clock | September 18, 2006In this post from April 06, 2006, I present some unpublished data that you may find interesting.
Understanding the role of serotonin in depression has led to development of anti-depressant drugs, like Prozac. Much of the research in this area has been performed in Crustaceans: lobsters and crayfish. The opposite behavioral state of depression, something considered a normal state, could possibly best be described as self-confidence.
Self-confidence is expressed differently in different species, but seems to always be tied to high status in a social hierarchy. In crayfish, self-confidence is…
clock | September 17, 2006Alun Salt of the wonderful Archaeoastronomy blog has started a weekly roundup of blogposts about the past. Check out Vidi-1 and Vidi-2. Who knows, if this catches on and others get interested, Vidi may become a real carnival, rotating hosts and everything....
clock | September 17, 2006The coooolest thing ever!
My son's science teacher broke his shoulder so he had to be out for two weeks (he's the one who was instrumental in the district adopting the science textbook I like, and he teaches evolution "straight-up").
During that time, they had a substitute teacher. She gave them their first assignment - to find something interesting science-related and write a short report.
Then, she started listing which sources are legit and which are not. Then, my son raised his hand and asked if they were allowed to find information on science blogs, for instance on one his Dad writes…
clock | September 17, 2006Tar HeelTavern #82 is up on Mel's Kitchen.
Don't forget to come to the first Chapel Hill - Carrboro blogger meetup tomorrow in the Library at 7pm. You don't have to be a blogger - being a reader and/or commenter or someone interested in blogging is enough - it is a very open group.
And don't forget to register (for free!) for the October 14th ConvergeSouth.
clock | September 17, 2006Animalcules v.1, n.12 is up on Viva La Evolucion
Carnival of the Godless #49 is up on Grounded In Reality
clock | September 17, 2006It's looking good. Certainly much smaller than the roomful of metal we are used to seeing in hospitals.
Do you remember when computers used to fill entire rooms? Now take a look at your cell phone. Now think MRI in 10-20 years...
See what I'm getting at?
I am patiently waiting for the time when MRIs are small and light enough to be mounted on heads of freely behaving animals (in the wild or in captivity), at least large animals like elephants, dolphins, horses, crocs or sharks... Then you use radiotelemetry to get the info loaded on your computer and you observe the brain activity in…
clock | September 16, 2006From Ed Cone, via Steve Rubel, through Shel Israel, we find that Charlene Li published a new study of blog use and discovered that a quarter of Generation Y reads blogs, which is twice as much as Generation X and three times as much as Boomers (which generation was Generation F and, once the Generation Z of my kids grows up, will there be another generation after them at all, or do we start using the Greek alphabet instead?).
MySpace is for highschoolers. Facebook is for college students (who tolerate, for now, a small number of highschoolers, grad students, faculty and staff, but may leave…
clock | September 16, 2006Don't know, but we can test this hypothesis.
Go to Cognitive Daily and/or Uncertain Principles and take the test (and read what they have to say about it, each from his own perspective).
It is just the essay part of the test. You get the prompt. You write. After 20 minutes (you are typing - kids who write with pencils get 25 minutes), it is over. You can choose to submit your essay or not once you are done.
Dave and Chad will score the results and have the essays graded by professionals (English teachers, hopefully some real-life SAT scorers), as well as blog-readers. Then, they…
clock | September 16, 2006Town Tells White Separatist Singers 'No Hate Here'
The girls, their mother, April, and stepfather Mark Harrington recently moved to Montana from Bakersfield, Calif., after April told "Primetime" that Bakersfield was "not white enough." Now Kalispell has put the family on notice, "Not in my backyard."
Last week a group of neighbors printed information sheets about the family and distributed them door to door.
"This letter is not written as a means to harass the family or to begin a witch hunt," the flier said. "We wish the family no harm. Our goal is to peacefully communicate that this kind of…
clock | September 16, 2006The phrase "Living Fossil" is second to only "Missing Link" on my list of irks-me-to-no-end abuses of English language. Darren Naish now explains exactly what is wrong with the term, using as the case study the recent rediscovery of the Sumatran rhino. This is your Most Obligatory reading of the day!
clock | September 16, 2006Publius has an interesting hypothesis about the way the torture/Geneva convention issue may blow back into BushCo face. Publius has been over optimistic before, but do you think he is overoptimistic now?
My feeling was that the split between two alternative military commission bills was a ruse - there is hardly any difference between them. By letting the McCain version win, Bush gets to do torture as much as he wants, while getting an opportunity to show public humility and going along with "the way the system works" and duping the nation that the "softer" version of the bill does not…
clock | September 16, 2006Eva of Easternblot has written an article about science blogging that is very good.
In the article, she interviews Tara Smith, PZ Myers, the Trio Fantasticus of the Inkycircus, Carl Zimmer and Oliver Morton.
The article appears in the latest issue of Hypothesis Journal and you can download the article here (pdf)
At the bottom, there is a short list of other interesting science blogs and one of the titles looks vaguely familiar...
clock | September 15, 2006Holy Smoke: Burning incense, candles pollute air in churches:
Incense and candles release substantial quantities of pollutants that may harm health, a detailed new study of air quality in a Roman Catholic church suggests.
Even brief exposure to contaminated air during a religious service could be harmful to some people, says atmospheric scientist Stephan Weber of the University of Duisburg-Essen in Essen, Germany. A previous study in the Netherlands indicated that the pollutants in smoke from incense and candles may be more toxic than fine-particle pollution from sources such as vehicle…
clock | September 15, 2006An interesting new study of religiosity in America:
One God, four views:
"Not all Americans see the powerful old man in the sky"
Really?
The authors suggest religion may most successfully motivate individuals through what it can offer them in spiritual intimacy and congregational connectivity rather than through demands backed by threats of divine punishment. Believers in an "angry" God tend to reject the idea that church and state are or can be separate, and are more likely to feel that one's religious faith is exclusively the correct path of righteousness.
Read the whole thing...
clock | September 15, 2006...and it will stay hard for another 4 hours.
[That is Friday Weird Sex Blogging for this week....]
clock | September 15, 2006Teaching Carnival #12 is up on Scrivenings.
Next time, on October 1st, the carnival will be hosted by me here. I will be posting an official 'call for submissions' in a few days, but in the meantime, if you write a post that has something to do with Academia and Higher Ed, please try to remember to tag it with the "teaching-carnival" tag. Still, since the tagging technology is unreliable at best, you can only be guaranteed the inclusion of your entries (and yes, multiple entries are welcome) if you e-mail them to me at: Coturnix@gmail.com. Put "Teaching Carnival" in the title and inquire…
clock | September 15, 2006Indian Creek dedicates new Upper School:
Mrs. Mattingly highlighted the major components of the college preparatory curriculum that fills the school day beginning at 8:50 a.m. and continues until 5 p.m. The hours are designed to accommodate teens' circadian rhythms.
clock | September 15, 2006Paleontologists Find 67 Dinosaurs In One Week:
He was specifically looking for Psittacosaurus fossils because it was a very common dinosaur and would give him lots of specimens, Horner said. It would also keep away poachers and commercial fossil hunters who work in the area, but prefer rare fossils. Horner wants a large number of fossils so he can compare variations between skeletons and changes during growth.
-------------snip---------------
The paleontologists found two meat-eating fossils in Mongolia in addition to the Psittacosaurus, Horner said. One of them looked like a raptor and may…