clock | March 28, 2008Imagine: An Interview with Svante Paabo:
Svante Paabo works on the edge of what's possible. He ignites our imagination, unlocking tightly held secrets in ancient remains. By patiently and meticulously working out techniques to extract genetic information from skin, teeth, bones, and excrement, Paabo has become the leader of the ancient DNA pack. Sloths, cave bears, moas, wooly mammoths, extinct bees, and Neanderthals--all have succumbed to his scrutiny.
Paabo (see Image 1) broke ground in 1985, working surreptitiously at night in the lab where he conducted his unrelated PhD research, to…
clock | March 27, 2008Reason For Almost Two Billion Year Delay In Animal Evolution On Earth Discovered:
Scientists from around the world have reconstructed changes in Earth's ancient ocean chemistry during a broad sweep of geological time, from about 2.5 to 0.5 billion years ago. They have discovered that a deficiency of oxygen and the heavy metal molybdenum in the ancient deep ocean may have delayed the evolution of animal life on Earth for nearly 2 billion years.
Brain's 'Sixth Sense' For Calories Discovered:
The brain can sense the calories in food, independent of the taste mechanism, researchers have found in…
clock | March 26, 2008There is no well-defined boundary between honesty and dishonesty. The frontiers of one blend with the outside limits of the other, and he who attempts to tread this dangerous ground may be sometimes in one domain and sometimes in the other.
- O. Henry
clock | March 26, 2008Living Upside-down Shapes Spiders For Energy Saving:
An interdisciplinary team of researchers from Spain and Croatia led an investigation into the peculiar lifestyle of numerous spider species, which live, feed, breed and 'walk' in an upside-down hanging position. According to their results, such 'unconventional' enterprise drives a shape in spiders that confers high energy efficiency, as in oscillatory pendulums.
Space Tourism: Suborbital Vehicle Expected To Fly Within Two Years:
A small California aerospace company has just unveiled a new suborbital spaceship that will provide affordable…
clock | March 26, 2008The Four Stone Hearth #37 - The Pulp SciFi Edition - is up on Hot Cup Of Joe
The Skeptic's Circle - Every One Of You Is Expelled! - is up on Mike's Weekly Skeptic Rant
Grand Rounds Volume 4 No. 27 are up on monash medical student
165 Carnival of Education-Teachers Gone Wild Spring Break Edition - is up on Bellringers
The 117th Carnival of Homeschooling is up on Phat Mommy
clock | March 25, 2008The force of the blow depends on the resistance. It is sometimes better not to struggle against temptation. Either fly or yield at once.
- Francis H. Bradley
clock | March 25, 2008Scared publishers ask for a hearing and get an earful:
Librarians and educators, meanwhile, strongly defended the NIH policy-and spoke of the lengthy process of consideration it has already gone through, urging that implementation now proceed as planned. In its comments, SPARC reiterated that all stakeholders have had ample time to consider the policy dating back to 2004. SPARC said that it has, along with many other stakeholders, created "several programs to help to pave the way for the smooth implementation of the revised policy," including a range of educational initiatives and practical…
clock | March 25, 2008From the Library Journal:
The Triangle Research Libraries Network (TRLN) pioneered the nation's first consortial online catalog back in the 1980s, and this week, took that legacy a step further with the launch of "Search TRLN", which officials say adds "next-generation search capabilities" to the consortium's combined collection of 16 million volumes. Search TRLN, is a new single-interface discovery tool, enabling users to search across the entire collections of the four member institutions: Duke University, North Carolina Central University, North Carolina State University, and the…
clock | March 25, 2008Some people only know the language of power. They see conciliation and compromise as weakness. Show strength. If they are sissies hiding behind machismo, slam them hard. You have nothing to lose. Some will convert and come to your side. Some will go cower in the corner. None will hang around risking your anger for very long.
Sometimes, profanity is the only appropriate language:
"On a related note, fearing that we face a whole new level of bullshit about which we will, and should, be visibly angry, and preparing myself thusly, comments and emails composed specifically to tell me to stop…
clock | March 25, 2008While I don't think there is such a thing as Internet Addiction, doing this quick test is fun:
"Your Internet usage is causing significant problems in your life. You should evaluate the impact of the Internet on your life and address the problems directly caused by your Internet usage."
clock | March 25, 2008Elephants avoiding mines:
Eliminated from Angola during more than two decades of civil war, herds of African elephants are crossing heavily mined fields as they recolonize Angola from neighboring Namibia and Botswana.
But miraculously, they are avoiding the mines entirely, according to researchers at University of Massachusetts in Amherst who are tracking them via global positioning system satellites.
Hat-tip.
clock | March 25, 2008Americans Sleeping More, Not Less, Says New Study
Contrary to conventional wisdom, Americans average as much sleep as they did 40 years ago, and possibly more, according to University of Maryland sociologists.
Yes, when you suddenly start including the unemployed in the study.
Mantis Shrimp Vision Reveals New Way That Animals Can See:
Mantis shrimp can see the world in a way that had never been observed in any animal before, researchers report in the March 20th Current Biology, a Cell Press publication. The discovery--which marks the fourth type of visual system--suggests that the ability to…
clock | March 25, 2008Bunch of new, cool stuff in PLoS ONE today - here are the titles that piqued my curiosity (and you know the spiel: rate, note, comment, trackback):
Australia's Oldest Marsupial Fossils and their Biogeographical Implications:
We describe new cranial and post-cranial marsupial fossils from the early Eocene Tingamarra Local Fauna in Australia and refer them to Djarthia murgonensis, which was previously known only from fragmentary dental remains. The new material indicates that Djarthia is a member of Australidelphia, a pan-Gondwanan clade comprising all extant Australian marsupials together with…
clock | March 24, 2008The function of a briefing paper is to prevent the ambassador from saying something dreadfully indiscreet. I sometimes think its true object is to prevent the ambassador from saying anything at all.
- Kingman Brewster, Jr
clock | March 24, 2008My favourite newspaper has been publishing for a year now. . Robert Dickson and Kirk Ross mark the anniversary. Newspaper is not dead.
clock | March 24, 2008New Zealand's 'Living Dinosaur' -- The Tuatara -- Is Surprisingly The Fastest Evolving Animal:
In a study of New Zealand's "living dinosaur" the tuatara, evolutionary biologist, and ancient DNA expert, Professor David Lambert and his team from the Allan Wilson Centre for Molecular Ecology and Evolution recovered DNA sequences from the bones of ancient tuatara, which are up to 8000 years old. They found that, although tuatara have remained largely physically unchanged over very long periods of evolution, they are evolving - at a DNA level - faster than any other animal yet examined.
See more…
clock | March 24, 2008Accretionary Wedge #7 is up on Magma Cum Laude
Carnival of the Green #120 is up on Victoria E
clock | March 24, 2008Circadian Remodeling of Neuronal Circuits Involved in Rhythmic Behavior:
Circadian systems evolved as a mechanism that allows organisms to adapt to the environmental changes in light and dark which occur as a consequence of the rotation of Earth. Because of its unique repertoire of genetic tools, Drosophila is a well established model for the study of the circadian clock. Although the biochemical components underlying the molecular oscillations have been characterized in detail, the mechanisms used by the clock neurons to convey information to the downstream pathways remain elusive. In the…