clock | August 10, 2007Why are Orli and Joseph thinking about this in the middle of the summer? I am happy (and South enough). I am wondering if people with SAD living in the high latitudes either moved South or, being all gloomy, had a lower reproductive rate in the past, thus lowering the rates of SAD in the population.
clock | August 10, 2007The 14th Edition of the International Carnival of Pozitivities is up on Straight, Not Narrow.
Space Carnival #15 is up on Star Stryder.
The Friday Ark #151 The Modulator.
clock | August 10, 2007Writing a chronobiology blog for a year and a half now has been quite a learning experience for me. I did not know how much I did not know (I am aware that most of my readers know even less, but still....). Thus, when I wrote about clocks in birds I was on my territory - this is the stuff I know first-hand and have probably read every paper in the field. The same goes for topics touching on seasonality and photoperiodism as my MS Thesis was on this topic. I feel equally at home when discussing evolution of clocks. I am also familiar with the clocks in some, but not all, arthropods. And…
clock | August 9, 2007As I predicted, bloggers have waited a day or two before they wrote much of substance abour Scifoo. First, you don't want to miss out on any cool conversations by blogging instead. Second, the experience is so intense, one needs to cool down, process and digest everything. Before I write my own thoughts, here are some links to places where you can see what others are doing:
The campers are joining the Science Foo Camp Facebook group (honor system - only campers are supposed to join, but it is open) and exchanging links, pictures and information.
There is an official aggregator where you can…
clock | August 9, 2007In all men is evil sleeping; the good man is he who will not awaken it, in himself or in other men.
- Mary Renault
clock | August 9, 2007Earlier today I had coffee with Anton Zuiker so we could catch up on everything, e.g., my new job, his new job, scifoo, etc.
So, the news to watch out for regarding local blogging events:
On August 31st, we will start the new blogging year with a party, of course, so come and eat and blog about it.
Then, on September 23-25th, the big three-day FoodBlogging series of yummy events (also see the write-up in the Independent) so come and eat and blog about it.
The blogger meet-ups will, next year, move away from its exlusive Carrboro location and start alternating between Chapel Hill/Carrboro and…
clock | August 9, 2007It is Marine Megavertebrate Week right now, so why not take a look at one of the most Mega of the Megaverts - the grey whale (Eschrichtius robustus):
Do whales sleep? You may have heard that dolphins do - one hemisphere at the time, while swimming, and not for very long periods at a time. A combined Russian/US team of researchers published a study in 2000 - to my knowledge the best to date - on sleep-wake and activity patterns of the grey whale: Rest and activity states in a gray whale (pdf) by Lyamin, Manger, Mukhametov, Siegel and Shpak.
The whale in the experiment rested in two…
clock | August 9, 2007I And The Bird #55 is up on Birdfreak
Change of Shift: Volume II, Number 4 is up on Emergiblog.
The 131st Carnival of Education is up on Education in Texas
Carnival of Homeschooling #84 is up on Nerd Family. Pro-Nerd. Pro-Family.
clock | August 8, 2007For all the toll the desert takes of a man it gives compensations: deep breaths, deep sleep, and the communion of the stars.
- Mary Austin
clock | August 8, 2007I am not sure if blogging about it is enough - in this case a very strong Resume may be more important - but if you think you have sufficient experience and expertise to be a Managing Editor of a major biology journal, PLoS Biology (and are not too intimidated to be stepping into Hemai's shoes), check the job ad and apply:
The Public Library of Science (PLoS) seeks an experienced editor and manager to lead its flagship life science journal - PLoS Biology. Since its launch in 2003, PLoS Biology has rapidly become established as both a high impact journal and a leader in the open-access…
clock | August 8, 2007Dave and Co. are trying to figure out a way to institute a universal icon that everyone could use on top of their blog posts whenever the post is a serious commentary on a paper published in a peer-reviewed journal and contains a link to the paper itself (and not just a press release or media commentary).
What do you think? Leave your ideas, questions and responses in the comment thread there.
clock | August 8, 2007As far as I know, there are two papers on PLoS ONE so far that, as Supporting Information, have KML files readable by Google Earth: Naturalised Vitis Rootstocks in Europe and Consequences to Native Wild Grapevine and this week's Regional Decline of Coral Cover in the Indo-Pacific: Timing, Extent, and Subregional Comparisons. Just scroll down to the Supporting Information of those papers, click on "Map S1" and, if you have Google Earth you can explore the map of the area of study.
If you are publishing a paper in an online, open access journal, think outside the box - there are things you can…
clock | August 8, 2007There is nothing easier than taking a bad paper - or a worse press release - and fisking it with gusto on a blog. If you happen also to know the author and keep him in contempt, the pleasure of destroying the article is even greater.
It is much, much harder to write (and to excite readers with) a blog post about an excellent paper published by your dear friends. But I'll try to do this now anyway (after the cut).
Paul Shaw is a friend, and Indrani Ganguli is a good, good, good friend. Faculty and graduate students in biology are usually a pretty smart lot. A subset of those, as self-…
clock | August 8, 2007If you have a science-themed tattoo, Carl Zimmer would like to know about it. You can already see quite a variety of cool pictures Carl's readers sent him on these three posts:
Branded with Science
*Very* Branded with Science
Welcome to sciencetattoo.com
I am as clean as a newborn and will not start at this age, but I find the tattoos quite fascinating.
clock | August 8, 2007There are 27 new papers appearing on PLoS ONE today. A quick scan of the titles makes me want to read the following more carefully:
Plasticity of the Intrinsic Period of the Human Circadian Timing System by Frank A. J. L. Scheer, Kenneth P. Wright, Richard E. Kronauer and Charles A. Czeisler:
Human expeditions to Mars will require adaptation to the 24.65-h Martian solar day-night cycle (sol), which is outside the range of entrainment of the human circadian pacemaker under lighting intensities to which astronauts are typically exposed. Failure to entrain the circadian time-keeping system to…
clock | August 8, 2007One can scan blogs for months and see no mention of Pilobolus, then see two posts on the same day. Not knowing about each others' intentions, both Elio Schaechter and I posted about it on the same day.
clock | August 8, 2007Gavin has an interesting take on it:
I've long believed that there are parallels between the global campaign for open access to the biomedical literature and the campaign for access to essential medicines.
For a start, both information and medicines can promote health and save lives. Indeed the late James Grant, former executive director of Unicef, argued that, "the most urgent task before us is to get medical and health knowledge to those most in need of that knowledge. Of the approximately 50 million people who were dying each year in the late 1980s, fully two thirds could have been saved…
clock | August 8, 2007Immature?
Senescent?
Or just cowardly?
Favourite put-down topic: Hair.
Do a search on "femiphobia"....
clock | August 7, 2007I will lift up mine eyes unto the pills. Almost everyone takes them, from the humble aspirin to the multicolored, king-sized three deckers, which put you to sleep, wake you up, stimulate and soothe you all in one. It is an age of pills.
- Malcolm Muggeridge
clock | August 7, 2007ICTlogy
BibliOdyssey
Journalology
Slightly diktytaxitic
The X Vials
Philosophy of Memory