clock | June 30, 2008On this day 150 years ago essays by Alfred Russel Wallace and Charles R. Darwin were read at the meeting of the Linnean Society in London. This was the first time in history that the idea of natural selection was presented to the world.
George Beccaloni and Wesley R. Elsberry wrote excellent pieces commemorating the anniversary.
clock | June 30, 2008The Alternative Scientist
RepositoryMan
Bonnie J. M. Swoger
Marine Depot Blog
Curiosities of Biological Nomenclature
Gossamer Tapestry
clock | June 30, 2008SCIENCEBLOGS ACHIEVES RECORD GROWTH
NEW YORK (July 1) - ScienceBlogs (www.scienceblogs.com), the web's largest science community, announced today that traffic for the first six months of 2008 increased by more than 60% over the same period last year, with total visits through June 30 reaching approximately 14 million, an all-time high. "We are extremely happy with the sustained monthly growth of our network, and the increasing vitality of our community," said Sarah Glasser, Vice President, Marketing for Seed Media Group, the parent company of ScienceBlogs. "ScienceBlogs has become a must-read…
clock | June 30, 2008Blake wrote a long and excellent post about the question. Brian, swansontea, SciCurious, PZ Myers and Chad have more. What they say....
clock | June 30, 2008Something happened in Siberia 100 years ago - exactly, on this day. I always found the event very intriguing. If you want to learn everything one needs and wants to know about the event, written in a way that will make you excited - go and read Archy's latest masterpiece (hmmm, anthology-worthy?).
clock | June 30, 2008The one I got for Mrs.Coturnix's birthday? Tanja has updated her website and now you can see both that mirror (in a much better photo) and a bunch of other mirrors and artwork she made recently.
clock | June 30, 2008As always on Monday night, there are new articles published in PLoS Biology and PLoS Medicine. Here are some of the highlights:
Shedding Light on Animal Cryptochromes:
Anyone who's neglected a houseplant for any length of time knows that plants can't survive without light. But it's more complicated than that; in addition to serving as an energy source, light is used by plants as a signal to sense and respond to the environment. For example, both red and blue light send the signal for maturation and flower and seed development. Depriving a plant of such light signals disrupts a variety of…
clock | June 30, 2008Mammalian Clock Protein Responds Directly To Light:
We all know that light effects the growth and development of plants, but what effect does light have on humans and animals? A new paper by Nathalie Hoang et al., published in PLoS Biology, explores this question by examining cryptochromes in flies, mice, and humans. In plants, cryptochromes are photoreceptor proteins which absorb and process blue light for functions such as growth, seedling development, and leaf and stem expansion. Cryptochromes are present in humans and animals as well and have been proven to regulate the mechanisms of the…
clock | June 30, 2008Circus of the Spineless #34 is up on Gossamer Tapestry
The latest edition of Change of Shift is up on 20 Out of 10
The Carnival of the Liberals #76 is up on Situation Awareness
The 94th Carnival of the Godless is up on Earthman's Notebook
Friday Ark #197 is up on Modulator
Carnival of the Green #134 is up on Two Hands Worldshop
clock | June 29, 2008Professor Goddard does not know the relation between action and reaction and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react. He seems to lack the basic knowledge ladled out daily in high schools.
- New York Times
clock | June 28, 2008All brave men love; for he only is brave who has affections to fight for, whether in the daily battle of life, or in physical contests.
- Nathaniel Hawthorne
clock | June 27, 2008A man can believe a considerable deal of rubbish, and yet go about his daily work in a rational and cheerful manner.
- Norman Douglas
clock | June 26, 2008We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee.
- Marian Wright Edelman (b. 1939)
clock | June 26, 2008Marc Dingman is touching on my own favorite topic: It's All About Timing: Circadian Rhythms and Behavior
And SciCurios goes only millimeters below the suprachiasmatic nucleus: Diabetes Insipidus as a Sequel to a Gunshot Wound of the Head
Both posts well worth your time.
clock | June 26, 2008I will be out of town and offline for the next four days.
If you see spam or trolls that are really bad and need to be dealt with, or if there are technical problems with the blog in any way, just tell one of my SciBlings to alert the Overlords.
Be good. Have fun. I'll be back.
clock | June 26, 2008There is an exciting new study in Science that reshuffles the avian phylogeny pretty thoroughly - Grrrrl and Greg have excellent summaries.
As a part of the monthly topic being birds in June, there is an ongoing Journal Club on PLoS ONE.
And if that is not enough birds for you today, the new edition of I and the Bird #78 is up on It's just me.
clock | June 26, 2008Thursday night - time to check in to see what is new in PLoS Genetics, PLoS Computational Biology, PLoS Pathogens and PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases:
The Exception That Proves the Rule: An Interview with Jenny Graves:
Close to 20 years ago, I was contacted by an Australian woman who was planning to map the locations of genes that are X-linked in humans in some odd Australian critters, the monotremes. These animals comprise a distantly related branch of mammals that have hair and lactate, but additionally lay eggs. She wanted a probe from our lab, and, in exchange, little vials of DNA from…
clock | June 26, 2008Huge Genome-scale Phylogenetic Study Of Birds Rewrites Evolutionary Tree-of-life:
The largest ever study of bird genetics has not only shaken up but completely redrawn the avian evolutionary tree. The study challenges current classifications, alters our understanding of avian evolution, and provides a valuable resource for phylogenetic and comparative studies in birds.
Cocoa Genome To Be Sequenced: May Benefit Millions Of Farmers, Help Sustain World's Chocolate Supply:
The United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS), Mars, Incorporated, and IBM intend to…
clock | June 25, 2008There was a time when a fool and his money were soon parted, but now it happens to everybody.
- Adlai Ewing Stevenson