clock | November 5, 2006This is the last reminder to send me permalinks to your recent posts related to neurons, brains, behavior and cognition for the next edition of Encephalon, the neuroscience carnival. I need them by midnight today. I'll post the carnival tomorrow morning.
Send the links to:
encephalon.host AT gmail DOT com
or
Coturnix AT gmail DOT com
clock | November 5, 2006From Quotes of the Day:
John Burdon Sanderson Haldane was born at Edinburgh, Scotland on this day in 1892. He was educated at Eton and Oxford, but possibly most important is the fact that he assisted his scientist father in the lab from age eight. His primary work was in genetics, being the first to provide a mathematical basis for Mendelian genetics and for Darwin's evolution. He taught at Oxford, Cambridge, and the University of London. In 1957 he became disgusted with policies of the British government and moved to India where he spent the rest of his life.
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clock | November 5, 2006
Christina Whittle is coming to the 2007 North Carolina Science Blogging Conference. Are you?
Technorati Tag: sciencebloggingconference
clock | November 4, 2006Below the fold are blogs with titles that start with the letter 'A'. Any glaring omissions? Anything worthy checking out? Is YOUR blog starting with this letter?
A Babe In the Universe
A Blog Around The Clock
A Bomb A Nation
About: Sleep Disorders
A Change in the Wind
A chorus for raucous souls
A Concerned Scientist
A Few Things Ill Considered
A Fistful of Euros
A Gentleman's C
A History of Histrionics
a k8, a cat, a mission
A Nerd's Country Journal
A New York Escorts Confessions
A Photon in the Darkness
A Pixelated Mind
A Rational Being
A scientist's life
A Shrewdness of Apes
A Somewhat…
clock | November 4, 2006Some of you may remember last year when I followed ColinMcEnroe's blogging class up at Trinity College in Hartford CT. Well, I should have expected it, but I forgot and nobody told me that they are at it again. Check all the students' blogs on the sidebar - some cool blogging going on there. I just noticed they have mentioned me, but teh context completely alludes me...
You can see some posts in which I have mentioned or discussed last year's class here:
Blogging Blogs
Journalists As Bloggers - are they any good?
Lance Mannion to be dissected
Teaching Blogging
Meta-meta-meta-meta-blogging:…
clock | November 4, 2006Dr.Petra looks at studies that suggest this, and links to her old Halloween post on the related subject...
clock | November 4, 2006I took a class with Dale Russell a few years ago. It was one of the most memorable classes ever, mainly because of Dale's overwhelming enthusiasm for the subjects of dinosaurs and evolution (as well as the coolest field-trip to the vaults of Carnegie Museum, getting to touch and hold and discuss fossils never seen by general public).
But I was always uneasy with Dale's overly-anthropomorphic depiction of 'alternative' evolution, i.e., what if dinosaurs did not go extinct. First of all, there is no reason to believe that anything as intelligent as us would ever have evolved. But even if it…
clock | November 4, 2006It is not just mirrors that elephants can figure out - they can also flush toilets! [OK, jokes aside, click on the link to see what is really happening]
clock | November 4, 2006Just in case you have, as a child, heard the myth that ducks' quack does not produce an echo, and have never outgrew the myth (possibly by never even thinking about it ever since), a potential IgNobel winner for next year has been published and, yes, ducks' quacks produce echoes. Shelley has the details of the experiments and the link to the sound-file of the quack and the echo. Ah, the power of the scientific method! Though alternative methods have been proposed:
Now, the question remains: which echo-chamber does the duck prefer: its Left Wing or its Right Wing?
clock | November 4, 2006
Andrea Novicki is coming to the 2007 North Carolina Science Blogging Conference. Are you?
Technorati Tag: sciencebloggingconference
clock | November 3, 2006Politically active and charged music, the "protest music" is live and well. Check out Will Kimbrough and his latest CD called Americanitis. He sang a couple of tunes live in teh studio of local NPR station and I really liked them.
clock | November 3, 2006Earlier today I was listening to The Story with Dick Gordon on WUNC91.5FM and it was about the persuasive power of the human voice. This is something I was always interested in.
The guest was Anne Karpf, author of Human Voice. It was one of those extra-long driveway moments because the topic was so interesting, she is so insightful (and has a great sense of humor), and had several clips of people like FDR, Churchill, Reagan, Bush and Blair with added analysis of their voices, as well as some cultural comparisons, the development of language, etc.
I am about to put the book on my wish…
clock | November 3, 2006Low Levels Of Neurotransmitter Serotonin May Perpetuate Child Abuse Across Generations :
Infant abuse may be perpetuated between generations by changes in the brain induced by early experience, research shows. A research team found that when baby rhesus monkeys endured high rates of maternal rejection and mild abuse in their first month of life, their brains often produced less serotonin, a chemical that transmits impulses in the brain. Low levels of serotonin are associated with anxiety and depression and impulsive aggression in both humans and monkeys.
Scientists Discover Molecular Basis…
clock | November 3, 2006This post (from January 14, 2005) is how I see the political/ideological landscape in the USA.
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We use the words Left and Right to describe Liberal and Conservative ideological and political leanings. The phrases stem, if I remember correctly, from the seating arrangement in the first French Parliament in the late 18th century. That was a long time ago. By now, most people realize that a straight Left/Right continuous line does not represent the ideological spectrum very well, yet the terms are still in constant use and, more importantly,…
clock | November 3, 2006This week's questions in the Ask a ScienceBlogger series:
What's the most important local political race to you this year (as a citizen, as a scientist)?
There are two places here in which representatives of a reality-based community can replace mysoginist, homophobic cavedwellers:
NC - 8: Larry Kissel (D) vs. Robin Hayes (R)
NC -11: Heath Shuler (D) vs. Charles Taylor (R)
But it is really the sum of all local races that is important this year, and it appears that many voters understand that the Tuesday election is really a national election, much more than local. What is neccessary is to…
clock | November 3, 2006My Bloglines feeds are functioning again, so it's time for me to start updating my blogroll, as the one linked on the sidebar is woefully out of date. What I am going to do is post here the blogs I have, one letter at the time, more-or-less one letter a day or whatever time I manage to find to do this.
Today, here are the blogs I subscribe to that have titles that begin with numbers (or symbols):
0xDE
10000 birds
11D
2 cents worth
2 sides 2 ron
3 Bulls
3 quarks daily
5/17
511
90% True
What I want you to do (after checking the blogs I link to) is give me links to other blogs starting with…
clock | November 3, 2006
Susan Manning of SciTech Publishing is coming to the 2007 North Carolina Science Blogging Conference. Are you?
Technorati Tag: sciencebloggingconference