clock | August 9, 2006After getting over his sickness, Kevin moves on with his research...
Xiagu, revisited
26 July
No fever this morning. We finally left for Xiagu. The primary purpose of Xiagu was to get the exact coordinates of that one Azemiops Mai Dachuan had found back in 2002. We were traveling with a full load, about six people, including Lao Tang, the guy that accompanied us to Bancang. One of the girls I was guessing was the entomologist, Linsen said she was a student at Wuhan. The Shennongjia photographer was also tagging along for the day. He was wanting to get pictures of me catching snakes and what…
clock | August 9, 2006
This post from January 21, 2005, is about insects, parasitoids and the mental approach to science:
This really cool science post (Speaking of sex differences reminds me of a seminar I attended a few years ago, about a parasitoid wasp that injects a single egg (together with some toxins and a DNA virus) into a (somewhat larger) egg of its moth host.
The speaker spent his 50 minutes describing his painfully difficult and inconclusive molecular experiments, trying to figure out where the DNA (from the injected viruses) inserts itself into the host genome and how does that insertion affect the…
clock | August 8, 2006Lindsay is liveblogging from the Lamont HQ. My wife, who is not interested in nitty-gritty details of everyday politics and has no idea where Lieberman stands on any issue and has not heard a single word spoken by Liebermann, said that Joe's loss is totally unsurprising to her. She said that Joe lost today's race two years ago when the whole nation saw how weak he is - 'weak' in every sense of the term, as a person, as a politician, everything. Whoever remembers the pitiful scenes of Joementum from the 2004 primaries, even if completely uninterested in politics since then, cannot possibly…
clock | August 8, 2006A couple of months ago I wrote about a study in primates, suggesting that there is a circadian clock in the adrenal gland. This was hyped like a big break-through, but, while that was a good and useful study, it did not show anything surprising, e.g., that the adrenal is a pacemaker, only that it is a peripheral clock, which was known for decades, before the whole paradigm of perihperal clocks matured within the field.
Now, there is a new study, this time in mice, on the same question: How the adrenal 'clock' keeps the body in synch.
Again, it is touted as something that will fundamentaly…
clock | August 8, 2006Do you remember the old Five-Year Plans ('Petoletka') in the communist countries? Well, five years is far too long for the ADHD world of the 21st century, not to mention the hyperspeed of the Internet and the Blogosphere. So, I decided to try organizing my blogging in Five-Day Plans. What do you think of that?
First, next five days (Wednesday to Sunday), it will (almost) all politics all the time. The occasion? Guest-blogging on Echidne Of The Snakes. Yes, the Goddess herself has touched me with her bifurkated tongue! After a stint guest-blogging on Eschaton, Echidne is going on a well…
clock | August 8, 2006I refuse to write blog posts about the Middle East for a variety of reasons. No matter what I say, there will be a flame war in the comments - if you think that flame-wars in comments are bad when dealing with creationists, animal rightists or Wingnuts, just try tackling Israel! I'll be acused of being a self-hating Jew and anti-semite and Zionist and anti-Zionist, perhaps simultaneously all of those by the same person in a single sentence.
I do not know enough history of the region and the conflict.
I do not know the specialized terminology - a minefield of seemingly normal English language…
clock | August 8, 2006Researcher Studies Sleep Deprivation's Effect On Decisions:
Everyone needs sleep, but temporary periods with no sleep can be a reality of military operations. To get answers on sleep questions for the military as well as civilians, for nearly four years Dr. Sean Drummond, a Department of Defense-funded researcher, has studied the effects of sleep deprivation on the brain, namely in decision making, as well as how long it takes to recover from periods of no sleep.
Early Exposure To Synthetic Estrogen Puts 'DES Daughters' At Higher Risk For Breast Cancer:
So-called "DES daughters," born to…
clock | August 8, 2006Gray Birds Cover 40,000 Miles Annually:
"Sooty shearwaters may not look like much, but when it comes to travel they put marathoners, cyclists and pretty much everyone else to shame.
These gray, 16-inch birds cover 40,000 miles annually in search of food, the longest migration ever recorded electronically, according to a report in this week's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."
How does that compare to Arctic Terns and their pole-to-pole migration? Or the east-west migration of some ptarmigans from Scandinavia to Kamtchatka and back?
"The birds, which can have…
clock | August 8, 2006Today's New York Times has a good article about jet-lag: The Science of Zzzzz's. I am glad to hear that JetBlue is using scientific advice in helping their pilots be fresh and alert, especially now that JetBlue has started flying from RDU.
clock | August 8, 2006New Depression Findings Could Alter Treatments.
Kids on antidepressants more likely to commit suicide? I have heard about this several times before, but I believe this is a first study directly asking this question:
"The researchers found no link between the antidepressant drugs and suicidal behavior in depressed patients 19 or older. But children and adolescents in the study who were taking antidepressants were about 50 percent more likely than those not on the drugs to try to kill themselves. And they were about 15 times as likely as those not on the medications to complete the act,…
clock | August 8, 2006Grand Rounds Vol.2, No.46 is up on Mexico Medical Student.
The Wild, Wild West edition of the Carnival of Homeschooling (#32) is up on Spittibee.
clock | August 8, 2006I was wondering why it took Kevin so long to send in another report. Well, he was sick...
Chinese "Ebola"
This write up is going to be short and concise. Most of the days it consists of I wasn't in the mood for remembering details, so some of these days will fly by.
22 July
Today was another town day. Nothing special going on; Ci Ling was going elsewhere in Shennongjia to go white water rafting. The location she went to has some sort of Chinese secret and foreigners aren't allowed to go. Ci Ling told Vanessa and I that if we were caught we'd be fined 500 to 1,000 Yuan. She said not to worry…
clock | August 8, 2006 Do you want to know more about my kids and how we are raising them? If so, this post from March 21, 2005 may be interesting to you.
I have two kids: an 11-year old son (Coturnix Jr.) and an 8-year old daughter (Coturnietta). They are really smart and cool kids and I love talking with them about all sorts of things: school, science, music, computers, video games, Boy Scouts, ...whatever they want to talk about (or the good old days when I was a kid and had to walk to school ten miles uphill both ways - to which they yawn and run away). But we never talk about politics or religion. Sure, when…
clock | August 7, 2006Today appears to be the day when all ScienceBloggers link to XKCD comics. As a clock person around here, I had to find one that deals with biological oscillations and I quickly found one with Fourier transforms...under the fold:
clock | August 7, 2006The Archaean Zone (formerly known as Wolverine Tom), Sporulaand Complex Medium are back in action after longish hiatus.
clock | August 7, 2006In the comments to this recent post, Pedro Beltao points out his recent post - Opening up the scientific process - which I would suggest you read.
First reaction will probably be - ah, how idealistic! But it will make you think, I believe. Many elements are already happening, e.g., open-source journals, open comments on online journal articles, as well as blogs and wikis that report research in real time, e.g., Useful Chem Experiments, RRResearch and UsefulChem Wiki.
The world of academic science is slow-moving and resistant to change, but it is already changing nonetheless. And, as each…
clock | August 7, 2006Sexual Lyrics Prompt Teens to Have Sex:
Teens whose iPods are full of music with raunchy, sexual lyrics start having sex sooner than those who prefer other songs, a study found.
Whether it's hip-hop, rap, pop or rock, much of popular music aimed at teens contains sexual overtones. Its influence on their behavior appears to depend on how the sex is portrayed, researchers found.
The article does point out skepticism by a couple of other researchers, but the title and the lede suggest that they'd prefer the readers to ignore the skepticism.
clock | August 7, 2006A short post from April 17, 2005 that is a good starting reference for more detailed posts covering recent research in clock genetics (click on spider-clock icon to see the original).
As I have mentioned before, there was quite an angst in the field of chronobiology around 1960s about the lack of undestanding of circadian and other rhythms at cellular and subcellular levels. Experiment involved manipulation of the environment (e.g,. light cycles) and observing outputs (e.g., wheel-running rhythms), while treating the clock, even if its anatomical location was known, as a "black box".…