clock | December 15, 2007Janet, John and I did this last year. Now John is reminding us again and I hope more people pick it up as it is quite fun to do. The idea is to link back to your first post of each month of the year and to copy and paste the first sentence of each of those posts. Let's see if it is all ClockQuotes for me this year, as I tend to schedule them at 4am, so they are likely to be first posts of the day, thus also of the month - I tend to post substantive stuff around noon. Just check all the months' archives and browse the titles that are interesting to you (2555 posts so far this year!):…
clock | December 15, 2007Losses Of Long-established Genes Contribute To Human Evolution
While it is well understood that the evolution of new genes leads to adaptations that help species survive, gene loss may also afford a selective advantage. A group of scientists at the University of California, Santa Cruz led by biomolecular engineering professor David Haussler has investigated this less-studied idea, carrying out the first systematic computational analysis to identify long-established genes that have been lost across millions of years of evolution leading to the human species.
The actual paper is here…
clock | December 15, 2007To keep the conversation about the Science Debate 2008 going, I decided to post, one per day, my ideas for potential questions to be asked at such a debate. The questions are far too long, though, consisting more of my musings than real questions that can be asked on TV (or radio or online, wherever this may end up happening). I want you to:
- correct my factual errors
- call me on my BS
- tell me why the particular question is counterproductive or just a bad idea to ask
- if you think the question is good, help me reduce the question from ~500 to ~20 words or so.
Here is the second one, so…
clock | December 15, 2007There are 35 days until the Science Blogging Conference. The wiki is looking good, the Program is shaping up nicely, and there is more and more blog and media coverage already. The anthology should be published in time for the event. There are already 196 registered participants and if you do not register soon, it may be too late once you decide to do so (the maxium capacity of the venue is about 200 and we are about to close the registration). Between now and the conference, I am highlighting some of the people who will be there, for you to meet in person if you register in time.
Brad…
clock | December 14, 2007Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity.
- Henry Van Dyke
clock | December 14, 2007To keep the conversation about the Science Debate 2008 going, I decided to post, one per day, my ideas for potential questions to be asked at such a debate. The questions are far too long, though, consisting more of my musings than real questions that can be asked on TV (or radio or online, wherever this may end up happening). I want you to:
- correct my factual errors
- call me on my BS
- tell me why the particular question is counterproductive or just a bad idea to ask
- if you think the question is good, help me reduce the question from ~500 to ~20 words or so.
Here is the first one, so…
clock | December 14, 2007On Fridays I look at the new stuff published on PLoS community journals, i.e., PLoS Pathogens, Neglected Tropical Diseases, Genetics and Computational Biology. Here are my picks for this week:
The Per2 Negative Feedback Loop Sets the Period in the Mammalian Circadian Clock Mechanism:
Network models of biological systems are appearing at an increasing rate. By encapsulating mechanistic detail of chemical and physical processes, mathematical models can successfully simulate and predict emergent network properties. However, methods are needed for analyzing the role played by individual…
clock | December 14, 2007Blind Humans Lacking Rods And Cones Retain Normal Responses To Non-visual Effects Of Light:
In addition to allowing us to see, the mammalian eye also detects light for a number of "non-visual" phenomena. A prime example of this is the timing of the sleep/wake cycle, which is synchronized by the effects of light on the circadian pacemaker in the hypothalamus. Researchers have identified two totally blind humans whose non-visual responses to light remain intact, suggesting that visual and non-visual responses to light are functionally distinct. Indeed, this separation was suggested by earlier…
clock | December 14, 2007There are 36 days until the Science Blogging Conference. The wiki is looking good, the Program is shaping up nicely, and there is more and more blog and media coverage already. The anthology should be published in time for the event. There are already 189 registered participants and if you do not register soon, it may be too late once you decide to do so (the maxium capacity of the venue is about 200). Between now and the conference, I am highlighting some of the people who will be there, for you to meet in person if you register in time.
Arwen Long Is a neuroscience graduate student at…
clock | December 13, 2007To those who sweat for their daily bread leisure is a longed-for sweet until they get it.
- John Maynard Keynes
clock | December 13, 2007Cogitamus
Wanderlustig
I A C O V I B U S
Overcoming Bias
Science Sense
McBlawg
Sweet Waters
Lisa Paitz Spindler
clock | December 13, 2007I and the Bird #64 is up on Iowa Voice
Change of Shift, Vol. 2, Number 13 is up on Emergiblog
clock | December 13, 2007There are 37 days until the Science Blogging Conference. The wiki is looking good, the Program is shaping up nicely, and there is more and more blog and media coverage already. The anthology should be published in time for the event. There are already 184 registered participants and if you do not register soon, it may be too late once you decide to do so (the maxium capacity of the venue is about 200). Between now and the conference, I am highlighting some of the people who will be there, for you to meet in person if you register in time.
Katie Lord is the Director of of Marketing and…
clock | December 12, 2007Sleep that knits up the ravel'd sleeve of care,
The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast.
- William Shakespeare
clock | December 12, 2007It's been ages since I posted a picture of my oldest cat, the Queen of our household:
clock | December 12, 2007Massive Dinosaur Discovered In Antarctica Sheds Light On Life, Distribution Of Sauropodomorphs:
A new genus and species of dinosaur from the Early Jurassic has been discovered in Antarctica. The massive plant-eating primitive sauropodomorph is called Glacialisaurus hammeri and lived about 190 million years ago.
Aging In Salmon Depends On Choosy Bears:
According to George Bernard Shaw: "We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing." But how fast does that aging occur once started? In the case of populations of salmon in Alaska studied by Stephanie Carlson and…