clock | October 28, 2007There are 83 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. There are already 109 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 230). 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.
Tatjana Jovanovic, better known to the readers of this blog by her online pseudonym 'tanjasova' was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia,…
clock | October 27, 2007Paul announced it and I will try my best to be there on Tuesday:
Who: Bob Young, founder of Lulu.com, Lulu.tv and Red Hat
Date: Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Time: 3:30pm - 5:00pm
Location: Sonja Haynes Stone Center, Room 103
clock | October 27, 2007Mark Patterson writes in Bringing Peer Review Out of the Shadows:
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Hauser and Fehr propose a system for holding late reviewers to account by penalizing them when it's their turn to be an author. A slow reviewer's paper would be "held in editorial limbo" for a length of time that reflects their own tardiness as a reviewer. The short article was intended to provoke a discussion about how to improve peer review - an opening card as Hauser and Fehr put it.
So far, 16 responses have been added from readers, and the general view seems to be that incentives would be more…
clock | October 27, 2007As usual, some get it, some don't:
Facebook-ing Philanthropy:
Social networks like Facebook that closely resemble users' off-line social life could shake up philanthropy. Even if large organizations don't immediately launch a cause on their own, any Facebook member can start one on its behalf. There have so far been 77 causes launched for UNICEF alone, raising some $11,000 for the fund. "We think it's great that our friends and supporters have done this on their own on our behalf," says spokeswoman Kristi Burnham.
More revolutionary still, social networks are creating a direct relationship…
clock | October 27, 2007Sceadugenga
Common Sense
Photo of Nature by Kopernik
Star Stryder
Jayne's Breast Cancer Blog
Quackometer
Daisy's Dead Air
Mary Evelyn
Mestarr
Mechanically Separated Meat
TechRivet
The Indigestible
Jasiri
clock | October 27, 2007Liz Allen posted this on the Wall of the PLoS Facebook group yesterday:
Here's a fun Friday activity for all of you who like to track the stats of the inevitable rise and world domination of OA!
Heather from SPARC turned me onto this. it's almost as much fun as watching the number of members to this group grow, we are now at 700!.
Did you know that there are currently 2893 OA journals in the directory of open access journals (http://www.DOAJ.org) and that 63 new ones came on board in the last 30 days, that's about 2 per day. Wow.
Another cool mash up site (great logo, takes a minute or so to…
clock | October 27, 2007You have seen the button for the Beagle Project on my sidebar - it will stay there forever! But now, I see, they have opened a CafePress store where you can get yourself t-shirts, coffee-mugs and buttons and the proceeds go towards the rebuilding of the ship and its science/education maiden voyage:
clock | October 27, 2007Since I was gone to two meetings and nobody else can walk the dog as regularly as I can, the dog spent the week at Grandma's in Raleigh. Today I went to pick her up (the dog, that is) which placed me in the car at precisely the time of NPR's Talk of the Nation Science Friday (OK, I intentionally timed it that way). And lo and behold, there was Gavin Yamey on the radio! Hey, I thought, I know this guy! We had lunch together and we exchange at least a dozen e-mails every week.
Gavin is editor at PLoS Medicine and, as part of the Global Theme Issue on Poverty and Human Development, he…
clock | October 27, 2007There are 84 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. There are already 108 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 230). 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.
Cynthia Yu-Robinson is a public affairs specialist in EPA's National Exposure Research Laboratory.
Ken Krebs is an EPA scientist…
clock | October 27, 2007Same-sex Attraction Is Genetically Wired In Nematode's Brain:
University of Utah biologists genetically manipulated nematode worms so the animals were attracted to worms of the same sex -- part of a study that shows sexual orientation is wired in the creatures' brains.
Secrets Behind Butterfly Wing Patterns Uncovered:
The genes that make a fruit fly's eyes red also produce red wing patterns in the Heliconius butterfly found in South and Central America, finds a new study by a UC Irvine entomologist.
Ancient DNA Reveals That Some Neanderthals Were Redheads:
Ancient DNA retrieved from the bones…
clock | October 26, 2007I wasted time, and now doth time waste me;
For now hath time made me his numbering clock;
My thoughts are minutes.
- William Shakespeare
clock | October 26, 2007Oh-oh! I got tagged by another meme - the Happy HalloMeme! - by Rick. The idea is to highlight a scary marine or SF film!
I was very young, probably around 7 or 8, when TV Belgrade decided to air a weekly series of old Jack Arnold movies, including It Came from Outer Space, Tarantula, and The Incredible Shrinking Man. But the one that really scared me (I could not sleep that night and had scary moments for quite a while afterwards) was the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Some decades later it may look silly and naive, but for a little boy at the time, it was horrifying! See for yourself…
clock | October 26, 2007
As always on Fridays, there are new papers published in PLoS Genetics, PLoS Pathogens and PLoS Computational Biology. A few picks - but you go and check them all out:
Surveillance of Arthropod Vector-Borne Infectious Diseases Using Remote Sensing Techniques: A Review:
Kalluri et al. review the status of remote sensing studies of arthropod vectorborne diseases, including simple image classification techniques associating land use and land cover types with vector habitats, and more complex statistical models linking satellite-derived multi-temporal meteorological observations with vector…
clock | October 26, 2007The latest edition of the Space Carnival is up on Star Stryder
Friday Ark #162 is up on The Modulator
clock | October 26, 2007On Monday, the U.S. Senate voted to pass the FY2008 Labor, HHS, and Education Appropriations Bill (S.1710), including a provision that directs the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to strengthen its Public Access Policy by requiring rather than requesting participation by researchers.
The vote was a veto-proof 75-19. However, the House version of the bill passed with a smaller majority, so the Presidential veto is still possible (perhaps likely). Still, this a big step in the right direction, and important battle won. Moreover, the real battle over this bill resides in some other…
clock | October 26, 2007There are 85 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. There are already 106 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 230). 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.
Shelley Batts is a Neuroscience PhD student studying hearing (more precisely hair cell regeneration in the cochlea) at the…
clock | October 25, 2007If the scissors are not used daily on the beard, it will not be long before the beard is, by its luxuriant growth, pretending to be the head.
- Hakim Jami (1414-92)
clock | October 25, 2007Jim Buie asks:
I received a query from CBS News technology correspondent Daniel Sieberg about "the older generation" on Facebook. Do you have a story to share about your experiences on Facebook, particularly in relation to teens, many of whom call us over-40s "the creepies"? Or do you know teens or twenty-somethings willing to say how they feel about parents and geezers coming online and inspecting their Facebook profiles? CBS News will sort through the responses and may seek to interview some of the respondents. Post your responses at the link below:
http://www.togetherwhileapart.com
I have…