clock | May 20, 2007Via Snarkmarket, I found this (probably incomplete) Wikipedia list of the oldest companies in the world that are still operating today under the same name. The oldest one, a construction company in Japan called KongÅ Gumi, just went belly-up after serving their customers since the year 578AD.
And according to a commenter there, the oldest University in continuous operation is University of Al Karaouine in Fes, Morocco.
The oldest company on the list from the Balkans is Apatinska Pivara which has been brewing beer continuously since 1756. They produce one of the most popular local beers, the…
clock | May 20, 2007This brief story on NPR today reminded me of some books I read as a child (in Serbo-Croatian translation) - though I have to admit that my brother loved them even more - in which the main character is Arsene Lupen, the art connoisseur and gentleman burglar. Listen to the NPR podcast and get the books - they are great! How well known is this character in the USA? Perhaps through his anime grandson?
clock | May 20, 2007Sometimes what happens after is much more interesting than what happens during conferences:
If one more person had said that the internets were "revolutionary" and "transformative" I would have required medication.
It felt like watching TV, with smart people telling me things I already knew.
Full of folks who are too young to miss the Ramones but would die to be them.
clock | May 19, 2007When Archy writes about mammoths that is automatically the Obligatory Reading of the Day - an amazing post!
clock | May 19, 2007The horses will be entering the starting stalls for this year's Preakness. Will Street Sense do it again? His Derby win was so impressive it seems impossible he can be beat, but this time the distance is different, the field is much smaller and everyone will be looking out for him. And he is starting from the outside stall, against the instincts of his jockey who loves to hog the rail. It will be exciting to watch...
clock | May 19, 2007Amanda Marcotte, that is. And there are two way to look at her from the 'other side' or 'not-as-well-known-side' or 'what-really-happened-side': the first is BlogPac Hero: The Amanda Marcotte Story You Haven't Heard by John Javna and the second is Brimstone and cat spit by Amanda Marcotte.
clock | May 19, 2007Web Worker Daily
Zooillogix - Don't Stick Your Fingers in the Cage...
The Futile Cycle
Reed's Ruminations
The Accidental Scientist
Small Things Considered
Auntie Em's house of cookies
Letters from Le Vrai
Scientifically Open Source
clock | May 19, 2007Things are moving fast with us regarding the organization of the second Science Blogging Conference. We received a very generous grant from Burroughs Wellcome Fund which will allow us to get even more ambitious with our planning than we originally thought we could. Is your organization going to try to match their grant? Or help in some other way? Watch this place next week for updates.
clock | May 19, 2007Chapel Hill is really becoming a big center for bringing together scientists (of which there are so many in the area) and techonology innovators (of which there are also many in the area). Not just the Science Blogging Conference, either!
Renaissance Computing Institute and Microsoft are organizing The 2007 Microsoft eScience Workshop at RENCI at Friday Center in Chapel Hill, on October 21-23, 2007:
It is no longer possible to do science without doing computing.
The use of computers creates many challenges as it expands the realm of the possible in scientific research and many of these…
clock | May 19, 2007Clock Gene Plays Role In Weight Gain, Study Finds:
Scientists at the University of Virginia and the Medical College of Wisconsin have discovered that a gene that participates in the regulation of the body's biological rhythms may also be a major control in regulating metabolism. Their finding shows that mice lacking the gene Nocturnin, which is regulated by the circadian clock in the organs and tissues of mammals, are resistant to weight gain when put on a high fat diet and also are resistant to the accumulation of fat in the liver. This new understanding of weight gain could potentially lead…
clock | May 18, 2007
As we mentioned just the other day, studying animal behavior is tough as "animals do whatever they darned please". Thus, making sure that everything is controlled for in an experimental setup is of paramount importance. Furthermore, for the studies to be replicable in other labs, it is always a good idea for experimental setups to be standardized. Even that is often not enough. I do not have access to Science but you may all recall a paper from several years ago in which two labs tried to simultaneously perform exactly the same experiment in mice, using all the standard equipment,…
clock | May 18, 2007I am working on a post covering three (excellent) recent Drosophila clock-genetics papers and I am trying not to mention a single gene in it - just the historical, methodological, behavioral and ecological context of the results. It will appear later today/tonight. We'll see how it turns out.
I have lined up ClockQuotes for the weekend, but I intend to be very busy so there may not be much or anything else posted - it is not really worth the effort when the traffic falls down to 50% over the weekend.
The doc who put my shoulder back is a genius. It never happened before that I never needed…
clock | May 18, 2007Scientists Discover New Life In Antarctic Deep Sea:
Scientists have found hundreds of new marine creatures in the vast, dark deep-sea surrounding Antarctica. Carnivorous sponges, free-swimming worms, crustaceans, and molluscs living in the Weddell Sea provide new insights into the evolution of ocean life.
DNA Analysis Suggests Under-reported Kills Of Threatened Whales:
A new study analyzing whale meat sold in Korean markets suggests the number of whales being sold for human consumption in the Asian country is much higher than that being reported to the International Whaling Commission --…
clock | May 17, 2007Life is uncharted territory. It reveals its story one moment at a time.
- Leo Buscaglia
clock | May 17, 2007I recently mentioned a study reporting circadian oscillations of bacterial clock-proteins KaiA, KaiB and KaiC in a dish with no transcription and translation whatsoever - the oscillations being due entirely to polymerization of proteins. Now, a mathematical model of this system has also been published describing how the working of the system is possible.
clock | May 17, 2007Remember last summer when some guy named Paul Manger wrote a paper asserting how dolphins and other Cetaceans are really quite dumb? There was quite an interesting discussion about it on blogs back then, e.g., here, here, here and here.
Now, a formal rebuttal got published in PLoS-Biology:
Cetaceans Have Complex Brains for Complex Cognition:
The brain of a sperm whale is about 60% larger in absolute mass than that of an elephant. Furthermore, the brains of toothed whales and dolphins are significantly larger than those of any nonhuman primates and are second only to human brains when…
clock | May 17, 2007A must-read by Sara Robinson. You can use it to understand the persistence of Creationism. Or the lack of Internal Locus of Moral Authority in people belonging to Moral Majority.