clock | July 26, 2006
Global Warming Threatens Biodiversity In Australia's Wet Tropics:
"There is a common, though incorrect, perception that the impacts of climate change will be worse in temperate regions than in the tropics," said Williams, principal investigator of the Earthwatch-supported Climate Change in the Rainforest project. "Global warming can have a particularly strong impact on mountainous regions like Australia's Wet Tropics, where the mountaintops and higher tablelands exist as cool islands in a sea of warmer climates. Almost all plants and animals unique to this region are adapted to these cooler…
clock | July 26, 2006 This is a long post from January 23, 2005, trying to tie in Creationism and conservatism through psychology:
I always loved animals and always loved science. I read the kids' science and nature books and encyclopedias, as well as adult stuff, like huge volumes about animals e.g., "The Life of Animals" by Alfred Brehm. The best present I ever got was a chemistry set my brother brought me from a trip to Egland.
I started learning English when I was five years old. No surprise here, as my parents met at the University, both studying English. It took a while until I was capable of reading…
clock | July 26, 2006Since my move here to SEED scienceblogs, I made a mistake of assuming, quite wrongly, that most of my visitors are aslo science bloggers (or people interested in science) who, almost by definition, regularly read all of the other SEED sciencebloggers as well.
I forgot that some of the readers are not new readers, but people who came over here with me, people who have read one of my three old blogs for a long time before my move.
They may be liberal/progressive bloggers, or fans of John Edwards, or North Carolina bloggers, or Balkans bloggers, or edubloggers or academic bloggers. Not to…
clock | July 25, 2006
You and I, as well as all of our mammalian brethren, have just a few photopigments, i.e., colored molecules that change shape when exposed to light and subsequently trigger cascades of biochemical reactions leading to changes in electrical properties of sensory neurons, which lead to modulation of neurotransmitter release, which propagates the information from one neuron to the next until it is integrated and interpreted somewhere in the brain - we see the light!
More under the fold....
Mammals have rhodopsin (in rod-shaped photoreceptor cells in the retina of the eye), three or four color-…
clock | July 25, 2006Grand Rounds Volume 2, Number 44: The Garden is up on Medical Humanities.
School House Rock edition of the Carnival of Homeschooling is up on The Lilting House.
clock | July 25, 2006Elephants Avoid Costly Mountaineering:
"Using global-positioning system data corresponding to the movements of elephants across the African savannah, researchers have found that elephants exhibit strong tendencies to avoid significantly sloped terrain, and that such land features likely represent a key influence on elephant movements and land use. On the basis of calculations of energy use associated with traversing sloped terrain by such large animals, the researchers found that this behavior is likely related to the fact that even minor hills represent a considerable energy barrier for…
clock | July 25, 2006Sawing The ZZZZZs: Getting Old Needn't Keep You Awake, Geriatricians Say:
"Patients must be educated on normal sleep-related changes but also made aware that sleep problems are not a part of normal aging."
Again we have the problem with the use of the word "normal"! Fragmentation of sleep in old age is "normal" in a sense that it happens to most people and most other mammals. Just because it is unpleasant and potentially bad for one's health does not make it not normal. Yet, just like we treat bad eyeseight with glasses, we can alleviate sleep problems in the elderly with a variety of…
clock | July 25, 2006 I wrote this on the Edwards campaign blog on December 15, 2003 and copied it on www.jregrassroots.org a few months later, then posted it again on Science And Politics on August 23, 2004:
An individual can be a President of USA for 4-8 years.
Human civilization is, depending on your definition of civilization, about 5,000-20,000 years old.
Human species (or something like it) has been around for about 1.000,000 years.
There has been Life on Earth for about 3,600.000,000 years.
Do you have the power of imagination to imagine a 100 years? How about a thousand? Ten thousand? A million years? A…
clock | July 24, 2006My daughter is getting really good at taking pictures with our digital camera lately. Every now and then, I'll post one or two. Her favourite subject: our cats - below the fold:
Our older cat, Bisquit:
Our kitten, Marbles:
clock | July 24, 2006The obligatory reading of the day: That right-wing logic:
OK, so I laughed at this one. Because this is what passes for logic not just among rural hicks, but nearly the entire right wing in this country.
clock | July 24, 2006Norse cult gains among inmates:
A pagan religion that some experts say can be interpreted as encouraging violence is gaining popularity among prison inmates, one of whom is scheduled to be executed this week for killing a fellow prisoner at the foot of an altar.
Michael Lenz is scheduled to die Thursday for the death of Brent Parker, who was stabbed dozens of times at Augusta Correctional Center during a gathering of inmates devoted to Asatru, whose followers worship Norse gods.
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Asatru is often associated with white supremacy, although most Asatru leaders deny that.…
clock | July 24, 2006Including screwing with the people who touch themselves for a charitable cause:
"Overall I think a well-intentioned event has been hijacked by a corporation who don't really care if we have good sex and enjoy masturbation, but just want more viewing figures. I hope people do join in and support the event, but I worry that it'll invite more sex-negative discussions than stories that encourage masturbation.
The masturbate-a-thon most certainly has had more coverage in one day than it's got in the past five years that it's been running. Call me old fashioned, but I preferred it when it truly was…
clock | July 24, 2006Found on the Talk About Sleep forums:
We here at Talk About Sleep have recently learned of a very interesting study of sleep and sleep disorders being conducted by a Ph.D. student at the University of Minnesota. Matthew Wolf-Meyer is a medical anthropologist and is interested in hearing about your personal experiences as a sleep disorder sufferer, as well as the experiences of your family members.
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From what we understand, this is the first social study of sleep disorders and their impacts on the lives of patients and their families. This study could have positive…
clock | July 24, 2006If you are in North Carolina you can listen to State Of Things on your local NPR station. Just about to start (12noon EDT):
What Your Vote Says About You: So you think you're a conservative? Or a liberal? New research shows that you may not know how you fall on the political spectrum after all, and you may be especially confused when you vote. Host Frank Stasio talks with James Stimson, a professor of political science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, about what your vote says about your real political leanings.
This is the second story (after Blakwater and before…
clock | July 24, 2006Kevin is popular with the ladies....too popular...
It's been awhile since I've written anything so I decided to write up some stuff. Many cultural things have happened, but very few herps. Nearly everything is from Muyu with an occasional trip here and there.
13 July
This is where I last left off. We had left Bancang earlier this morning, around 6am. I do not know if I had written before about seeing two Chinese Pheasants in the road on the drive back. They quickly ran off so I was unable to get any pictures, just have visual images. Oh, and I found out about my "illness" on the trail at…
clock | July 23, 2006Carnival of the Green #37 is up on Myke's Weblog. Of course, this carnival is self-sustainable...
clock | July 23, 2006My son's birthday is next week. He wants (and we agree) a laptop. He is, surprisingly for a man of his brilliance, a PC guy. Good graphics and sound are very important for the stuff he does (making Flash movies, gaming, etc).
What should we get him? You know we are dirt poor, so steer away from $1200 Dells....(and no, I do not have enough parental power to persuade him that Mac is the real thing).
clock | July 23, 2006Officer Faces Court-Martial for Refusing to Deploy to Iraq (from AOL news, sicne NYT is behind the wall):
On Jan. 25, "with deep regret," he delivered a passionate two-page letter to his brigade commander, Col. Stephen J. Townsend, asking to resign his commission. "Simply put, I am wholeheartedly opposed to the continued war in Iraq, the deception used to wage this war, and the lawlessness that has pervaded every aspect of our civilian leadership," Lieutenant Watada wrote.
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Lieutenant Watada said that when he reported to Fort Lewis in June 2005, in preparation for deployment…
clock | July 23, 2006Phil Plait has an excellent post: Wealth of Science:
Then the author said something that literally startled me:
"Scientists, till recently at least, effectively donated the wealth they created."
He's absolutely right. Again, wealth is not the same as money. Scientists take a relatively small amount of money (compared to, say, the cost of an attack helicopter or the building of a bridge) and turn it into wealth. Knowledge. Understanding. A brief moment of awe in the public when they grasp a little bit more of the Universe.