clock | July 22, 200890 Billion Tons Of Microbial Organisms Live In Deep Marine Subsurface: More Archaea Than Bacteria:
Biogeoscientists show evidence of 90 billion tons of microbial organisms--expressed in terms of carbon mass--living in the deep biosphere, in a research article published online by Nature, July 20, 2008. This tonnage corresponds to about one-tenth of the amount of carbon stored globally in tropical rainforests.
Female Monkeys More Dominant In Groups With Relatively More Males:
Female monkeys are more dominant when they live in groups with a higher percentage of males. This is caused by self-…
clock | July 22, 2008Across the Curious Parallel of Language and Species Evolution:
In February 1837--even before he sailed on the Beagle--Charles Darwin wrote to his sister Caroline, discussing the linguist Sir John Herschel's idea that modern languages were descended from a common ancestor. If this were really the case, it cast doubt on the Biblical chronology of the world: "[E]veryone has yet thought that the six thousand odd years has been the right period but Sir J. thinks that a far greater number must have passed since the Chinese [and] the Caucasian languages separated from one stock".
The Effects of…
clock | July 21, 2008Whatever you do, don't give up. Because all you can do once you've given up is bitch. I've known some great bitchers in my time. With some it's a passion, with others an art.
- Molly Ivins
clock | July 21, 2008There is a nice list of sites that offer regular science (and history and philosophy) podcasts. Do you know any others that you can recommend?
clock | July 21, 2008These are adorable!
This one for PZ.
This one for Amanda and the Thumb crew.
My kids are getting one each, right now!
clock | July 21, 2008Remember last summer when a bunch of sciencebloggers all snuck into NYC under the cover of the night for a weekend of frolicking and karaoke? We kept it too secret last time, so very few of our readers had enough time to show up and meet us at short notice.
This time we are meeting again in NYC, a couple of weeks from now. But we want to give you more of a heads-up so you can plan. We will do other stuff in secret, but we want to meet our readers on Saturday, August 9th, around 3pm. Where? Depends on how many of you say you will come for sure (it will be indoors, in an air-conditioned…
clock | July 21, 2008Social Behavior In Ants Influenced By Small Number Of Genes:
Understanding how interactions between genes and the environment influence social behavior is a fundamental research goal. In a new study, researchers at the University of Lausanne and the University of Georgia have shed light on the numbers and types of genes that may control social organization in fire ant colonies.
Regular Walking Protects The Masai -- Who Eat High Fat Diet -- From Cardiovascular Disease:
Scientists have long been puzzled by how the Masai can avoid cardiovascular disease despite having a diet rich in animal fats…
clock | July 21, 2008Encephalon #50 is up on SharpBrains
Gene Genie #34 is up on ScienceRoll
The new edition of the Philosophers' Carnival is up on Beyond Borders
clock | July 21, 2008Serbia captures fugitive Karadzic:
Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic, one of the world's most wanted men, has been arrested in Serbia after more than a decade.
He has been brought before Belgrade's war crimes court, in accordance with a law on cooperation with the Hague Tribunal, the Serbian presidency said. The Bosnian Serb wartime political leader disappeared in 1996.
He had been indicted by the UN tribunal for war crimes and genocide over the 1995 massacre at Srebrenica.
Perhaps his poetry will get better once he starts writing it in jail....
Update: picture - Karadzic on…
clock | July 20, 2008In conversation the game is, to say something new with old words. And you shall observe a man of the people picking his way along, step by step, using every time an old boulder, yet never setting his foot on an old place.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
clock | July 20, 2008Titles of blog posts have to be short, but I could expand it to something like this:
"Depending on the medium and the context, many scientists can be and often are excellent communicators"
That is what I understood to be the main take-home message of "Sizzle". If you check out all the other blog reviews, even those that are the harshest do not state the opposite, i.e., that the movie pushes the stereotype of scientists as dull, stuffy communicators. Though, some of the commenters on those blog posts - people who could not have seen the movie themselves yet - imply that this was the case.
So…
clock | July 20, 2008Just like they did it last year, Howard Hughes program at Duke is hosting student blogs in their summer program. Check out what the students are writing on their blogs, starting at homepages of the undergraduate students and high school students and going through the blogrolls on the right-hand sidebars.
clock | July 20, 2008The latest edition of Medicine 2.0 Carnival is up on ScienceRoll
Carnival of the Godless #96 is up on Sean the Blogonaut
Friday Ark #200 is up on Modulator
Next Berry Go Round will be hosted by me here, so send me your entries by July 27th.
clock | July 19, 2008A couple of weeks ago, Vedran Vucic gave a talk about Open Access at the law school at the Belgrade University. For those of you who can read Serbian, here is the newspaper report. Glad to see PLoS mentioned...
clock | July 19, 2008Palaeoentomology & Insect Evolution
More Grumbine Science
Buttered Waffles
The Evolving Mind
Moose Droppings
On The Media--Cavewoman Style
clock | July 19, 2008Robert Grumbine has a series of posts with thoughts about climate change and what a non-expert can do to get properly informed:
Climate is a messy business:
Climate certainly is a messy business. One of the things that makes it interesting to those of us who work on it is precisely that. Wherever you look, you find something that affects climate, regardless of whether you look at permafrost, sea ice, forests, farms, rivers, factories, sunspots, volcanoes, dust, glaciers, ...
So certainly we have a complicated science and certainly few people are going to understand enough of it to argue the…