clock | August 7, 2007The Circadian Clock Regulates Auxin Signaling and Responses in Arabidopsis by Michael F. Covington and Stacey L. Harmer:
Most higher organisms, including plants and animals, have developed a time-keeping mechanism that allows them to anticipate daily fluctuations of environmental parameters such as light and temperature. This circadian clock efficiently coordinates plant growth and metabolism with respect to time of day by producing self-sustained rhythms of gene expression with an approximately 24-h period. One of the major contributors in specifying spatial patterns of plant growth and…
clock | August 7, 2007Well, it's been a long time since I posted pictures of my cats, and a month since I last saw them and photographed them, so here they are (under the fold):
Last time you saw Orange Julius he was just a tiny little kitten. He is a huge cat now:
Marbles looks a little skinny now. I think I'll take her to the vet this week. Certainly, with O.J. growing fast, Marbles needs to loose a couple of ovaries ASAP:
Biscuit is her old own magnificent self, the ultimate Aristocat:
clock | August 7, 2007Glia Play An Important Role In Circadian Timing:
Glial cells of the nervous system, once thought to function strictly as support cells for neurons, are now thought to actively modulate them. Providing further evidence in support of this theory, researchers at the Department of Neuroscience and the Center for Neuroscience Research (CNR) at Tufts University School of Medicine (TUSM) recently identified a specific population of glial cells that is required for the control of circadian behavior in Drosophila (the fruit fly). Their findings, which confirm and extend their earlier work, are…
clock | August 7, 2007It's like letting a kid into a candy store. John McKay, whose favourite blogging topic is the study of extinct pachyderms, finally got to go on a dig. And, as one could expect, his account of it is as excited and as well-informed and detailed as one can expect from him. The Obligatory Reading of the Day.
clock | August 7, 2007Carnival Of The Blue #3 is up on Malaria, Bedbugs, Sea Lice, and Sunsets.
The Boneyard #2 is up on Laelaps.
Mendel's Garden #17: Blog Carnival of Genetics is up on ScienceRoll.
Grand Rounds at the Beach! - at Eye on DNA
The latest Carnival of the Green is up on Organic Researcher.
Carnival of the Godless #72 is up on Atheist Revolution.
clock | August 7, 2007How many people had their luggage inspected by a TSA agent at the airport due to the suspicious shape of the Google crystal cube?
I was one....
clock | August 6, 2007When things haven't gone well for you, call in a secretary or a staff man and chew him out. You will sleep better and they will appreciate the attention.
- Lyndon Baines Johnson
clock | August 6, 2007Finally got home - after a month! So nice to see my wife again, and my son (daughter is at the beach). Dog and two of the cats (Orange Julius and Biscuit) were very happy to see me - I'll find the third one later.
I need to sleep.
Scifoo is a 20h/day affair - getting up at 7am, eating Googleplex food while talking to some amazing folks, attending about a zillion sessions per day (each one-hour long with no breaks in-between), then staying up until 3am or so talking to smart, interesting people, until the wine and sleepiness make us all a little less smart and interesting.
I promise I will…
clock | August 6, 2007I will be on the airplane for North Carolina in a couple of hours, and will wrote more about scifoo once I get back (and get some sleep - yes, occasionally, I do sleep). But, for now, the last couple of pictures and some links for you to see what others are writing.
Sunday morning I had lunch with Ed Boyden...
...and Jacqueline Floyd:
If you attended the camp and want to keep networking with other attendees, please join the Science Foo Camp Facebook group.
Check what other scifoo bloggers are writing at the official aggregator.
Use the Technorati tag/search for scifoo to see what others…
clock | August 5, 2007In bed my real love has always been the sleep that rescued me by allowing me to dream.
- Luigi Pirandello
clock | August 4, 2007More pictures from scifoo at Googleplex under the fold - text will come later....
Andrew Walkingshaw
Beth Noveck
Chris Anderson
Josh Knauer
Stephana Patton (who is, btw, listed on Project Steve) and Kaitlin Thaney
Stuart Pimm
Vaughan Bell
Vaughan, Eva Vertes and Eugenie Scott - invasion of polka dots!
Professor Steve Steve checking out the $100 laptop (yes, that is beer he is having...).
clock | August 4, 2007An oldie but goodie (June 12, 2005) debunking one of the rare Creationist claims that encroaches onto my territory.
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I got homework to do. PZ Myers alerted me to an incredible argument that the existence of circadian rhythms denies evolution!
bryanm, the proprietor of the aptly-named The Narrow blog, describes himself as "...nobody who wants to tell everybody that there is somebody who can save anybody." In other words he is a know-nothing who keeps bothering everybody trying to push his idea that there is this non-existent being who…
clock | August 4, 2007Breakfast time! Professor Steve Steve decided to look around for Googleplex for scifoo celebrities....(under the fold):
Anna Kushnir
Duncan Hull
Eva Vertes and Moshe Pritsker
Greg Bear
Freeman Dyson
James Randi
Martha Stewart
Peter Murray-Rust
Sara Abdulla
clock | August 3, 2007OK, it's 2:45am here, and I have a session at 9:30 in the morning, so, below the fold, just a quick scifoo photo dump....
Getting the fossils ready to transport from the hotel to Googleplex:
On the bus:
Gabrielle Lyon
Paul Sereno
Neil Stephenson
Arriving on the campus and checking in:
Schmoozing and trying the famous Google campus cuisine:
Alex Palazzo and Professor Steve Steve
Andrew Walkinshaw
Corie Lok
Deepak Singh
Euan Adie
Eva Vertes
Gabrielle and Steve Steve
Gabe and me
Eugenie Scott feeds Prof. Steve Steve.
Jacqueline Floyd
Jean-Claude Bradley
Jonathan Eisen…
clock | August 3, 2007Decisions, particularly important ones, have always made me sleepy, perhaps because I know that I will have to make them by instinct, and thinking things out is only what other people tell me I should do.
- Lillian Hellman
clock | August 3, 2007August Scientiae Carnival: Balance Questions and Answers, now up on Twice.
Skeptics' Circle Number 66 - Summary of Abstracts is up on Denialism blog.
Friday Ark #150 is up on Modulator.
clock | August 3, 2007I am writing here in my hotel room in Mountain View, getting ready for the beginning of the Science Foo Camp. I rode here in a cab (really a limo, driven by the most professional driver I have ever encountered) with Felice Frankel - what an energy-boosting conversation that was! - and arrived here early.
The campers are slowly trickling in. So far, I bumped into Gabrielle Lyons and Paul Sereno. Will report more later, so stay tuned....
clock | August 3, 2007PERIOD-TIMELESS Interval Timer May Require an Additional Feedback Loop by Robert S. Kuczenski, Kevin C. Hong, Jordi GarcÃa-Ojalvo and Kelvin H. Lee:
The ability of an organism to adapt to daily changes in the environment, via a circadian clock, is an inherently interesting phenomenon recently connected to several human health issues. Decades of experiments on one of the smallest model animals, the fruit fly Drosophila, has illustrated significant similarities with the mammal circadian system. Within Drosophila, the PERIOD and TIMELESS proteins are central to controlling this rhythmicity and…
clock | August 3, 2007Home pages of PLoS Biology, Medicine, Computational Biology, Genetics and Pathogens have a new look today. Richard Cave explains the design changes. Go take a look.