clock | December 4, 2007Graham Steel, a vocal Open Access supporter, alerts me that the latest Mansbridge One on One interview on CBC features Richard Smith. You can watch the video here - the talk about Open Access starts about seven minutes into the interview.
clock | December 4, 2007JoVE, SciVee, LabAction and DnaTube are mentioned in this nice article, also found in a number of other newspapers, e.g., USA Today and Seattle Times.
clock | December 4, 2007And bloggers are really, really good at taking care of each other. So, this year, if you have some money to spare, help one of our own, Gary Farber, whose physical disability does not prevent him from writing an amazing blog (where you go to find out, for instance, exactly how, method-wise, the government spies on US citizens), but prevents him from getting a job that pays for food.
clock | December 4, 2007Sites with videos that are more serious than YouTube are proliferating - I get an e-mail about a new one about every week. This week's addition is SuTree. By clicking on pets and animals category and then on reptiles and then on care, I found, for instance, this video on the care of Leopard Geckos. It includes some text, as well as user comments (but no responses from the experts or authors of the video). The advice is good, standard pet-shop fare. As my lab-buddy Chris actually did a lot of research with Leopard Geckos, we know a bunch more about the husbandry and other neat tricks with…
clock | December 4, 2007There are 46 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 163 registered participants and if you do not register soon, it may be too late once you decide to do so (we'll cap at 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.
Roger Harris is the Director of Membership & Chapters of Sigma Xi,…
clock | December 3, 2007Time is the great legalizer, even in the field of morals.
- Henry Louis Mencken
clock | December 3, 2007I thought the name sounded familiar when I checked the newest papers published in PLoS Biology today - yup, that's him, my SciBling and friend Alex Palazzo:
The Signal Sequence Coding Region Promotes Nuclear Export of mRNA by Alexander F. Palazzo, Michael Springer, Yoko Shibata, Chung-Sheng Lee, Anusha P. Dias and Tom A. Rapoport:
In eukaryotic cells, precursors of messenger RNAs (mRNAs) are synthesized and processed in the nucleus. During processing, noncoding introns are spliced out, and a cap and poly-adenosine sequence are added to the beginning and end of the transcript, respectively.…
clock | December 3, 2007In Promiscuous Antelopes, The 'Battle Of The Sexes' Gets Flipped:
In some promiscuous species, sexual conflict runs in reverse, reveals a new study. Among African topi antelopes, females are the ones who aggressively pursue their mates, while males play hard to get.
(which Kate explained a few days ago - is ScienceDaily that slow?)
Dinosaur Mummy Found With Fossilized Skin And Soft Tissues:
The amazing discovery of one of the finest and rarest dinosaur specimens ever unearthed -- a partially intact dino mummy found in the Hell Creek Formation Badlands of North Dakota was made by 16-year-old…
clock | December 3, 2007Circus of the Spineless #27 is up on The Hawk Owl's Nest
The 18th Festival of the Trees, or November Arborea, is up on Riverside Rambles
International Carnival of Pozitivities - edition 2.6. (special World AIDS Day edition) is up on DropDeadHappy
Pediatric Grand Rounds, Volume 2, Edition 12, are up on Hope For Pandora.
Encephalon #37 is right here, at A Blog Around The Clock
clock | December 3, 2007The other day, Kate wrote an interesting post about inter-species relationships, in particular the cases of inter-species adoption and parenting. In her post, she mentioned a paper that immediately drew my attention - Influence of various early human-foal interferences on subsequent human-foal relationship. by Henry S, Richard-Yris MA and Hausberger M. (Dev Psychobiol. 2006 Dec;48(8):712-8.).
In the paper, the newborn foals were either handled by humans (e.g., brought to the teat), or left completely alone with their mother, or just had humans standing by. Then, a few weeks later, they…
clock | December 3, 2007It's been a long time since I last hosted a carnival, but who could resist Mo when he asked so nicely if I would be interested in hosting Encephalon? Of course I will! And here it is and I hope you enjoy it, with a great diversity of posts, linked in the order I received them:
GrrlScientist of Living the Scientific Life invites us all to the Mouse Party to see the difference between 'your brain' and 'your brain on drugs'.
Ed Yong of Not Exactly Rocket Science looks at the recent study on the neurobiology of aesthetics: Brain of the beholder - the neuroscience of beauty in sculpture.
Dr. Deb…
clock | December 3, 2007There are 47 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 161 registered participants and if you do not register soon, it may be too late once you decide to do so (we'll cap at 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.
Tyra Dunn-Thomas is a recent PhD from the Iowa State University program…
clock | December 2, 2007This is woo of the decade! Priceless: How to Good-Bye Depression: If You Constrict Anus 100 Times Everyday. Malarkey? or Effective Way? by Hiroyuki Nishigaki is, according to the Amazon reviewers, absolutely hilarious - reading it will make you laugh (and thus constrict your anus) at least a 100 times, thus completely good-bying your depression. The title of this post is an actual sentence from the book, according to one of the reviewers. Hat-tip: Vaughan
clock | December 2, 2007All-Nighters Equal Lower Grades:
With end-of-semester finals looming, here's an exam question: Will pulling an all-nighter actually help you score well? To the dismay of college students everywhere, the correct answer is "no."
Morning Jolt Of Caffeine Might Mask Serious Sleep Problems:
With the holiday season's hustle and bustle in full swing, most of us will race to our favorite coffee shop to get that caffeine boost to make it through the day. However, that daily jolt that we crave might be the reason we need the caffeine in the first place.
Insufficient Sleep Raises Risk Of Diabetes, Study…
clock | December 2, 2007Chris Clarke is writing a book on Joshua trees. This requires money and Chris does not have enough. I know I want to read the book when it comes out. This is what blog-friends are for: donate now.
clock | December 2, 2007One of the greatest biologists of the 20th century, Seymour Benzer died last Friday. In his obituary post John Dennehy focuses on the bacteriophage work that led to deciphering of the genetic "alphabet", and so does Carl Zimmer.
Readers of my blog probably know the name more in the connection with the discovery of the first clock mutants in Drosophila, by Ron Konopka in Benzer's lab. You can read the paper itself (pdf) and watch a video in which Benzer explains it.
clock | December 2, 2007There are 48 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 161 registered participants and if you do not register soon, it may be too late once you decide to do so (we'll cap at 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.
Jennifer Williams of OpenHelix, LLC and Jennifer Montague of BioCytics…