clock | November 24, 2006As always, let me know in the comments if I missed a good blog...
Fact-esque
Faded Flowers
Fafblog
Fanatical Apathy
Father Dan
Faux Real Tho!
FemaleCSGradStudent
FemaleScienceProfessor
Feministe
Feministing
Feminist Law Professors
Feral Scholar
Festival of the Trees
Fetch me my axe
Fido the Yak
Fighting For Science
Firedoglake
First Draft
Five Wells
Flags and Lollipops - Bioinformatics Blog
Flea
The force that through...
Foreign Dispatches
Four Stone Hearth
Frameshop
Framing Science
Freakonomics
Friday Ark
Friendly Atheist
FrinkTank
Frogs and Ravens
The Frontal Cortex
Fully Myelinated…
clock | November 24, 2006I admire actors who completely immerse themselves in the characters they play. But nobody has reached the hights of dedication as much as Keisha Castle-Hughes, a 16-year old actress playing Virgin Mary in an upcoming movie - she is pregnant!
Forget the money she'll earn doing he movie - she can rake in millions if she starts a cult around the divinity of her child. I am just not sure if the conception was immaculate.
Full story: Unwed and pregnant, like Mary
clock | November 24, 2006Pew Internet and American Life Project just issued a new report: The Internet as a Resource for News and Information about Science (pdf). It states that:
Fully 87% of online users have at one time used the internet to carry out research on a scientific topic or concept and 40 million adults use the internet as their primary source of news and information about science.
The report is chockful of statistics of great importance to us science bloggers. For instance:
Each respondent to this survey received questions on one of three specific scientific topics: stem cell research, climate change,…
clock | November 24, 2006On poverty, personal, national and global, and why it makes sense not to have a bank account when you are poor (October 04, 2005). Espcially in light of recent news about the way big banks rip off people by depositing big checks first - placing accounts into the red - then depositing multiple small checks which otherwise would have cleared but now incur fees which, added over many customers, add up to billions in profit for the banks. This practice kills me every month. I pay the biggest things (rent) by MoneyOrder so I am not afraid of that bouncing, but I'd like to minimize the number of…
clock | November 24, 2006
Ed Cone is coming to the 2007 North Carolina Science Blogging Conference. Are you?
Technorati Tag: sciencebloggingconference
clock | November 23, 2006I am still sleepy from all that tryptophan in turkey meat and the Evolution wine, so I don't think I have the energy to write a big post now - I'll leave much of my thoughts on the matter for a post-weekend post reviewing Dawkins' The God Delusion.
But I have to chime in briefly by sending you to the relevant links and copying some of the comments I wrote on those comment threads. Brace yourself for a lot of reading as there are several posts and many comments on each of the posts. Sorry, the links are not neccessarly in order, but you'll get the gist of the argument anyway.
Ed Brayton…
clock | November 23, 2006In the past we had to make sure to remember to tell the kids not to make fun of their cousins (and adults) for saying a prayer before the Thanksgivings dinner. We tried to give a personal example by holding hands with other family members, bowing our heads and supressing laughter for the duration.
This year, for the first time, we had a Thanksgivings dinner at home, just the four of us. When the dinner was served and we sat around the table we looked at each other with a question mark on our faces - what to do? My wife saved the day:"Thank God we do not have to say a prayer tonight!"
Amen…
clock | November 23, 2006Continuing with my BIO101 lecture notes (May 08, 2006). As always, please correct my errors and make suggestions in the comments.
-------------------------------------------------
BIO101 - Bora Zivkovic - Lecture 1 - Part 4
Cell-cell interactions
Cells do not exist in complete isolation. For a coordinated function of cells in a tissue, tissues in an organ, organs in a system and systems in the body, cells need to be able to communicate with each other. Each cell should be capable of sending chemical signals to other cells and of receiving chemical signals from oter cells, as well as signals…
clock | November 23, 2006
David Bradley of Sciencebase is coming to the 2007 North Carolina Science Blogging Conference. Are you?
Technorati Tag: sciencebloggingconference
clock | November 22, 2006Al Gore's big issue is the environment. He says he is not running for President. Maybe he will, maybe he won't. But no matter what happens, it is obvious that the environment is Gore's passion and that he will spend the rest of his life fighting for it. His passion is what drives so many people to push him to run for office again.
John Edwards' big issue is poverty. He is likely to run for President again. Maybe he will win, maybe he won't. But no matter what happens, it is obvious that eradication of poverty is Edwards' passion and that he will spend the rest of his life fighting for…
clock | November 22, 2006At the Blogger MeetUp the other night, among many other topics we covered, someone (I think it was Anton) asked if we ever blogged about our homes, houses, childhood memories of home...
Now that John Edwards is travelling around the country promoting his new book - Home: The Blueprints of Our Lives - the idea of writing about one's childhood home seems quite interesting.
I am no lyrical writer and I have no idea what to say about my childhood home, but David Kirk rose to the occasion today and wrote a beautiful and touching essay about his childhood home. It is a great story for the…
clock | November 22, 2006My son wants Wii for Hannukkah and he will get it. According to Jonah, it's good for you in more ways than just training in spatial orientation. You get a physical workout and you get drawn deeper into the game which will, presumably, make violence, aggression, injuries and death more realistic and thus may have the opposite effect of cartoonish effects of older video games or even watching carnage on TV news. You may even start emphatizing and thinking about the meaning of life! Who knows - time will tell.
But, and I did not think of this, Wii may do something more. Brian Russell muses…
clock | November 22, 2006Who is going to blog serious stuff over the holidays? It's time to eat and drink and be merry. So, a silly meme is in order. Seen on Cyberspace Rendezvous (and a couple of other science blogs) (under the fold):
1. In two words, explain what ended your last relationship?
I moved 13000 miles away.
2. When was the last time you shaved your legs?
Never.
3. What were you doing this morning at 8am?
Sleeping
4. What were you doing 15 minutes ago?
Writing a blog post and eating brownies.
5. Are you any good at math?
Used to be, 15 years ago.
6. Your prom night?
It is different in Yugoslavia, but…
clock | November 22, 2006Dick Armey on NPR on Friday:
"Dialogues are what Democrats do, not what Republicans do. Only liberals think that if you've had a dialogue about something, you've done something."
Bill Hooker responds:
No matter how sure I am, no matter how careful I've been, no matter how smart I like to think I am, no matter how intellectually and emotionally satisfying I find my position, I might be wrong. And the corollary: if I am in fact wrong, I will be better off knowing about it, and preferably sooner rather than later so that I don't waste effort on mistakes that will later be pulled down around my…
clock | November 22, 2006"A Poet Laureate is a poet officially appointed by a government and often expected to compose poems for state occasions and other government events." What would be the scientific equivalent, a Science Laureate? A scientist officially appointed by a government and often expected to perform experiments (Mentos and DietCoke?) for state occasions and other government events? If so, Bill Nye should get the title.
But, seriously. In the USA, the poet laureate title is supposedly given only for the quality of the poetry irrespective of the poet's public persona, social activism, political…
clock | November 22, 2006Brian says that College Leaders should blog, commenting on this NYT article.
Sure, there are pros and cons, a steep learning curve and the potentially huge benefits along with the risk. But in the 21st century, it just has to be done. A leader who does not embrace online technology to foster a two-way communication is irrelevant and will go the way of the dinosaurs. A leader who does will evolve wings and learn to fly, adapted to the new environment.
Brian offers to help any University President set up a blog and get started, gratis. Take him up on his offer if you are a Top Dog at your…
clock | November 22, 2006I am assuming that many bloggers will ease up on posting over the holiday break, but there is still plenty of good stuff to read - just browse the latest carnivals:
Tangled Bank #67: Giving thanks for science - now up on Newton's Binomium
The 48th meeting of the Skeptics' Circle: last will and testament - now up on Decorabilia.
Four Stone Hearth #3.1: Food for, uh, Thought - now up on About: Archaeology.
Carnival of the Liberals #26: The War On Thanksgiving Edition - now up on Stump Lane.
The Carnival Of Education: Week 94 - now up on The Education Wonks.
Week 47 of the Carnival of…
clock | November 22, 2006Well, it's Thanksgiving tomorrow night so it's time to republish this post from last year, just in time for the ageless debate: does eating turkey meat make you sleepy? Some people say Yes, some people say No, and the debate can escalate into a big fight. The truth is - we do not know.
But for this hypothesis to be true, several things need to happen. In this post I look at the evidence for each of the those several things. Unfortunately, nobody has put all the elements together yet, and certainly not in a human. I am wondering...is there a simple easily-controlled experiment that…