clock | February 2, 2007Lots of good stuff today - hard to pick favourites:
Human Preference For Other Species Could Determine Whether They Survive:
As humans exert ever-greater influence on the Earth, their preferences will play a substantial role in determining which other species survive. New research shows that, in some cases, those preferences could be governed by factors as subtle as small color highlights a creature displays. In the case of penguins, mostly black-and-white flightless birds that live predominantly in the Southern Hemisphere, those most popular with humans appear to be the ones that display…
clock | February 1, 2007Natural History Artworks
Primordial Blog
Salutor
Framed
Welcome To DigitalKaos
The Contemplative Nuthatch
Commonground
Jonstraveladventures
Positive Psychology Blog
Strange Loops
clock | February 1, 2007A tale of two candidate's video distribution strategies:
These examples highlight an interesting problem for candidates: while YouTube offers tools to manage posting comments, you cannot control what content your page links to. In going to "where the people are," you leave yourself open to direct commentary from the people. Counter-commentary may be located directly beside your stumping. Contrast this to Brightcove's promise of control, an interface that does not link directly to intertextual documents. Additionally, even when you find commentary on Brightcove, it is coming from established…
clock | February 1, 2007Philosophia Naturalis #6 is up on Science And Reason. Have I missed any other carnivals this week?
clock | February 1, 2007So, whats' cookin' in the local blogging world? Quite a lot, actually.
First, our little group, BlogTogether is growing, growing. Instead of being just a little " target="_blank" title="">Anton's sideproject, we are thinking of turning it into a non-profit organization - so if you have experience with founding non-profits please let us know ASAP.
Also, apart from Anton, several others (including myself) are now able to post there. This will make the blog much more active and interactive this year than it was ever before. We are also looking for a nice-looking logo for it so we can slap…
clock | February 1, 2007The Way Down South: Johnny Populist & The Born Fighter:
In short, Moser's new article (part of a series on Southern Politics) debunks the myths perpetuated by the DLC and national pundits, skewering John Kerry's "anti-Southern strategy" and Thomas Schaller's "Whistling Past Dixie" and advocating a new Democratic Populism to win back not only large sections of the South (not to mention the industrial Great Lakes states).
Former NC Senator John Edwards to Walk In Our Shoes:
Edwards Is First Presidential Candidate to Accept SEIU Challenge to Spend a Day in the Life of a Working Family
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clock | February 1, 2007I first saw about this on Pharyngula the other day and I think it is a majestic idea! A group of Brits are trying to build a replica of HMS "Beagle" and, on the Darwin Bicentennial in 2009, sail around the world following the exact path Charles Darwin made on his historic voyage. Have scientists, journalists and, yes, bloggers, on board who will do research, take pictures and videos, and write their ship-logs for everyone to read (if a ship-log is on a blog, is it called shlog?). Stop at every port and promote evolution!
Most definitely take your time to check out their website and blog…
clock | February 1, 2007Skeptics Circle #53 is up on Slicing with Occam's Razor.
Festival of the Trees #8 is up on Ginkgo Dreams.
There is a (finally!) brand new Carnival of the Mathematics
And, although there are already three other EduCarnivals doing well, there is another one coming, the Carnival of the Edublogs focusing on the use of technology in the classroom.
And I linked to a bunch of other carnivals already this week as the new editions were getting posted...
clock | February 1, 2007If so, you should read this, print it out and stick it on the side of your computer monitor. Then re-read it every time you sit down to write a post discussing actual scientific research.
clock | February 1, 2007Next in the series of BIO101 lecture notes. Chime in to correct errors and make it better (reposted from June 11, 2006):
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Anatomy is the subdiscipline of biology that studies the structure of the body. It describes (and labels in Latin) the morphology of the body: shape, size, color and position of various body parts, with particular attention to the internal organs, as visible by the naked eye. Histology is a subset of anatomy that describes what can be seen only under the misroscope: how cells are organized into tissues and tissues…
clock | February 1, 2007Nonvenomous Asian Snakes 'Borrow' Defensive Poison From Toxic Toads:
Most snakes are born with poisonous bites they use for defense. But what can non-poisonous snakes do to ward off predators? What if they could borrow a dose of poison by eating toxic toads, then recycling the toxins? That's exactly what happens in the relationship between an Asian snake and a species of toad, according to a team of researchers funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Integrative Organismal Systems (IOS).
More....
To Trust Or Not To Trust Your Friends:
Sometimes it is better to follow the…
clock | January 31, 2007Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.
Benjamin Franklin (1706 - 1790)
clock | January 31, 2007Four Stone Hearth #8 is up on Northstate Science
The 47th History Carnival is up on ProgressiveHistorians
clock | January 31, 2007How many such pieces of news can one survive in one day!
Now that Amanda has been welcomed by concern-troll-mysoginists who followed her from her blog to the Edwards campaign blog (where, frankly, nobody lets them stir the pot) there is another great piece of news!
Melissa McEwan, aka Shakespeare's Sister was also hired by the Edwards internet team. Go say Hello to her as well. Edwards certainly has great taste and good sense how to win over the netroots!
clock | January 31, 2007In light of my post earlier today about the discrepanices between 'real time' and 'clock time' (or 'social time'), it is heartening that the Parliament in the U.K. wisely decided not to switch their clocks to the time the rest of Europe observes. If they did, they would be seriously out of whack. After all, at Zero Meridian in Greenwich (yup, I stood astride it, of course), midnight is really midnight - it is the middle of the time zone. Resetting it by one hour would put the Brits at the far Western edge of another time zone and they would always experience true midnight a long time (60-…
clock | January 31, 2007While study of Time-Perception is, according to many, a sub-discipline of chronobiology, I personally know very little about it. Time perception is defined as interval timing, i.e., measuring duration of events (as opposed to counting, figuring which one of the two events happened first and which one second, or measuring time of day or year).
Still, since this blog is about all aspects of biological timing, I have to point you to a new paper in Neuron (press release) about a new computer model for human time-perception.
"If you toss a pebble into a lake," he explained, "the ripples of water…
clock | January 31, 2007Circus of the Spineless #17: The Symbology of Invertebrates is up on The Voltage Gate
Carnival of the Green #62 is up on Jetson Green