clock | February 26, 2008Religion Colors Americans' Views Of Nanotechnology:
Is nanotechnology morally acceptable? For a significant percentage of Americans, the answer is no, according to a recent survey of Americans' attitudes about the science of the very small.
Male Fertility May Be Harmed By Mix Of Endocrine Disrupters:
Endocrine-disrupting chemicals, which are harmless individually in small doses, can together be a dangerous cocktail. Concurrent exposure to several endocrine-disrupting substances may, among other things, result in malformed sexual organs. Risk assessments of chemical substances should therefore…
clock | February 26, 2008Dr.Tara C. Smith is one of the original Gang Of Four(teen) here at Scienceblogs.com. She blogs on her Aetiology as well as contributes to Panda's Thumb and Correlations group blogs. At the 2nd Science Blogging Conference last month Tara moderated the session on Blogging public health and medicine.
Welcome to A Blog Around The Clock. Would you, please, tell my readers a little bit more about yourself? Who are you? What is your scientific background? What is your Real Life job?
Well, let's see. Working backwards, I'm an assistant professor; my field is infectious disease epidemiology.…
clock | February 25, 2008Doing what little one can to increase the general stock of knowledge is as respectable an object of life, as one can in any likelihood pursue.
- Charles R. Darwin
Support The Beagle Project
Read the Beagle Project Blog
Buy the Beagle Project swag
Prepare ahead for the Darwin Bicentennial
Read Darwin for yourself.
clock | February 25, 2008Oh-oh, it seems it's a meme season again! I'll dutifully do them, one at a time. Today - the good old 123 book meme, which memeticized over time into being called "Goosed meme". I was tagged by Lance Mannion who was hoping that the book closest to me is the OpenLab07. Sorry. It's not. It was until earlier today. Tough luck, Lance, you'll just have to buy it.
Anyway, the rules first:
⢠look up page 123 in the nearest book
⢠look for the fifth sentence
⢠then post the three sentences that follow that fifth sentence on page 123.
The nearest book is the one which arrived in the mail…
clock | February 25, 2008Snakes Locate Prey Through Vibration Waves:
It is often believed that snakes cannot hear. This presumption is fed by the fact that snakes lack an outer ear and that scientific evidence of snakes responding to sound is scarce. Snakes do, however, possess an inner ear with a functional cochlea.
Masters Of Disguise: Secrets Of Nature's 'Great Pretenders' Revealed:
A gene which helps a harmless African butterfly ward off predators by giving it wing patterns like those of toxic species, has been identified. The mocker swallowtail butterfly, Papilio dardanus, is unusual because it emerges from its…
clock | February 25, 2008This is an exciting day at PLoS and, after having to keep my mouth shut for a couple of months about it, I am really happy to be free to announce to the world that my friend and excellent science blogger Jonathan Eisen is now officially the Academic Editor-in-Chief of PLoS Biology.
The editors have written an article that explains his role and how and why it was Jonathan who was chosen. In a separate article, Jonathan gives us a touching and thrilling story of his conversion to Open Access and his vision for the future of PLoS Biology.
You should go and congratulate him in the comments…
clock | February 25, 2008There are a bunch of new papers in PLoS Biology and PLoS Medicine and, somewhat out of usual schedule, in PLoS ONE. So, check out these and then look around for more:
Does Mutation Rate Depend on Itself:
Many a research paper, textbook chapter, and grant proposal has begun with the phrase "Mutation is the ultimate source of genetic variation." Implicit in this phrase is the assumption that genetic variation is required for evolution. Without mutation, evolution would not be possible, and life itself could never have arisen in the first place. However, there is overwhelming evidence that the…
clock | February 25, 2008Shelley Batts and I are of the same "generation", meaning that we became SciBlings on the same day. You need to hurry up and check out her blog Retrospectacle before she moves to a new blog in a few days. At the Science Blogging Conference last month Shelley moderated the Student blogging panel--from K to Ph D.
Welcome to A Blog Around The Clock. Would you, please, tell my readers a little bit more about yourself? Who are you? What is your background? What is your Real Life job?
I'm an end-stage Neuroscience graduate student at the University of Michigan, my thesis is related to…
clock | February 25, 2008'Fiona' Gene Controls Flower's Physiologic Clock:
Scientists have found a new gene that regulates the daily and yearly physiological cycles of flowering and seeding.
POSTECH researchers, led by Nam Hong-gil and Kim Jeong-sik, said that they named the gene FIONA1 after the heroine in the popular animation ``Shrek.'' In the animation, princess Fiona is human by day but becomes an ogress at sunset. Fiona also sounds similar to the term ``flowering'' in Korean.
The research is a foundation for further discoveries of the plants' clock systems, the team said. To study the gene, the POSTECH team…
clock | February 25, 2008If you attended the Science Blogging Conference or read what people blogged about it, or said about it in subsequent interviews, you know how much fun it is to meet your favourite bloggers in real life. You gain a new perspective, you read them more diligently, you understand them better, and you have some calamari and beer.
So, we would like all the readers of Scienceblogs.com to organize local meetups. The organizing has already started (see here, here, here, here and here for examples). Rare are the people who read only one of us - most of our readers are shared across at least a few…
clock | February 25, 2008Boneyard XIV is up on Self-designed Student
Accretionary Wedge #6 is up on the Lounge of the Lab Lemming
Carnival of the Green #116 is up on The EcoLibertarian
clock | February 24, 2008As for a future life, every man must judge for himself between conflicting vague probabilities.
- Charles R. Darwin
Support The Beagle Project
Read the Beagle Project Blog
Buy the Beagle Project swag
Prepare ahead for the Darwin Bicentennial
Read Darwin for yourself.
clock | February 24, 2008Early Experience Affects Where Birds Breed For Life: What Happens If Habitat Changes?:
How young migratory birds choose the nesting location of their first breeding season has been something of a mystery in the bird world. But a new University of Maryland/National Zoo study of the American redstart suggests that the environmental conditions the birds face in their first year may help determine where they breed for the rest of their lives, a factor that could significantly affect the population as climate change makes their winter habitats hotter and drier.
Ancient Puzzle Solved In Fossils…
clock | February 24, 2008You may remember a few days ago I posted a link to the list of Obsolete skills (the links were to this post, this wiki and this wiki). The growing list is certainly fun to read and check off your own skills against it. Archy adds some more.
But, what I really liked, especially since this is a science blog, was this comment by Barn Owl, suggesting we list our science-related and laboratory skills that are either useless outside of the lab or now obsolete even in a science lab.
For instance, Anna has developed strength in in the muscles used in vial opening as well as the ability to eye-ball…
clock | February 24, 2008Janet Stemwedel a.k.a. Dr.Free-Ride is the blogmistress of Adventures in Ethics and Science and the Science Blogging Conference last month was her second appearance here - last year she was the Keynote Blogger-Speaker and this year she led a session on Science Blogging Ethics.
Welcome to A Blog Around The Clock. Would you, please, tell my readers a little bit more about yourself? Who are you? What is your scientific background? What is your Real Life job?
Hi Bora, thanks for having me!
I'm a middle-aged, almost mid-career academic who came from the East Coast to the San Francisco Bay Area…