clock | April 25, 2007High Melatonin Content Can Help Delay Aging, Mouse Study Suggests:
A study carried out by researchers from the University of Granada's Institute of Biotechnology shows that consuming melatonin neutralizes oxidative damage and delays the neurodegenerative process of aging. In this study researchers used normal and genetically-modified mice which were subjected to accelerated cell aging. Researchers believe their results can also be applied to humans.
Hibernating Bears Conserve More Muscle Strength Than Humans On Bed Rest Do:
A new study in the journal Physiological and Biochemical Zoology…
clock | April 25, 2007There is a job opening for a science writer at Analytical Chemistry. If you are a science writer, or you know any science writers (or people who want to be science writers) who want to live in the DC area and have studied science at a graduate level, please encourage them to contact Liz Zubritsky at: e_zub AT acs DOT org.
The job does not require a Ph.D. in science, but only some graduate studies in science, not necessarily chemistry. That is because the job requires reading a lot of scientific papers and the writers have to be able to get a sense of what's important about a paper quickly…
clock | April 25, 2007Carnival Of The Liberals #37 is up on BogsBlog: Clarity Amid The Muck.
In two weeks, Carnival Of The Liberals will be hosted here by me, so send your entries via this automated submission form.
clock | April 24, 2007If you can't sleep, then get up and do something instead of lying there worrying. It's the worry that gets you, not the lack of sleep.
- Dale Carnegie
clock | April 24, 2007Carnival of Postdocs #3 is up on What's Up, Postdoc?
Grand Rounds, Volume 3, #31 is up on Med Valley High
Carnival of the Green #74 is up on The Evangelical Ecologist
Pediatric Grand Rounds Volume 2 Edition 1: The Year In Review.....is up on Unintelligent Design
Carnival of Homeschooling - Bee edition - is up on Sprittibee.
clock | April 24, 2007Blogs! A new world! Breaking new frontiers all the time!
A few days ago, PLoS ONE posted a few job ads, including this one. A friend of mine saw it and thought the job-description was pretty much a Bora-description (another friend wrote in an e-mail that all it is missing is a clause "must be a Red-State Serbian Jewish atheist liberal PhD student"), so he sent me the link.
Some people like to keep secrets, but I like to air my thoughts in public (why have a blog otherwise?) so I posted my thoughts about it late on Friday night and decided to sleep on it, think about it over the weekend,…
clock | April 24, 2007Science publisher extends journalists' access:
A leading science publisher is granting journalists from developing countries access to its scientific papers that are not otherwise freely available. Elsevier announced the initiative at the World Conference of Science Journalists in Australia last week (19 April).
clock | April 24, 2007Barry Saunders is a local columnist for Raleigh News & Observer who I never thought was very funny (there is a mysoginist streak in his writing) so I rarely read him these days. But the other day I could not help but notice that he started his column with the old "no atheists in foxholes" stupidity - in context of the VT massacre, of course.
I was far too busy these last couple of days to do anything about it myself, feeling confident that he was gonna hear about it from many others. And, sure he did. Just like Katie Couric, Tom Brokaw, Bob Schieffer and John Burnett (the latter two…
clock | April 24, 2007Earth's First Rainforest Unearthed:
A spectacular fossilised forest has transformed our understanding of the ecology of the Earth's first rainforests. It is 300 million years old.
Repressing Genes:
Researchers report that most genes are repressed through a mechanism by which methyl molecules are attached to DNA. The cells of a given tissue can express only certain genes while others are silenced. This process, called gene repression, allows cells to perform specialized tasks that are different among various organs. Previous studies have shown that genes are repressed when methyl molecules are…
clock | April 24, 2007Oh, that explains it why Superman did not intervene in the recent Balkan wars!
clock | April 23, 2007This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
clock | April 23, 2007Atheist Ethicist
Vagabond Scholar
Fish Feet
Inside The Core @ NBC17
Madam Fathom
Liberal Debutante
Aquaculture
The Seven Stones
The Peripatetic Naturalist
Bjoern.Brembs.blog
Trinifar
Life Cycle Analysis
clock | April 23, 2007Zuska wrote a very good review of Allegra Goodman's book "Intuition" from a very different angle than any other review I have seen so far, including those by Grrrlscientist and myself. Thought-provoking and worth your time.
clock | April 23, 2007In the age of Google, perhaps they are:
I saw a pattern of responses to the question, "Do you have a business card?" Many of the responses were the same, "just Google my name and you will find me."
So, go now and do your ego-tickling exercise: search for your first name only, then search for first and last name, then for first and last name in quotation marks. Will people find you if they Google your name?
When I search just "Bora", the top hits are about the island in Tahiti, the next tier is for Volkswagen Bora (and Google helpfully asks if that is the search you want to expand). I am…
clock | April 23, 2007I never thought that I would link to Razib approvingly, but his recent series of posts about evolution of religion are right on the mark. You can start with today's post and follow the links back to his older posts. A good start for a discussion on the topic.
clock | April 23, 2007RPM found this on The Disgruntled Chemist's blog: the most awesome Rube-Goldberg machine I have ever seen. Much better than the one built by the Mythbusters guys. Just follow this link and watch the movie!
RPM complains that it does not appear to actually do anything, but, who cares? The thing is so intricate! Think of it this way - this is a metaphor for a cell: the (circadian) clock sounds an alarm and as a result a large number of molecular interactions occur resulting, in the end, in the opening of the curtain an ion channel.
I have already mentioned here, here and here that a Rube-…
clock | April 23, 2007Similar Brain Chemicals Influence Aggression In Fruit Flies And Humans:
Serotonin is a major signaling chemical in the brain, and it has long been thought to be involved in aggressive behavior in a wide variety of animals as well as in humans. Another brain chemical signal, neuropeptide Y (known as neuropeptide F in invertebrates), is also known to affect an array of behaviors in many species, including territoriality in mice. A new study by Drs. Herman Dierick and Ralph Greenspan of The Neurosciences Institute in San Diego shows that these two chemicals also regulate aggression in the fruit…