clock | January 28, 2008Boneyard #12 is up on The Dragon's Tales
Carnival of the Green #112 is up on Evangelical Ecologist
clock | January 28, 2008From SCONC:
Following the smashing success of their previous programs on "The Science of Beer" and "the Science of Chocolate," the Duke Chapter of Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society, will present "The Science of Baking" On Thursday, January 31, at 4:30 p.m. The featured guests are Emily Buehler, author of Bread Science: The Chemistry and Craft of Making Bread, and Frank Ferrell from Ninth Street Bakery. The event includes free samples, sandwiches, pastries and drinks. The meeting will be held in room 2002 of the Duke North Building. RSVP ASAP to Mary Holtschneider.
clock | January 28, 2008Karen James, better known online as 'nunatak', is part of the team that is trying to build a replica of H.M.S. Beagle in time for next year's bicenntenial celebration of Charles Darwin's life and work. Karen is the director of science at The Beagle Project and one of the two Beagle Bloggers. She came to the Science Blogging Conference last weekend and co-moderated the delightful session on Real-time blogging in the marine sciences. I thought it would be cool to do a little friendly, chatty interview with Karen, so I sent her a few questions and here is what she said:
Hi, Karen. Welcome to…
clock | January 28, 2008Many of you have been moved by my Mom's five-part guest-blogging on Holocaust Children (part I, part II, part III, part IV and part V), so I asked her to let me reproduce here her wartime story, as it appeared in the first volume in the series We Survived published by the Jewish Historical Museum in Belgrade.
It will appear here in five installments starting today and going throughout the week at the same time of day, so please come back every day and ask her questions in the comments. Proceed under the fold:
Rea Zivkovic Reiss was born in Sarajevo on November 23, 1932. Her father, architect…
clock | January 28, 2008The second annual North Carolina Science Blogging Conference, held January 18 and 19, 2008, was an unqualified success. Find a comprehensive listing of links to the many blog entries and video clips posted before, during and after the conference to learn about the conversations and networking at the conference.
Like our inaugural event, this second conference was a collective activity — many, many organizations, companies and individuals pitched in, in ways large and small, to keep this conference free, attendees fed and the discussion lively.
Please join us in thanking them. (We thanked…
clock | January 28, 2008Keystone sleep/circadian meeting. Jay Dunlap, Emmanuel Mignot and Amita Seghal are organizing a Keystone meeting on Genetics and Biochemistry of Sleep in Lake Tahoe, March 7-12 (click here to see large):
clock | January 27, 2008All men are mortal. Socrates was mortal. Therefore, all men are Socrates.
- Woody Allen
clock | January 27, 2008Shelley and Steve were getting a little lonely (just intellectually, of course, don't get any weird ideas!), so, not much to tell, one thing led to another and....they will be fusing their two excellent and successful blogs into a new Superblog, right here on scienceblogs.com!
But, they have a problem - the domestic squabbles have already started - they could not agree on the name for the new blog! So, what to do? What bloggers always do - ask the hivemind! So, go to either one of their blogposts (linked above) and put in your suggestions. They will look them over and pick a winner (who…
clock | January 27, 2008Alun Salt (of the Archaeoastronomy blog, sometimes known as "Clioaudio") recently wrote a post about the Portable Antiquities Scheme:
The Portable Antiquities Scheme is a voluntary scheme to record archaeological objects found by members of the public in England and Wales. Every year many thousands of objects are discovered, many of these by metal-detector users, but also by people whilst out walking, gardening or going about their daily work. Such discoveries offer an important source for understanding our past.
Chris Vallance of BBC was inspired by Alun's post and recorded this interview…
clock | January 27, 2008Space Cadet
Saving Species
To catch a panda
The Wisdom of Whores
Animal Inventory
Practical Ethics Blog
Jacks of Science
Science of the Invisible
AJCs Virtual Frogroom
clock | January 27, 2008Blogs by Sarah Boxer, in New York Review of Books.
Laelaps responds: I don't quite get the same impression...
clock | January 26, 2008'Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world.
- William Shakespeare
clock | January 26, 2008Apparently, it was more important to some voters that the candidate looks like them than that the candidate is actually good for them.
Ah well, the identity politics... Clinton won the white women, Edwards white men, and Obama won big with African Americans.
Go figure....
Watch the results here as they get counted tonight...
Pam has been liveblogging and will be up on TYT at 9:30.
clock | January 26, 2008Olivia Judson wrote a blog post on her NYTimes blog that has many people rattled. Why? Because she used the term "Hopeful Monster" and this term makes many biologists go berserk, foaming at the mouth. And they will not, with their eye-sight fogged by rage, notice her disclaimer:
Note, however, that few modern biologists use the term. Instead, most people speak of large morphological changes due to mutations acting on single genes that influence embryonic development.
So, was Olivia Judson right or wrong in her article? Both. Essentially she is correct, but she picked some bad examples,…
clock | January 25, 2008The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.
- Abraham Lincoln
clock | January 25, 2008EDGE Amphibians: World's Weirdest Creatures Just Got Weirder:
A gigantic, ancient relative of the newt, a drawing-pin sized frog, a limbless, tentacled amphibian and a blind see-through salamander have all made it onto a list of the world's weirdest and most endangered creatures.
Scientists Look At Those In Evolutionary Race Who Don't Make It 'Out Of The Gate':
In the race of evolution, scientists until now have only looked at winners and losers. Now, they've come up with a way to look at the contenders who never made it out of the gate. It's the organisms -- in this case lizards -- that die…
clock | January 25, 2008Here is a video of SPARC-ACRL Forum '08 on 12 January, 2008 at the Pennyslvania Convention Center in Philadelphia:
The SPARC-ACRL Forum at ALA '08 entitled "Working with the Facebook generation: Engaging students views on access to scholarship." Panelists discuss the merits of student activism, patent reform, blogs as a communication medium for scientists, and students as active members of a discussion about the right to access information for scholarly work. Features Andre Brown, Nelson Pavlosky, Stephanie Wang, and Kimberly Douglas as panelists.
Pay particular attention to Andre Brown and…
clock | January 25, 2008Go say Hello to DrugMonkey and PhysioProf, the newest acquisitions by The Borg, at DrugMonkey blog. Both are regular readers and commenters on this blog, always providing thoughtful and intelligent (and provocative) additions to the conversation. A great addition to the scienceblogs.com universe!
clock | January 25, 2008Friday - time to take a look at the new articles in PLoS Computational Biology, Genetics and Pathogens - check them all out, but here are a couple of picks:
Exploration of Small RNAs:
There is substantial interest in noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs), which play an essential role in complex biological systems without encoding for proteins. Only a limited number of ncRNAs, such as ribosomal RNA (rRNA) and transfer RNA (tRNA), have previously been characterized in any depth. Recent studies revealed many novel ncRNAs, covering a wide range of sizes [1]. RNA molecules have several functions including…