clock | November 29, 2007I and the Bird #63 is up on The Greenbelt
The 147th edition of The Carnival of Education is up on Matt-a-matical Thinking.
clock | November 29, 2007There are 51 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 153 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.
Ivan Oransky is the Deputy Editor of The Scientist and a blogger. His…
clock | November 28, 2007Time will explain it all. He is a talker, and needs no questioning before he speaks.
- Euripides
clock | November 28, 2007Gene Study Supports Single Main Migration Across Bering Strait:
Did a relatively small number of people from Siberia who trekked across a Bering Strait land bridge some 12,000 years ago give rise to the native peoples of North and South America?
Greg Laden and Jake Young comment.
Dogs Can Classify Complex Photos In Categories Like Humans Do:
Like us, our canine friends are able to form abstract concepts. Friederike Range and colleagues from the University of Vienna in Austria have shown for the first time that dogs can classify complex color photographs and place them into categories in the…
clock | November 28, 2007A milestone for Abel PharmBoy and Happy Birthday to Olduvai George!
Chris asks: how to get alienated kids from inner cities interested in nature?
This year saw a sharp rise in the number of multi-author scientific papers. This reflects the increasingly collaborative nature of science - no more crazy loners tinkering in their basements. Thus, a better system for assessing scientific contributions (at least as it pertains to publication of research) is becoming more urgent.
This Saturday is the World AIDS Day. Will you blog about it?
10 top researchers in the area of adolescent health,…
clock | November 28, 2007
When Wilhelm Johannsen coined the word "gene" back in 1909 (hmmm, less than two years until the Centennial), the word was quite unambiguous - it meant "a unit of heredity". Its material basis, while widely speculated on, was immaterial for its usefulness as a concept. It could have been tiny little Martians inside the cells, it would have been OK, as they could have been plugged into the growing body of mathematics describing the changes and properties of genes in populations. In other words, gene referred to a concept that can be mathematically and experimentally studied without a…
clock | November 28, 2007There are 52 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 146 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.
Kevin Gamble is the Associate Director of the National eXtension…
clock | November 27, 2007Until the 20th century, few people needed money. Apart from salt and iron, everything could be paid for in kind. Economic activity was more a means of making the time pass than of making money, which might explain why one of the few winter industries in the Alps was clock-making. Tinkering with tiny mechanisms made time pass less slowly, and the clocks themselves proved that it was indeed passing.
- Graham Robb [N.Y.Times, November 25, 2007]
Hat-tip: Selva
clock | November 27, 2007There are 35 brand new papers on PLoS ONE tonight and it is difficult for me to pick the most exciting for the week. So, here is one on the effects of night-shift, one on melanopsin and light perception, one on time perception, one on limb regeneration in the Axolotl, a meta-analysis of the soil ecology literature and, a first for PLoS ONE, an article by a prominent philosopher of science that I expect to be discussed on blogs over the next few days:
Acute Sleep Deprivation and Circadian Misalignment Associated with Transition onto the First Night of Work Impairs Visual Selective Attention:…
clock | November 27, 2007Bear Hunting Altered Genetics More Than Ice Age Isolation:
It was not the isolation of the Ice Age that determined the genetic distribution of bears, as has long been thought. This is shown by an international research team led from Uppsala University in Sweden in the latest issue of Molecular Ecology. One possible interpretation is that the hunting of bears by humans and human land use have been crucial factors.
Mediterranean Sea: Most Dangerous Place On Earth For Sharks And Rays:
The first complete IUCN Red List assessment of the status of all Mediterranean sharks and rays has revealed that…
clock | November 27, 2007Carnival of Space #30 is up on Bad Astronomy Blog
The 79th Edition of Carnival of the Godless is up on Sexy Secularist!
Friday Ark #166 is up on Modulator
Grand Rounds 4.10 are up on Prudence, M.D.
Carnival of the Green #105 is up on Great Green Goods
Carnival of Homeschooling - Centennial Edition - is up on Mom is Teaching
Finally, after a long break, I will host a carnival again. The Encephelon #37 will be right here on December 3rd. Email your posts to encephalon{dot}host{at}gmail{dot}com or directly to me at coturnix AT gmail DOT com, or submit using the blogcarnival online form.
clock | November 27, 2007There are 53 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 145 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.
Becky Oskin is a Freelance writer and editor in Chapel Hill. She will co-…
clock | November 26, 2007The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.
- Albert Einstein
clock | November 26, 2007Idiosynchrony
BedBugger
Out of the Mountains
Eclectic Glob of Tangential Verbosity
The Dendritic Arbor
clock | November 26, 2007I'll be there, of course:
Join Congressman Brad Miller for a discussion hosted by Ruby Sinreich of OrangePolitics.org and Brian Russell of Yesh.com about the impact of blogging on today's political environment.
When: Thursday, November 29, 5:30pm - 7:30pm
Where: Mill Town Restaurant, 307 E Main St, Carrboro
Suggested Donation: $10
Cash Bar
Congressman Brad Miller (www.bradmiller.org) is currently serving his third term representing North Carolina's 13th Congressional District. He has often blogged on many progressive sites, including the DailyKos and Blue NC. Congressman Miller serves on the…
clock | November 26, 2007..that is adolescence. And the research on what adolescents find attractive. For a few years. Until they gain the gift of speech and hearing, look up, and find beauty in the mind. Unfortunately, some never do.
clock | November 26, 2007Yup, it's Monday evening:
Light Activates Output from Evening Neurons and Inhibits Output from Morning Neurons in the Drosophila Circadian Clock:
Living organisms have evolved circadian clocks that anticipate daily changes in their environment. Their clockwork is fully endogenous, but can be reset by external cues. (Light is the most efficient cue.) The circadian neuronal network of the fruit fly (Drosophila) brain perceives light through the visual system and a dedicated photoreceptor molecule, cryptochrome. Flies exhibit a bimodal locomotor activity pattern that peaks at dawn and dusk in…
clock | November 26, 2007Peter Suber reports the announcement of a new initiative by SAGE and Hindawi, starting a number of new Open Access journals. The platform will be unveiled in early December. They have decided not to switch their older, more established journals to OA yet.
This is really good news as SAGE is one of the largest scientific publishers, and certainly the largest so far to go from no-OA (not a single journal) to many-OA in one fell swoop. It is quite understandable that they decided to do it this way. From their business perspective, OA is still seen as risky. If brand new journals flop, it is…
clock | November 26, 2007Cameron Neylon is putting together a proposal for a UK research council to fund a network with the general theme of 'e-science enabling open science'. The network would fund meetings and travel with the specific aim of driving the open (notebook) science agenda forward. Cameron explains this in a couple of blog posts that I urge you to read:
E-science for open science - an EPSRC research network proposal, Follow on to network proposal and The research network proposal - update II.
The proposal would be to support 2-3 meetings over three years, including travel costs, and provide funds for…