clock | July 8, 2007TR Gregory of Genomicron blog is trying to help his parents as they sell their house and move to Zambia to do good work there, working with the Livingstone Performing Arts Foundation to try to rebuild the old Livingstone Theater.:
The Livingstone Performing Arts Foundation (LiPAF) mission is to create and perform traditional and original works of music, song and dance which reflect the history, culture, languages and ethnic background of Zambia. Operating as a not for profit organization, LiPAF will enrich the community by providing opportunities for employment, sponsorship of a variety of…
clock | July 8, 2007What happens when you invite a bunch of high school students and a bunch of college students to do research over the summer in a bunch of biology labs AND you help them blog about the experience? You get amazing stories and great insights collected at Howard Hughes Precollege Program Summer 2007 and Student Research at Duke. Spend some time on both sites and look around. It is really amazing and eye-opening.
clock | July 8, 2007Unfortunately, I will still be out of town for this, but if you are in the area on July 12th, you should go to Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh (it is in Ridgewood Shopping Center, 3522 Wade Ave.) at 7pm and meet my SciBling Chris Mooney. He is touring the country reading from his new book Storm World: Hurricanes, Politics, and the Battle Over Global Warming (website).
Last year, when he was touring with the "Republican War On Science" we had a grand time at his reading/signing and afterwards we, of course, had Miller Lite (at least he had, I chose something a little more beer-like). So, mark…
clock | July 8, 2007This Tuesday at 7pm, you can come with me and learn everything you want to know about sea urchins at the Ask a Scientist event.
Then, next Friday or two, altough it is in the middle of the workday, I'd still like to go and see the Iron Science Teacher. Jennifer siad that it was great last Friday.
The PEZ museum is supposedly just a small room full of every single PEZ dispenser ever made, but it may be interesting to see if it is not too out of the way. And I'd love to see the Festival of Fire. Who wants to go with me?
I'd like to go to the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Research Institute, the…
clock | July 8, 2007First, I'd like to thank Darksyde for placing the discussion of Open Access science publishing on the front page of DailyKos. If you are a registered user there, go ahead and add your 2 cents to the conversation.
Matt at Behavioral Ecology Blog explains RSS, what it is, how it works and how to use it to get science news. Recommended.
Greg Laden is a Linux advocate. While I am not, I understand that, though Open Source and Open Access are not the same thing, they do go hand in hand in a way. Something to think about...
Bjorn Brembs provides me with some useful advice and ideas.
My…
clock | July 8, 2007
This is a post from June 28, 2005, reviewing one of my favourite new evolution books (reposted here):
Ever since I read Gould's Ontogeny and Phylogeny in about 1992 or 1993., I knew I wanted to do research that has something to do with evolution, development and timing. Well, when I applied to grad school, I could choose between evolution OR development OR timing, but not any combination of two or more - the true evo-devo folks were just not available for me at that precise moment in history. I chose timing and than worked dilligently to infuse my work with as much evolution and development…
clock | July 8, 2007
Life Elsewhere In Solar System Could Be Different From Life As We Know It:
The search for life elsewhere in the solar system and beyond should include efforts to detect what scientists sometimes refer to as "weird" life -- that is, life with an alternative biochemistry to that of life on Earth -- says a new report from the National Research Council. The committee that wrote the report found that the fundamental requirements for life as we generally know it -- a liquid water biosolvent, carbon-based metabolism, molecular system capable of evolution, and the ability to exchange energy with the…
clock | July 8, 2007What?....
There is a slang phrase in Serbo-Croatian that means "doing nothing; being idle; wasting time", and it is "hladiti jaja", which means "cooling (one's) balls". So, if you see a guy just sitting there, clutching a beer bottle and gazing into the distance, you may ask him "Hey, man, whatcha doin'?" and he may reply " 'ladim jaja", i.e., "I'm coolin' me balls".
Well, this slang phrase, indicating a thermoregulatory behavior, has its origin in the real theromoregulatory physiology. Yes, mammals have to cool their balls. That is why mammalian testes are located outside the body inside…
clock | July 7, 2007Life is a sleep, love is a dream; and you have lived if you have loved.
- De Musset
clock | July 7, 2007And some other non-descript meats. And great Italian wine. In the great atmosphere of Incanto. In the company of some wonderful people, including, among others, my SciBling Sandra Kiume:
Now,...well, too much wine so I better go to bed before I blog something stupid....
clock | July 7, 2007Not really a review of Greg Bear's "Darwin's Radio" and "Darwin's Children" but musing (practically SF itself) on the topic of these books (from April 20, 2005, also reposted here so you can see the comments):
Did A Virus Make You Smart?
I've been reading science-fiction pretty much all my life. I usually go through "phases" when I hit on a particular author and read several books by the same person. Last year I was in my Greg Bear phase and I have read eight of his books. He is one of those writers who gets better with age: more recent his book, more I liked it.
His is also some of the…
clock | July 7, 2007Jennifer Ouellette has the whole story, but here are a few more pictures (under the fold).
We met at Betelnut restaurant last night - Jennifer, Kristin Abkemaier (formerly of the 'Radioactive Banana' blog), Jeff and Curtis of the Jeff's Bench Science 2.0 site, and my old friends from Chapel Hill, now San Francisco transplants, Justin Watt and Josh Steiger:
Josh, Jennifer and Justin (l-r)
Me and Jennifer (l-r)
Kristin and me
Kristin, Justin and Curtis (l-r)
Josh and me
Me and Curtis
clock | July 7, 2007You should check out all of my SiBlings' Friday Blogging practices, then come back here for a new edition of Friday Weird Sex Blogging. Last week you saw an example of a corkscrew penis. But that is not the only one of a kind. See more under the fold (first posted on July 14, 2006)...
Some birds also have spiral tools. For instance, see this 20-cm penis of an Argentine lake duck (Oxyura vittata) (from this paper: The 20-cm Spiny Penis of the Argentine Lake Duck (Oxyura vittata) (pdf)):
The same author, Dr Kevin McCracken of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, later found an even longer…
clock | July 6, 2007To believe in one's dreams is to spend all of one's life asleep.
- Chinese proverb
clock | July 6, 2007
Enjoying the computer. Everything works!
More pictures and stuff later - I am exhausted (and a little jet-lagged) so it's time for bed....
clock | July 6, 2007Earlier this year, during the National Sleep Awareness Week, I wrote a series of posts about the changes in sleep schedules in adolescents. Over the next 3-4 hours, I will repost them all, starting with this one from March 26, 2006. Also check my more recent posts on the subject here and here...
I am glad to see that there is more and more interest in and awareness of sleep research. Just watch Sanjay Gupta on CNN or listen to the recent segment on Weekend America on NPR.
At the same time, I am often alarmed at the levels of ignorance still rampant in the general population, and even more…
clock | July 6, 2007Scientiae carnival: responsibility is up on Amelie's Welt.
The Carnival of Education #126 is up on NYC Educator.
Friday Ark #146 is up on The Modulator.
Carnival of Homeschooling: Independence Edition is up on HomeSchoolCafe.