clock | January 14, 2008There are 4 days until the Science Blogging Conference. We have 214 registered participants and the registration is now closed.
The anthology should be published in time for the event. I have been highlighting some of the people who will be there, for you to meet in person if you register in time.
Irene Klotz is a veteran journalist and author who writes about space, science, and astronomy, most recently for the Discovery Channel and Reuters
Jayne Byrne is a freelance writer and she blogs at Jayne's Breast Cancer Blog
Regina Ali is the lead Research Technician in the Genome Research…
clock | January 13, 2008Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.
- Elwyn Brooks White
clock | January 13, 2008It's rare that an article combines my two interests - in biological clocks and politics. This one does: Circadian rhythms differ for the king and the president:
One is a night owl who likes to do business after midnight. The other is an early-to-bed guy who brags about going to sleep around 9:30 p.m.
Uh-oh.
One of them is King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. The other is President Bush.
So what happens when the president comes calling on the king? Call it the battle over bedtime.
What the article fails to mention is that 9pm in Saudi Arabia is NOT 9pm for Bush. He just flew there. His internal…
clock | January 13, 2008The 176th Carnival of the Recipes is up on The Common Room and guess what? My recipe for Stuffed Cabbage is not the only one! There is another recipe for it there so you can compare and contrast!
clock | January 13, 2008Last-minute odds and ends in organizing the Conference required me to be awake today when I met with Anton, who took this picture to show I was taking it very seriously. Hover your mouse over the cup....
clock | January 13, 2008Culture Influences Brain Function, Study Shows:
People from different cultures use their brains differently to solve the same visual perceptual tasks, MIT researchers and colleagues report in the first brain imaging study of its kind.
Aroma Of Chocolate Chip Cookies Prompts Splurging On Expensive Sweaters:
Exposure to something that whets the appetite, such as a picture of a mouthwatering dessert, can make a person more impulsive with unrelated purchases, finds a study from the February 2008 issue of the Journal of Consumer Research. For example, the researchers reveal in one experiment that…
clock | January 13, 2008If you post a comment here and it does NOT appear immediately, it is likely in the Junk Folder, which I tend to forget to check every day. Please e-mail me so I can fish it out and republish it here sooner rather than later.
clock | January 13, 2008Reed alerts me that the Darwin Awards 2007 are up for voting right now - all nasty and stupid ways to die. The only one of these stories that I have heard of before is the story of the guy who entered, buck-naked, the bear cage at the Belgrade Zoo during the Beer Festival. The local press was all over this and I appreciate the completely non-diplomatic reaction by the Zoo Director, Vuk Bojovic. So, that is the one I voted for with a 10. Parochial, I know. But it's not like I'm voting for my neighbor for the President or something...
clock | January 13, 2008The Boneyard XI is up on When Pigs Fly Returns
Natural Sciences Carnival IV is up on Falando pelos Cotovelos
clock | January 13, 2008...which I totally relate to. Can you guess which candidate they support? If you like one of their signs (e.g., 'Elizabeth For First Lady' one), they have set up a Cafepress store where you can buy them (as well as buttons, stickers and other stuff):
clock | January 13, 2008There are 5 days until the Science Blogging Conference. Both Zuska and Karen are urging their readers to contribute questions, thoughts and ideas for their session on Gender and Race in science: online and offline - go help them out!
clock | January 12, 2008Pekinška Patka - Biti Ružan, Pametan i Mlad
The beginning of Serbian punk:
clock | January 12, 2008People in distress will sometimes prefer a problem that is familiar to a solution that is not.
- Neil Postman
clock | January 12, 2008Is "reshaven" a real word? This is, apparently a matter of some academic interest, according to Alex.
I think "reshaven" is applicable in each of the following cases:
a) when the shaven area is not an area usually shaven. Example: if you shave your head, then the hair starts growing again, after some time you need to have it reshaven.
b) when the shaving does not occur at regular, predictable intervals. Example: "Bill's signature image is his big, bushy beard. A few years ago he surprised everyone by shaving it off. That was some kind of protest gesture on his part, I believe. He let…
clock | January 12, 2008OK, this may not be very new, but for all of you taking a look at science in North Carolina next week due to the focus on the Science Blogging Conference, The Scientist has published a number of essays looking at every aspect of Life Science in the state - check it out: The State of Life Sciences.
For the latest news on life science in North Carolina, visit the Bioscience Clearinghouse, a very useful website hosted by The North Carolina Association for Biomedical Research.
clock | January 12, 2008Guru alerts me to a sweet article about Nikola Tesla and how he is inspiring writers and artists - Tesla Slept Here by Mark Singer in the latest New Yorker :
The Tesla saga has provided fodder for an opera, a play, and several biographies. Standing in the lobby the other day, Kinney mentioned that he had been contacted not long ago by a woman named Natasa Drakula (from that family), who was interested in making a film about artists who were inspired by Tesla. Among the most recent is Samantha Hunt, whose novel "The Invention of Everything Else" will be published next month. Its plot, not…
clock | January 12, 2008If you missed it yesterday, you can now listen to the audio recording of the show here (the first 18 minutes or so were on this topic).
clock | January 12, 2008There are 5 days until the Science Blogging Conference. We have 212 registered participants and the registration is now closed.
The anthology should be published in time for the event. I have been highlighting some of the people who will be there, for you to meet in person if you register in time.
Melissa Srougi is a postdoc at the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Molly Keener is the reference librarian at Wake Forest University Health Sciences and a blogger.
David Stein is the educational partnership coordinator in the Office of…