-old daughter watching a DVD. And in the middle of the movie, apropos nothing, she jumps up off the couch and runs around behind the screen. That seems like a cute moment. Maybe she's going back there to see if Dora is really back there or whatever. But that wasn't what she was doing. She started rooting around in the cables. And her…
clock | August 22, 2008Vedran keeps cranking these at an incredible rate (the first numbers indicate these aggregators are quite comprehensive and the feedback is that they are useful) - here is the latest one: Aggregator of RSS feeds about Gynecology
clock | August 22, 2008This blog is slowly approaching a nice round number - 10,000 comments. I know this is not Pharyngula where this would take an hour or two to fill, but still, we can get the remaining 200+ comments in over the next few days, can't we?
The person who posts the 10,000th non-spam comment will get a prize - something (your choice exactly what) from the A Blog Around The Clock store.
clock | August 22, 2008Face Recognition: Nurture Not Nature:
Researchers have discovered that our society can influence the way we recognise other people's faces. Because face recognition is effortlessly achieved by people from all different cultures it was considered to be a basic mechanism universal among humans. However, by using analyses inspired by novel brain imaging technology, researchers at the University of Glasgow have discovered that cultural differences cause us to look at faces differently.
Manes, Trains And Antlers Explained: How Showy Male Traits Evolved:
For Charles Darwin, the problem of the…
clock | August 22, 200812 New Rules of Working You Should Embrace Today. As you know, point #4 is one of my pet peeves:
4. People don't have to be in an office. This is the one I wish most businesses would get, right now, right away. It's so obvious once you get away from the traditional mindset. Traditionally, people worked in offices (and of course most still do). They go into the office, do their work, go to meeting, process paperwork, chat around the watercooler, clock out and go home.
These days, more and more, that's not necessary. With mobile computing, the cloud, online apps and collaborative processes,…
clock | August 22, 2008Edition #82 of I and the Bird is up on Sycamore Canyon
Friday Ark #205 is up on Modulator
clock | August 22, 2008
My favourite discipline is citation gymnastics! What is yours? Can you invent a new sport?
clock | August 22, 2008The Edger
Pondering blather
SynchroniciTwi
Scientist Carrie
Effortless Incitement
clock | August 22, 2008Boston Globe has an interesting article about Open Science, citing the routine list of worries that usually get associated with this idea, e.g., :
But in the world of science - where promotions, tenure, and fortune rest on publishing papers in prestigious journals, securing competitive grants, and patenting discoveries - it's a brazen, potentially self-destructive move. To many scientists, leaving unfinished work and ideas in the open seems as reckless as leaving your debit card and password at a busy ATM machine.
But, as John Hawks says:
I think that's a pretty simplistic rendering of how…
clock | August 22, 2008Friendly blogger Pamela Roland, the author of Tomorrow's Table: Organic Farming, Genetics, and the Future of Food which I am reading right now (and which was recently reviewed in PLoS Biology), has just had a paper published in PLoS Genetics:
Identification and Functional Analysis of Light-Responsive Unique Genes and Gene Family Members in Rice
Rice, a model monocot, is the first crop plant to have its entire genome sequenced. Although genome-wide transcriptome analysis tools and genome-wide, gene-indexed mutant collections have been generated for rice, the functions of only a handful of rice…
clock | August 21, 2008I was born not knowing and have only had a little time to change that here and there.
- Richard Feynman
clock | August 21, 2008Kevin has just posted another photo-rich report from his herpetology survey in China. Lots of pictures of Chinese landscape, Chinese people, Chinese food, and yes - cool Chinese animals.
clock | August 21, 2008There are 10 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:
A Dominant X-Linked QTL Regulating Pubertal Timing in Mice Found by Whole Genome Scanning and Modified Interval-Specific Congenic Strain Analysis:
Pubertal timing in mammals is triggered by reactivation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) axis and modulated by both genetic and environmental factors. Strain-dependent differences in vaginal opening…