clock | September 5, 2007
Nicotine In Breast Milk Disrupts Infants' Sleep Patterns:
A study from the Monell Chemical Senses Center reports that nicotine in the breast milk of lactating mothers who smoke cigarettes disrupts their infants' sleep patterns.
River Blindness Parasite Becoming Resistant To Standard Treatment:
Ivermectin, the standard drug for treating river blindness (onchocerciasis), is causing genetic changes in the parasite that causes the disease, according to a new study by Roger Prichard (McGill University, Canada) and colleagues, published on August 30, 2007 in the open-access journal PLoS Neglected…
clock | September 4, 2007The biggest difference between time and space is that you can't reuse time.
- Merrick Furst
clock | September 4, 2007There are 38 new articles on PLoS ONE today. Below are some of my own picks, but you look around, read what you like, rate, comment and annotate:
Studying Seabird Diet through Genetic Analysis of Faeces: A Case Study on Macaroni Penguins (Eudyptes chrysolophus):
Determining what seabirds have eaten is typically accomplished with stomach flushing. Here, Deagle and colleagues use non-invasive DNA-based analysis of faeces as an alternative way to examine the diet of Macaroni penguins on Heard Island in the southern Indian Ocean. Their results show that the technique can detect changes in the…
clock | September 4, 2007Two excellent articles about Open Access and the future of scientific publishing appeared today: The irony of a web without science by James Boyle in Financial Times, and Next-Generation Implications of Open Access by Paul Ginsparg in CTWatch. Obligatory Readings of the Day.
clock | September 3, 2007Time is like a river. It flows one direction, But with a little force you can go back. But like a river, Everything you do has a ripple.
- Kevin R. Hutson
clock | September 3, 2007Bonobo Handshake: What Makes Our Chimp-like Cousins So Cooperative?:
What's it like to work with relatives who think sex is like a handshake, who organise orgies with the neighbours, and firmly believe females should be in charge of everything? On September 11, researcher Vanessa Woods will journey to Lola ya Bonobo Sanctuary in Congo with colleagues from the Max Planck Institute in Germany to study our mysterious cousin, the bonobo.
Rare Breeds Of Farm Animals Face Extinction:
With the world's first global inventory of farm animals showing many breeds of African, Asian, and Latin American…
clock | September 3, 2007...that is, if you still think that a genome sequence tells all secrets about someone's success in science etc. ;-)
But the new paper actually uses Venter's personal genome to do some nifty stuff, as this is the first time a genome containing the sequences from BOTH sets of chromosomes of a single individual has been sequenced, with some interesting insights:
The Diploid Genome Sequence of an Individual Human:
We have generated an independently assembled diploid human genomic DNA sequence from both chromosomes of a single individual (J. Craig Venter). Our approach, based on whole-genome…
clock | September 3, 2007BPR3: Bloggers for Peer-Reviewed Research Reporting
Environmental Progress and Epiphanies
The Official Sacramento Zoo Blog
Clastic Detritus
Sabine's Garden
A Splash Quite Unnoticed
Issues in Scholarly Communication (Georgia)
Information Research Weblog
The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics
Gus diZerega
Mumbo Gumbo
The 'blog' of 'unnecessary' quotation marks
clock | September 3, 2007Sundar Raman at the Internet radio station KRUU.100.1FM has uploaded a series of interviews (from 3rd October 2006 till 21st August 2007), all on the topic of openness and transparency - from Open Source, through Open Book and Open Access, to Open Society. This series of interviews is entitled 'Open Views' and a total of 37 can be downloaded here. Well worth your time!
clock | September 3, 2007If I was not already scheduled to appear on a panel in Wisconsin at the same time, I would have loved to go to this:
The fourth Image and Meaning workshop, IM2.4, part of the Envisioning Science Program at Harvard's IIC will be held Oct. 25 and 26, 2007, Thursday and Friday, at the Hilles library on the Harvard campus. Application deadline is September 17, 2007
Scientists, graphic designers, writers, animators and others are invited to join us and LEARN FROM EACH OTHER while exploring solutions to problems in the visual expression of concepts and data in science and engineering. This will…
clock | September 3, 2007Sunlight is the best disinfectant. And many bloggers' eyes and typing fingers bring a lot of sunlight to whatever anyone is trying hide. This makes bloggers dangerous to many entrenched and powerful interests.
Not that bloggers are Martians, recent arrivals on this planet, to be treated as a 'special interest' group. Bloggers are people. And the Web gives people the ability to say what they think, to report what they see, to fact-check the PR outfits, to use their own individual expertise to parse others' arguments and, yes, to point fingers at the guilty.
And in many countries around…
clock | September 3, 2007Drug rep creates stir with details on tricks of his trade
Drug reps are carefully trained to target a physician with tactics suitable to his or her personality, according to a recently published article co-authored by a former Eli Lilly and Co. detailer, Shahram Ahari, MPH. He says detailers come armed with an array of techniques aimed at changing the physician's prescribing behavior. Here are the tactics Ahari used with physicians, depending on their disposition.
The paper came out in April, but I have not noticed much reaction to it on medblogs. Will this new interview stir the pot now?
clock | September 3, 2007Telecommuting is a great concept, providing flexibility of work-hours, availability when there is a family crisis, etc. But it is difficult to be self-disciplined at home. So many other things vie for attention, including that most excellent invention of all times - the bed.
That is why I spend many hours every day in my 'office' in La Vita Dolce. I love the place - it is quiet most of the time (though I do find myself softly singing along the oldies, including the inevitable "If you're going to San Francisco" and infamous "Only You"), coffee, bagels, cakes and gelato are the best in…
clock | September 3, 2007The Accretionary Wedge #1 is up on Clastic Detritus
Carnival of the Blue #4 is up on The Saipan Blog
Festival of Trees #15 is up on Raven's Nest
Carnival of the Godless #74 is up on Atheist FAQ
clock | September 3, 2007
Inside The Brain Of A Crayfish:
Voyage to the bottom of the sea, or simply look along the bottom of a clear stream and you may spy lobsters or crayfish waving their antennae. Look closer, and you will see them feeling around with their legs and flicking their antennules - the small, paired sets of miniature feelers at the top of their heads between the long antennae. Both are used for sensing the environment. The long antennae are used for getting a physical feel of an area, such as the contours of a crevice. The smaller antennules are there to both help the creature smell for food or mates…
clock | September 2, 2007Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race.
- Herbert George Wells
clock | September 2, 2007After Fran and Floyd, hurricanes that start with F make me quite nervous. And now Felix, in less than a day since it formed, went from Category 2 to Category 3 to Category 4 to Category 5. It is a monster! Honduras is in for a bad thrashing soon!
clock | September 2, 2007
That's me, speeding through SciFoo, challenging Attilla's photography skills.
clock | September 2, 2007Remember? Today is the Rock Flipping day!
It's so dry and hot here, it is even dry and hot under the rocks in the woods. It took my daughter and me a long time flipping rocks to detect any sign of life and then it would be just a couple of ants quickly scurrying away, too fast to take a picture. Then we went down to the pond - and nothing there either, it's THAT dry! Finally, we gave up and said, OK, just one more rock. And that's where we found this frog. My camera cannot really do the close-up photography needed for this. I hope that someone here can still be able to recognize the…