clock | October 12, 2007Alma Swan and Lawrence Lessig remind us that Creative Commons is celebrating its 5th birthday this December.
Alma writes:
Creative Commons (CC) is celebrating its 5th birthday. Lawrence Lessig has written to all supporters describing its 'dramatic' growth during the last quinquennium and yet acknowledging that as CC works to strengthen the underpinnings of participatory culture 'others are working equally hard to make sure culture remains proprietary'. Although this way of putting it is rather starkly black and white, and there remains a need for proper protection of creative rights in a…
clock | October 12, 2007The DonorsChoose fundraiser is in full swing here on Scienceblogs.com. As always, Janet's blog is the Information Center for the drive, and you can also check Dave's graphs as well.
As you know, Seed Media Group is matching $15,000 of your donations. The Scienceblogs.com Overlords have also announced some additional prizes!
* 21 "Seed Hearts Threadless" tee shirts
* 21 ScienceBlogs mugs
* 21 subscriptions to Seed magazine
* 9 copies of "The Best American Science Writing 2007"
These prizes will be divided into three thirds and each third will be given on one of the next three…
clock | October 12, 2007A few days ago, I told you about this year's $10,000 scholarship for student bloggers. A few days later, the voting has been vigorous (and the competition somewhat heated!), and Shelley is currently in second place. You can help her get to the top by voting for her if you have not done so already. And certainly go and check out her wonderful blog!
clock | October 12, 2007The new edition of the Carnival of Space is up on Space For Commerce, by Brian Dunbar
Friday Ark #160 is up on Modulator
clock | October 12, 2007There are 98 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 85 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.
Anna Kushnir is a science blogger on Nature Network. Apart from her science blog Lab Life, she also runs a food blog Sunday Night…
clock | October 11, 2007Love can sometimes be like magic. But magic can sometimes ... just be an illusion.
- Javan
clock | October 11, 2007Herding Aphids: How 'Farmer' Ants Keep Control Of Their Food:
Chemicals on ants' feet tranquilise and subdue colonies of aphids, keeping them close-by as a ready source of food, says new research. The study throws new light on the complex relationship between ants and the colonies of aphids whose sugary secretions the ants eat.
Discovery Of Retinal Cell Type Ends 40-year Search:
A research team combining high-energy physicists from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and neuroscientists from the Salk Institute in La Jolla, Calif., has discovered a type of retinal cell that may help…
clock | October 11, 2007What is this? A Tevye day on science blogs? Attila mentions him. Jason mentions him. I guess, I've been remiss for a while and should do something about it now.
Well, I just discovered that big chunks of the movie can be found on YouTube, but the greatest clip is this one, "Tradition" in Japanese:
clock | October 11, 2007Ghosts, drugs, and blogs:
By its hidden nature, it is obviously a challenge to determine the exact prevalence of "ghost management," defined by Sismondo as the phenomenon in which "pharmaceutical companies and their agents control or shape multiple steps in the research, analysis, writing, and publication of articles."
Of course they fight against Open Access Publishing - too much sunshine scares them and would make them scurry away in panic...
clock | October 11, 2007The Oyster's Garter
SLA's Biomedical and Life Sciences Division blog
Interactive Publishing
New@Norris Library
T. rex eats fish...
clock | October 11, 2007There are 99 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 85 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.
Xan Gregg is local. He works for SAS (in the JMP division - a statistics software I have used a little bit back in the day) and he…
clock | October 11, 2007The other day, Kate organized a talk by Sheila Jasanoff about science communication and subsequently summarized the talk on her blog. You need to read the whole thing, but the main point is that there is a difference between a one-to-many communication of usual science communication (the 'public service model'), including science education, policy speaches, etc., more often than not presented by non-scientists, e.g., journalists, politicians, etc. and the many-to-many interactive engaging of scientists with the public in a two-way communication (the 'public sphere model'):
Thus, perhaps the…
clock | October 10, 2007Tiny Crow Camera Spies On Clever Birds:
A new technique developed by Oxford University zoologists enables researchers to 'hitch a ride' with wild birds and witness their natural and undisturbed behaviour. The scientists developed miniaturised video cameras with integrated radio-tags that can be carried by wild, free-flying birds. Using this new 'video-tracking' technology, they spied on the behaviour of New Caledonian crows, a species renowned for its sophisticated use of tools, recording behaviours never seen before.
Diet With A Little Meat Uses Less Land Than Many Vegetarian Diets:
A low-…
clock | October 10, 2007Tangled Bank #90 is up on The Other 95%
International Carnival of Pozitivities #16 is up on Ogre's Politics and Views
The 140th Carnival of Education is up on The Tempered Radical
Carnival of The Liberals #49 is up on Tangled Up in Blue Guy
Carnival of Homeschooling #93 is up on Apollos Academy
clock | October 10, 2007There are 100 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 83 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 will be highlighting some of the people who will be there, for you to meet in person if you register in time.
Christina Pikas is a science librarian at The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. She blogs on Christina's…
clock | October 9, 2007There are times when one would like to hang the whole human race and finish the farce.
- Mark Twain
clock | October 9, 2007Melting Sea Ice Forcing Walruses Ashore:
Thousands of walrus have appeared on Alaska's northwest coast in what conservationists are calling a dramatic consequence of global warming melting the Arctic sea ice.
Alaska's walrus, especially breeding females, in summer and fall are usually found on the Arctic ice pack. But the lowest summer ice cap on record put sea ice far north of the outer continental shelf, the shallow, life-rich shelf of ocean bottom in the Bering and Chukchi seas.
[Via Russ Williams]
clock | October 9, 2007As usual on Tuesday nights, lots of cool stuff got published on PLoS ONE today. Here are some of my picks, but you should check all 30 of them (so, this week I am correct - there are now 1000+ articles on PLoS ONE):
Large-Scale Mitochondrial DNA Analysis of the Domestic Goat Reveals Six Haplogroups with High Diversity:
Studying the genetic diversity of domesticated animals can provide insights into their domestication, and even the history of human migration. In this paper Pompanon and colleagues study mitochondrial DNA diversity of the domestic goat from 2430 animals from widespread Old…
clock | October 9, 2007A newspaper should hire me to be that guy whose only job is to write titles and headlines. I can make them as misleading and sensationalist as the best of 'em!
But really, this year's Nobel Prize for Physics is going to Albert Fert and Peter Grunberg for the invention of Giant Magnetoresistance. And yes, one of the many thingamajigs that uses this technology is iPod. But it makes for such a cool headline....