clock | November 26, 2007That is, if you are a shrew and do not want to be just a dead data-point for some ingenious young ecologists....who at least clean up the tricky trash left by drunk drivers.
clock | November 26, 2007There are 54 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.
Daniel Cressey writes The Great Beyond, the Nature magazine's news blog…
clock | November 25, 2007I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.
- Agatha Christie
clock | November 25, 2007Alan Kellogg has a cool contest for you:
Bora still has some 55 days to go before the conference, and still he posts about the folks coming. Will he have groups and/or individuals to write about by the time the conference gets here? Not to worry, Bora will find conference goers to write about, the question is who?
That is for us to make wild, inaccurate guesses about. In this contest,Twitting Bora, it is your goal to come up with the wildest, most outrageous, least likely participants at the Science Blogging Conference. Who (or what) will Bora announce as being at the conference this year the…
clock | November 25, 2007There are 55 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 144 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.
Alexander Scholz is the IT master and blogger for the The Pimm Group in…
clock | November 24, 2007Get a good night's sleep and don't bug anybody without asking me.
- Richard M. Nixon
clock | November 24, 2007Bioclocks Work By Controlling Chromosome Coiling:
There is a new twist on the question of how biological clocks work. In recent years, scientists have discovered that biological clocks help organize a dizzying array of biochemical processes in the body. Despite a number of hypotheses, exactly how the microscopic pacemakers in every cell in the body exert such a widespread influence has remained a mystery.
Now, a new study provides direct evidence that biological clocks can influence the activity of a large number of different genes in an ingenious fashion, simply by causing chromosomes to…
clock | November 24, 2007Or, Happy Evolution Day! It's time for a party!
It is easy to look up blog coverage - if you search for "Origin of Species" you mostly get good stuff, if you search for "Origin of the Species" you get creationist clap-trap as they cannot even copy and paste correctly (hence they are better known these days as cdesign proponentsists).
Pondering Pikaia and The Beagle Project Blog were first out of the gate this morning with wonderful posts.
Here is a recent book review of the Origin by someone who knows some biology and another one by someone who does not - both are quite nice and eye-opening.…
clock | November 24, 2007Call me traditional, but I love books. I have about 5000 of them. If I see a long blog post or a scientific paper or an article that is longer than a page or two, I print it out and read it in hardcopy. I see why an e-Book is a good idea, though, and one day I am sure to have one for particular purposes (e.g., for travel, or for copying and pasting short quotes into my blog-posts as needed, or for sharing books with others), but not until I am the master of exactly what is on it and what I want to do with it - and apparently that time is far off. It may be even going backwards. Just see…
clock | November 24, 2007There are 56 days until the Science Blogging Conference.
Before I return to highlighting some of the people who will be there, let me finish with this Thanksgiving series of posts about the Friday pre-conference events - leaving the best for last, perhaps. If you look at the Program, you will see that Friday afternoon (after the Blogging101 session and before the Friday dinner) is reserved for Lab Tours.
As all the Lab Tours are occurring simultaneously, you have to choose only one - and what choices!
Duke Immersive Virtual Environment is a totally cool thing - you walk inside a big cube…
clock | November 23, 2007For I see now that I am asleep - that I dream when I am awake.
- Pedro Calder n de la Barca
clock | November 23, 2007...the computers and the Web:
If you are not clear about the difference between the Net (aka Internet), the Web (aka World Wide Web) and the Graph (aka Social Graph), then this post is a must read (via Ed). He explains much more clearly what I had in mind before, e.g., here.
In order to use the Net, the Web and the Graph, you do need some kind of a machine, perhaps a computer, and Greg Laden puts together a dream (or nighthmare) setup for you!
Speaking of dream computers, I could not resist... as you may have seen before, Professor Steve Steve and I got to play with the XO laptop back at…
clock | November 23, 2007There are 57 days until the Science Blogging Conference. Continuing with the Thanksgiving break in highlighting some of the people who will be at the Conference in January (and the list is growing - already at 144 registered participants), here is some more about what will be happening on the Friday pre-conference day.
But first, I have to say Happy Seventh Blogiversary to my friend Anton. Yes, you read it right: SEVENTH! Holy cow! He is, like, in bloggy years, a Methuselah with a long white beard! And he and Erin had to make some tough decisions recently - to stay or to move to…
clock | November 23, 2007Well, I certainly like it very much when a reader checks out my Amazon wish list and picks out a present for me. I like presents!
But this morning I got a LARGE package, full of books from the Wish List, a variety and quantity sufficient to keep me excitedly reading for quite a while:
Quantico by Greg Bear
An Inconvenient Truth DVD by Al Gore
The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Short Stories (2 Vol. Set) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh.
The Sibley Guide to Bird Life & Behavior by David Allen Sibley.
Another Day in the Frontal Lobe: A Brain Surgeon…
clock | November 22, 2007I always find that statistics are hard to follow and impossible to digest. The only one I can ever remember is that if all the people who go to sleep in church were laid end to end they would be a lot more comfortable.
- Mrs. Robert A. Taft (nee Martha Wheaton Bowers)
clock | November 22, 2007I tend to give annual thanks on New Years' (I may have skipped a couple of years, but this year I have a lot to be thankful for, so come back here on December 31st for the extensive list).
Enjoy the holidays, be good to each other and, if you are so idle you decide to come here and see there is no new content, it is because....
And so should you!
clock | November 22, 2007There are 58 days until the Science Blogging Conference. Since it is a holiday, I decided to take a little break in introducing people who have registered so far and instead showcase some parts of the program - especially stuff that is happening on Friday, January 18th (as everyone's focus is on the Big Saturday event).
If you look at the Program page, you will see that we have lots of cool stuff organized for Friday - Blogging 101 (and 102) sessions and lab tours (more about those tomorrow).
But, if you manage to come to town by about 7pm on Friday, please join us for the Friday dinner.…
clock | November 22, 2007Group eating - how to carve a turkey.
Group eating - pros and cons of pack-hunting.
Group eating: not just vertebrates.
Group eating: calculate your inclusive fitness.
clock | November 21, 2007Health is the first muse, and sleep is the condition to produce it.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
clock | November 21, 2007The Four Stone Hearth #28 is up on Hot Cup Of Joe
Tangled Bank #93 is up on From Archaea to Zeaxanthol
Skeptics' Circle #74: The Evolution of Thanksgiving is up on Med Journal Watch
Carnival of The Liberals #52 is up on Yikes!
Carnival of Education #146 is up on NYC Educator