clock | July 14, 2007Yesterday, I met Janet and her charming and brilliant sprogs at the Lawrence Hall of Science, where they have a cool exhibit called CIRCUS! Science Under the Big Top (which reminded me that I wanted to join the circus back when I was 18). One thing I did not know was that to get to the museum from Berkeley campus, it is a couple of miles of steep uphill, which I climbed on foot. Should have hitchiked!
Wifi is iffy right now, so I'll post as many pictures per post as the system will let me. First, just to show how high up the place is, the entire Bay Area is clearly visible - though, of…
clock | July 14, 2007It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of…
clock | July 14, 2007Yesterday, a few of my friends from PLoS and I went to the Exploratiorium to see the Iron Science Teacher show. Lots of pictures (and a little bit of running commentary) under the fold:
First, the stuff outside:
Then we went inside. The place is huge - I'll have to come again when I have more time to explore (this was lunch-break only). Hands-on, hands-on, hands-on...and kids - gazillions of them - are having great fun. The show is (almost) every Friday during the summer and you can watch the video of each Iron Science Teacher show, including the one we saw yesterday (I have not see…
clock | July 14, 2007You probably realize by now that my expertise is in clocks and calendars of birds, but blogging audience forces me to occasionally look into human clocks from a medical perspective. Reprinted below the fold are three old Circadiana posts about the connection between circadian clocks and the bipolar disorder, the third one being the longest and most involved. Here are the links to the original posts if you want to check the comments (especially the first comment on the third post):
January 18, 2005: Clocks and Bipolar Disorder
August 16, 2005: Bipolar? Avoid night shift
February 19, 2006:…
clock | July 14, 2007No other aspect of behavioral biology is as well understood at the molecular level as the mechanism that generates and sustains circadian rhythms. If you are following science in general, or this blog in particular, you are probably familiar with the names of circadian clock genes like per, tim, clk, frq, wc, cry, Bmal, kai, toc, doubletime, rev-erb etc.
The deep and detailed knowledge of the genes involved in circadian clock function has one unintended side-effect, especially for people outside the field. If one does not stop and think for a second, it is easy to fall under the impression…
clock | July 13, 2007Remember the threat of closing the KOBSON blog?
Well, Danica was a brave warrior for Open Science and published an article about this at a much more prominent place: on Global Voices Online.
While this may not be an immediate positive move for Danica's own career, it is a good move towards persuading the powers-that-be in Serbia that the way forward is towards more openness, not the opposite.
clock | July 13, 2007Paralepsis
Fresno, Evolving
DSHR's Blog
Open Left
Issues in Scholarly Communication
Tessa's Braces
Professor Olsen @ Large
Occam's Trowel
Enro, scientifique et citoyen
clock | July 13, 2007If this gets more widely known (and, with this post, I am trying to help it become so), you can just imagine the jokes about the new challenges to the aviation industry and the renewed popularity of the Mile High Club, or the cartoons utilizing the phallic shape of airplanes!
Hamsters on Viagra Have Less Jet Lag, Research Shows (also Viagra helps jet-lagged hamsters, maybe humans, too: study and Viagra 'improves jet lag'):
Hamsters given Pfizer Inc.'s Viagra adapted more quickly to changes in their internal clocks, scientists said.
Hamsters given sildenafil, the chemical name of the drug…
clock | July 13, 2007Wow - this was (and still is) a very busy week. On most days, I just crashed early, without having the energy to blog very much (at least very much for me).
In the last dispatch, I forgot to mention I met Jimmy Wales who came to visit PLoS and we talked about Wikipedia and building online communities.
Under the fold are a bunch of new pictures...
Professor Steve Steve got to meet the CEO of PLoS:
...and they quickly bonded:
Yesterday, I went to lunch with the Editors:
Then, after all the work was done, I was exhausted and I had to walk about 1.5 miles during the rush hour to meet…
clock | July 13, 2007This paper (by Heather Piwowar) is not that new, but it is only now starting to get some traction and I'd like to see more people be aware of it:
Background
Sharing research data provides benefit to the general scientific community, but the benefit is less obvious for the investigator who makes his or her data available.
Principal Findings
We examined the citation history of 85 cancer microarray clinical trial publications with respect to the availability of their data. The 48% of trials with publicly available microarray data received 85% of the aggregate citations. Publicly…