clock | June 23, 2007Wear your learning, like your watch, in a private pocket, and do not pull it out and strike it merely to show you have one. If you are asked what o'clock it is, tell it, but do not proclaim it hourly and unasked, like the watchman.
- Lord Chesterfield
clock | June 23, 2007So, Anton Zuiker and I went yesterday to the Talking To The Public panel discussion at Duke, organized by Sigma Xi, The Council for the Advancement of Science Writing and The Duke Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy.
There is nothing yet on their websites about it (the 20th century school of thought!), but the entire panel discussion was taped and I'll let you know once the video is available online (in a week or so?). Once everything is online, it will also be easier for me to write in great detail (links help!) about the event.
It was nice to see David Jarmul and Rosalind Reid…
clock | June 22, 2007Remember when we discussed the mammal vs. bird survival at Chernobyl the other day? Well, I learned today that someone is about to go and study the humans there as well. I am not exactly sure what kind of reserch it will be, but it will have something to do with the mutations in genomes of the surrounding population.
Sarah Wallace, a senior at Duke University, will be part of the team. And you will be able to follow her adventures and her science on her blog: Notes from Ukraine (MT will not render Cyrillics well so I translated the name of the country)
clock | June 22, 2007I am looking in the closet to see if I can find my tie, because I am going to this in an hour - a very bloggable event:
A Lunch and Panel Discussion
TALKING TO THE PUBLIC: How Can Media Coverage of Science Be Improved?
Friday, June 22, 12-1:30 p.m. at Duke University, Bryan Research
Building, Rm 103, 421 Research Drive, Durham
Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society, The Council for the
Advancement of Science Writing (CASW) and The Duke Institute for Genome
Sciences & Policy invite you to a lunch and panel discussion on science
and the media. Scientists and journalists face challenges…
clock | June 22, 2007
Prey Not Hard-wired To Fear Predators:
Are Asian elk hard-wired to fear the Siberian tigers who stalk them" When wolves disappear from the forest, are moose still afraid of them? No, according to a study by Wildlife Conservation Society scientist Dr. Joel Berger, who says that several large prey species, including moose, caribou and elk, only fear predators they regularly encounter. If you take away wolves, you take away fear. That is a critical piece of knowledge as biologists and public agencies increase efforts to re-introduce large carnivores to places where they have been exterminated…
clock | June 21, 2007Three o'clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do.
- Jean-Paul Sartre
clock | June 21, 2007I dropped by Anton's blog as I tend to do every day and saw something that caught my eye in his side-bar SugarCubes - an amazing story about William Kamkwamba, a 19 year old boy in Malawi who had to quit school because his family did not have money. So, he started teaching himself from books. And he learned how to do things and used whatever materials were available to design and construct a windmill, a transformer and other stuff. A bunch of African bloggers picked up a story about him and one thing led to another - he spoke at TED conference, got funds for schooling, and, just a few…
clock | June 21, 2007
This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words:
* sex (18x)
* death (13x)
* suicide (6x)
* hell (3x)
* dangerous (2x)
* penis (1x)
Thanks, Jennifer
clock | June 21, 2007World Wide Webbers
VWXYNot?
Darwin's Army
Relatively Science
Let's Talk Sleep
Sparrowblog
Limbic Nutrition
clock | June 21, 2007First, a video of Jonathan Haidt - Morality: 2012 (Hat-tip to Kevin):
The social and cultural psychologist Jonathan Haidt talks with Henry Finder about the five foundations of morality, and why liberals often fail to get their message across. From "2012: Stories from the Near Future," the 2007 New Yorker Conference.
Second, a post by Drew Westen - Winning Hearts and Minds: Why Rational Appeals Are Irrational If Your Goal is Winning Elections:
The difference between the Clinton ad and the Kerry ad -- like the difference between the Clinton campaign and virtually every other Democratic…
clock | June 21, 2007Thanks to Jeff over on Shakesville (or should it be IN Shakesville?):
Election Central reports that Drudge (who the hell and why still reads that sleazeball of all people!?) tried to slander Edwards by insinuating that his daughter Emma-Claire supports Hillary:
Her comment came in response to a Drudge item quoting a local newspaper account that suggested that the Edwards' nine-year-old child supported Hillary, not her father.
Election Central has learned that Elizabeth put a comment in the comments section of another Web site's post debunking the Drudge item.
Elizabeth claimed the…
clock | June 21, 2007Why Female Deer Like A Stag To Be A Big Noise In The Forest:
Impressive antlers may be the most eye-catching attribute of the male red deer, but it's the quality of a stag's mating call that attracts the female of the species, a new study from the University of Sussex has discovered.
Surprising Origin Of Cell's Internal Highways:
Scientists have long thought that microtubules, part of the microscopic scaffolding that the cell uses to move things around in order to hold its shape and divide, originated from a tiny structure near the nucleus, called the centrosome. Now, researchers at…
clock | June 20, 2007I loathe the expression 'What makes him tick' ... A person not only ticks, he also chimes and strikes the hour, falls and breaks and has to be put together again, and sometimes stops like an electric clock in a thunderstorm.
- James Thurber
clock | June 20, 2007I got tagged by Steve Poceta -(if you are more interested in sleep disorders than circadian clocks in funny animals, his blog is more interesting to you than mine) to participate in the Eight Random Facts Meme. Here are the rules:
1. Players start with 8 random facts about themselves.
2. Those who are tagged should post these rules and their 8 random facts.
3. Players should tag 8 other people and notify them they have been
tagged.
So, here are the eight random, late-night-after-a-busy-day-and-a-strong-beer facts about me:
1. I used to wear a goatee. When I arrived in the…
clock | June 20, 2007You may be aware of the ongoing discussion about the tense relationship between scientists and science journalists. Here is the quick rundown of posts so far:
Question for the academic types--interview requests
The Mad Biologist and Science Journalists
Science Journalists are NOT the Problem
Just don't quote me
Science and the Press
Scientists and Journalists, Part Deux
Scientists in the Media
Science/journalists update redux: Mooney chimes in
Science and journalism
Journalists and scientists - an antimatter explosion?
Madam Speaker, I Yield My Remaining Time to the Paleontologist from the…
clock | June 20, 2007A gazzillion new papers got published on PLoS-ONE today. Some of the titles that caught my attention and I intend to read tonight are:
The Role of the Substantia Nigra Pars Compacta in Regulating Sleep Patterns in Rats
Climate and Dispersal: Black-Winged Stilts Disperse Further in Dry Springs
The Adaptive Significance of Sensory Bias in a Foraging Context: Floral Colour Preferences in the Bumblebee Bombus terrestris
Assortative Mating between European Corn Borer Pheromone Races: Beyond Assortative Meeting
As always, do the Science 2.0 thing and post your (intelligent) questions and comments…
clock | June 20, 2007Circumcision is always one of the topics with the most spirited discussions on science blogs. Here, a brand new paper on PLoS-ONE will likely stir up the conversation yet again (hopefully on the annotations and discussions attached to the paper itself, so please go there if you have questions/comments on the study):
Size Matters: The Number of Prostitutes and the Global HIV/AIDS Pandemic by John R. Talbott
HIV/AIDS prevalence rates across countries of the world vary more than 500-fold from .06% in Hungary to 33.4% in Swaziland. One of the most cited research papers in the field, utilizing…