clock | April 22, 2007This is the first study I know that directly tested this - the effects of rotating shifts on longevity - in humans, though some studies of night-shift nurses have shown large increases in breast cancers, stomach ulcers and heart diseases, and similar studies have been done in various rodents and fruitflies:
Working in shifts shortens life span: Study:
A study of 3,912-day workers and 4,623 shift workers of the Southeastern Central Railway in Nagpur showed the former lived 3.94 years longer than their counterparts on shift duties, said the study by Atanu Kumar Pati of The School of Life…
clock | April 22, 2007I am sure that other science bloggers (on or off the Seed scienceblogs) will have to say more about all of these studies over the next few days:
To Understand The Big Picture, Give It Time - And Sleep:
Memorizing a series of facts is one thing, understanding the big picture is quite another. Now a new study demonstrates that relational memory -- the ability to make logical "big picture" inferences from disparate pieces of information -- is dependent on taking a break from studies and learning, and even more important, getting a good night's sleep.
The Origin Of The Brain Lies In A Worm:
The…
clock | April 21, 2007I cannot afford to waste my time making money.
- Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz (1807-73)
clock | April 21, 2007It is Sunday. You have time to read it. And you should - no excuses! In today's New York Times - You Are What You Grow:
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For the answer, you need look no farther than the farm bill. This resolutely unglamorous and head-hurtingly complicated piece of legislation, which comes around roughly every five years and is about to do so again, sets the rules for the American food system -- indeed, to a considerable extent, for the world's food system. Among other things, it determines which crops will be subsidized and which will not, and in the case of the carrot and the…
clock | April 21, 2007A must-read by Peter Eichenberger:
How does it feel that North Carolina is becoming a center for profits amid the blatant and egregious blurring of law enforcement and corrections?
With the great sucking sound, that of the vacuuming of personal information of law-abiding Americans emanating from DeeCee, I would enjoin all of you out there to study more carefully what your legislators are turning this place into--just another arm of the entity, the U.S. government, which has gotten us into more huge messes than I have time or interest in recounting.
With regards to corporations like GEO and…
clock | April 21, 2007Never again: Brad Miller on Darfur by Bob Geary:
......I decided one other thing. I could no more imagine Liddy Dole performing in public the way Brad Miller did at Pullen than I could see her admitting that the Bush administration has been a disaster in every conceivable way. Dole doesn't see any mistakes, or at least she doesn't admit them. She's put her energies, since getting elected to the Senate, into Republican politics and nothing else, including fronting the National Republican Senatorial Committee. If she has ever gotten up in front of a small interfaith group and openly agonized…
clock | April 21, 2007New Genus Of Frogmouth Bird Discovered In Solomon Islands:
Your bird field guide may be out of date now that University of Florida scientists discovered a new genus of frogmouth bird on a South Pacific island. New genera of living birds are rare discoveries -- fewer than one per year is announced globally. David Steadman and Andrew Kratter, ornithologists at the Florida Museum of Natural History, turned up the surprising new discovery on a collecting expedition in the Solomon Islands. Theirs is the first frogmouth from these islands to be caught by scientists in more than 100 years. They…
clock | April 20, 2007Boredom is the feeling that everything is a waste of time; serenity, that nothing is.
- Thomas S. Szasz
clock | April 20, 2007It has 'Coturnix' written all over it, don't you think? I am even wearing my PLoS t-shirt right now as I am typing this!
But, why is it necessary to move to San Francisco? My wife is terrified of earthquakes and CA is one state she always said she would never move to.
Looking at the job description, everything can be easily done sitting in my pajamas here in Chapel Hill, or on a submarine, or on the Moon. It's all online:
PLoS ONE Online Community Manager
The Public Library of Science (PLoS) is a non-profit advocacy and publishing organization located in the China Basin area of San…
clock | April 20, 2007Yup, that was going to be the title of this post. I got the paper and was ready to write the post when I noticed that Peter scooped me and posted about the same paper today (yup, there is just not that many cool papers on Charismatic Marine Megavertebrates to spread around this week). I have nothing to add, so just go and see his post:
The results demonstrated that a free-ranging whale shark displays ultradian, diel and circa-lunar rhythmicity of diving behaviour. Whale sharks dive to over 979.5 m, making primarily diurnal deep dives and remaining in relatively shallow waters at night.
clock | April 20, 2007A couple of days ago as I was walking my daughter home from school, I passed a group of people who I immediatelly guessed were associated in some way with the Edwards campaign because they looked so out of place in our little village: overdressed, tense and way too serious!
Then, I recognized one of the faces - from TV! It was Joe Trippi!
Well, he was certyainly not going to come all the way down to Chapel Hill just to have lunch with buddies and enjoy the weather, so I knew something was afoot at the Edwards campaign. But, although I live a spitting distance (OK, if you spit hard…
clock | April 19, 2007To get anywhere, or even to live a long time, a man has to guess, and guess right, over and over again, without enough data for a logical answer.
- Robert Anson Heinlein
clock | April 19, 2007You may be aware that there is a huge discussion about framing science going on in the blogosphere. It has gotten out of hand. But, for those who want to dig in, or want to analyze the posts and comments (that is a lot of data!), here is the comprehensive list of links (excluded are links to Creationists' sites). Most of the posts also have long and interesting comment threads as well, worth reading through:
First, the source metarial, i.e., the stuff that appeared in non-blog media, and some background resources (which, if everyone have read them, would have reduced some of the…
clock | April 19, 2007Science journalists and science communicators who attended the Knight New Media Center Best Practices: Covering Science in Cyberspace seminar in March 2007 collectively wrote a blog during the meeting:
Two dozen prominent science journalists and science communicators were invited to participate in this special conference with three goals: 1) Identify the critical issues facing science journalists in the digital age; 2) identify innovative forms of multimedia story-telling and presentation of complex issues online; and 3) identify "best practices" for coverage of science issues on digital…
clock | April 19, 2007Voracious Grasshoppers Puzzle Texas Entomologists:
They're not afraid of heights, they're voracious, and Dr. Spencer Behmer wants to know if you've seen them hanging out in oak trees or on your house. They're post oak grasshoppers, and Behmer, a Texas Agricultural Experiment Station entomologist, wants to research their life cycle and behavior. If you haven't heard of them, don't feel alone. Until recently, most Texans hadn't. "I didn't see them for the first 25 years of my career," said Dr. John Jackman, Texas Cooperative Extension entomologist. "I would have told you there weren't any…
clock | April 18, 2007It is Marine Megavertebrate Week right now, so why not take a look at one of the most Mega of the Megaverts - the grey whale (Eschrichtius robustus):
Do whales sleep? You may have heard that dolphins do - one hemisphere at the time, while swimming, and not for very long periods at a time. A combined Russian/US team of researchers published a study in 2000 - to my knowledge the best to date - on sleep-wake and activity patterns of the grey whale: Rest and activity states in a gray whale (pdf) by Lyamin, Manger, Mukhametov, Siegel and Shpak.
The whale in the experiment rested in two…