clock | June 12, 2007Scott Gant is on NPR's Diane Rehm show right now, valiantly defending bloggers from grouchy journalists. They will have a podcast up later.
clock | June 12, 2007Sleep Deprivation Affects Airport Baggage Screeners' Ability To Detect Rare Targets:
A lack of sleep may affect the performance of airport employees, which can, in turn, compromise the safety of airline passengers. Sleep deprivation can impair the ability of airport baggage screeners to visually search for and detect infrequently occurring or low prevalence targets that may ultimately pose a threat to an airline and its passengers, according to new research.
Night Shift Nurses More Likely To Have Poor Sleep Habits:
Nurses who work the night shift are more likely to have poor sleep habits, a…
clock | June 11, 2007A minister has to be able to read a clock. At noon, it s time to go home and turn up the pot roast and get the peas out of the freezer.
- Garrison Keillor
clock | June 11, 2007Skeptical Alchemist has the whole story.
Sign the petition to prevent the drilling.
clock | June 11, 2007Interprete
Biological Ramblings
A Passion For Nature
Life in the Bristolwood
Dragonfly Eye
Mary's View
The Winding Path
clock | June 11, 2007Darwin did not just sail on the Beagle and then settle down in his armchair and think for the rest of his life. He performed an amazing number of very creative experiments. Afarensis has been writing about them for a while now and I hope you are following his series every week.
clock | June 11, 2007Ancient DNA Traces Woolly Mammoth's Disappearance:
Some ancient-DNA evidence has offered new clues to a very cold case: the disappearance of the last woolly mammoths, one of the most iconic of all Ice Age giants, according to a recent article. DNA lifted from the bones, teeth, and tusks of the extinct mammoths revealed a "genetic signature" of a range expansion after the last interglacial period. After the mammoths' migration, the population apparently leveled off, and one of two lineages died out.
For more, see this and this.
Scientists Propose The Kind Of Chemistry That Led To Life:
Before…
clock | June 10, 2007The best coverage of the paper so far:
Neurophilosophy
Pharyngula
Lab Notes
Dispatches from the Culture Wars
clock | June 10, 2007I don't have to remind you every day, but behind the scenes, we are busily working on the organization of the 2nd Science Blogging Conference. The organizing committee is meeting on Thursday and I'll report on any news and updates then. The new wiki is almost all set up (and it will be updated on Thursday as well).
One of the pages we have not moved yet from the old to the new wiki is this one, a list of resources for finding science blogs, as well as a list of blogs that showcases the diversity of the scientific blogosphere and serves as an entry point into it without being too…
clock | June 10, 2007I love Iron Chef (on those rare occasions when I watch it, but I did more in the past), so I am excited about this spin-off - the Iron Science Teacher:
Parodying the syndicated, tongue-in-cheek, cult Japanese TV program, Iron Chef, the Exploratorium's Iron Science Teacher competition showcases actual Bay Area science teachers as they build experiments around a given "secret ingredient" -- an everyday item such as a paper-towel tube, a straw or a soda can. According to astrophysicist Dr. Linda Shore, Director of the Exploratorium Teacher Institute and host of the competition, "We try to show…
clock | June 10, 2007All you need to know about Philosophy of Science (but were too afraid to ask) you can read in John Wilkins' triptych:
Philosophy is to science, as ornithologists are to birds: 1. Introduction
Philosophy is to science, as ornithologists are to birds: 2. Two topics of philosophy of science
Philosophy is to science, as ornithologists are to birds: 3. Science is a Dynamic Process
clock | June 10, 2007The article is here in the NYT Magazine (apparently free access to all!), but before you read it (and you SHOULD read it), read the analysis by DHinMI on Next Hurray, which points out the binary thinking, ignorance of US history, and the underlying Compulsive Centrist Disorder of Matt Bai, so characteristic of the inside-the-Beltway crowd that has never been exposed to the real world.
clock | June 9, 2007When late morning rolls around and you're feeling a bit out of sorts, don't worry; you're probably just a little eleven o'clockish.
- Alan Alexander Milne
clock | June 9, 2007Research Remix
Academicsecret
Psychology and Crime News
Deep Grace of Theory
Hope for Pandora
Letters from a broad...
Pondering Pikaia
Sleep Expert
Average Professor
clock | June 9, 2007...miss the new edition of the Carnival of the Godless, up on Action Skeptics. But, since it is up early anyway, you can still have time to watch Belmont Stakes first.
clock | June 9, 2007OK, it's been about 20 years since I was last in vet school and I have fogotten most of the stuff I learned there. But I remember a few things.
I clearly remember the Pathology class (and especially the lab!) and the Five Signs (or stages) of Death: pallor mortis (paleness), algor mortis (cooling), rigor mortis (stiffening), livor mortis (blood settling/red patches) and decomposition (rotting). The linked Wikipedia articles are pitifully anthropocentric, though, and there is much more cool stuff to learn when comparing various animals.
The most interesting of the five signs of death is…
clock | June 9, 2007Origins Of Nervous System Found In Genes Of Sea Sponge:
Scientists at the University of California, Santa Barbara have discovered significant clues to the evolutionary origins of the nervous system by studying the genome of a sea sponge, a member of a group considered to be among the most ancient of all animals.
[PZ Myers explains it better]
Hives Ferment A Yeasty Brew, Attract Beetle Pest:
The honeybee's alarm signal may not only bring help, but also attract the small hive beetle. Now, an international team of researchers has found that small hive beetles can detect some alarm pheromones at…
clock | June 8, 2007Sleep, to the homeless thou art home; the friendless find in thee a friend.
- Ebenezer Elliott