clock | July 17, 2006The latest question in the Ask A ScienceBlogger series is actually not that easy to answer, though some have, so far, valiantly tried:
Is every species of living thing on the planet equally deserving of protection?...
My attempt at the answer is under the fold....
My first knee-jerk answer is "Yes, of course!" Then comes a qualification: "As much as we can". I guess I could just leave it at that.
But why do I think that? Why people who answer with a more-or-less guarded 'Yes' think that way? Apparently, and I cannot now think of the source where I read this taxonomy (Google found this),…
clock | July 17, 2006The second edition of Encephalon, the neuroscience carnival, is up on Pure Pedantry.
clock | July 16, 2006Chris Clarke is equally surprised. At this rate, we'll have a tropical rainforest there soon.
clock | July 16, 2006Do you read Darren Naish's blog Tetrapod Zoology? If not, you should start now. Just check out some of the most recent posts, for example this two-parter on sea snakes: 'A miniature plesiosaur without flippers': surreal morphologies and surprising behaviours in sea snakes and Sea kraits: radical intraspecific diversity, reproductive isolation, and site fidelity.
Or, this two-part post about the importance of the shape of the birds' bills: The war on parasites: a pigeon's eye view and The war on parasites: an oviraptorosaur's eye view.
Or an amazing four-part story about Angloposeidon, a…
clock | July 15, 2006Interview with John Edwards on Southern Studies.
Instapundit thinks that Edwards on the top of the ticket could have won in 2004.
Ed agrees and points to an interesting post by Instalawyer.
As usual, frightened Republicans in the comments trot out the hair and some errors or fact....
clock | July 15, 2006I am teaching the Intro Bio lab right now and thought it would be appropriate to schedule this post to appear at the same time. I wrote it last time I taught this, but today's lab will be pretty much the same. Being second summer session, the class will probably be really small, which will make the lab go even faster and easier.
Yesterday I had my first class of the semster of the BIO Lab at the community college. This is the first time with a new syllabus, containing some new excercises.
At the beginning, we took a look at some cartoons, as examples of Inductive and Abductive Arguments,…
clock | July 14, 2006At Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh:
SUNDAY, JULY 16, 3:00 p.m. George Lakoff's book, DON'T THINK OF AN ELEPHANT! KNOW YOUR VALUES AND FRAME THE DEBATE: THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE FOR PROGRESSIVES, has been a bestseller nationally and here at QRB. Local political activist Diana Koenning will lead a discussion of the book which is about the art of framing current hot-topic issues in a way that leads to meaningful conversation. There will also be a practice session to build skills in creating dialogue across the political spectrum.
Does anyone know who Diana Koenning is? Do you think I should go?
clock | July 14, 2006More adventures in China - new snakes, new local customs...
More miscellaneous locations
(Dalongtan, Muyu, Bantong)
Sorry for the delay, my internet access has been fairly sparse recently, and I have been backed up on my writing (ever since meeting Vanessa and Emma, I've been doing more hanging out than I have writing in my journal on a boring day).
So last I left off I believe I had just returned from Qianjiaping, and on the 6th the Stanford family, Xue, and Dr. Li all left Muyu. The day was fairly slow, most of my day was spent airing out my sleeping bag and all my clothes that were still…
clock | July 14, 2006This I first posted on June 24, 2004 on www.jregrassroots.org, then republished on August 23, 2004 on Science And Politics. What do you think? Was I too rosy-eyed? Prophetic?
In the beginning there were grunts, tom-tom drums, smoke signals, and the guy on the horse riding from village to village reading the latest King's Edict. That is Phase I in the evolution of media.
Phase II was ushered in by Gutenberg. Remember the beginning of Protestantism? Luther nailing copies of his pamhlet on the doors? That was also the beginning of the first great Universities, such as those in Genoa, Padua…
clock | July 14, 2006You should check out all of my SiBlings' Friday Blogging practices, then come back here for a new edition of Friday Weird Sex Blogging. Last week you saw an example of a corkscrew penis. But that is not the only one of a kind. See more under the fold...
Some birds also have spiral tools. For instance, see this 20-cm penis of an Argentine lake duck (Oxyura vittata) (from this paper: The 20-cm Spiny Penis of the Argentine Lake Duck (Oxyura vittata) (pdf)):
The same author, Dr Kevin McCracken of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, later found an even longer one in the same species. It was…
clock | July 14, 2006Over the last couple of days, there was an interesting exchange of blogposts about the "naturalness" of sex, gender identification and sexual orientation. It is also an excellent example of the need to actually read what other people have written before jumping into the fray with knee-jerk responses. So, actually, READ all these posts before making any comments:
Jessica: Uterus: The Gaymaker
Chris: Essentialized Social Categories I: Gender Essentialism
Janet: Why I have no interest in any possible biological bases for homosexuality
Greensmile: You can't say 'Gay is OK'...
Benjamin:…
clock | July 13, 2006Kevin sent three new reports. This is the first one. Next one tomorrow and the third on Monday. All exactly at noon!
Qianjiaping Report
(tian-jia-ping)
30 June
There were rumors that Dr. Li and Dr. Stanford and Emma were arriving later this afternoon. They were expected around 6:30pm. By the time 7pm rolled around and no one showed up. Vanessa and I decided to get some food at a new restaurant (what we are calling the Red Lantern Restaurant). The restaurant was one of the more scenic restaurants in town. You have to cross a bridge in order to get to it, and due to all the rain, the river…
clock | July 13, 2006. This is a post intwo parts - the second being a reaction to the responses that the first one engendered. They may be a little rambling, especially the first one, but I still think that there is quite a lot there to comment on.
Great Men and Science Education - Part 1
There is an interesting thread here about "faith" in science and the way science is taught. Why no science textbook is a "Bible" of a field. Here are some of my musings....
So much science teaching, not just in high school but also in college, is rote learning. Memorize Latin names for body parts, Krebs cycle, taxonomy of…
clock | July 13, 2006This is so basic that I even teach it in Intro Bio:
Wherever the master clock may be located (SCN, pineal or retina) in any particular species, its main function is to coordinate the timing of peripheral circadian clocks which are found in every single cell in the body. Genes that code for proteins that are important for the function of a particular tissue (e.g., liver enzymes in liver cells, neurotransmitters in nerve cells, etc.) show a daily rhythm in gene expression. As a result, all biochemical, physiological and behavioral functions exhibit daily (circadian) rhythms, e.g., body…
clock | July 12, 2006Fred Stutzman just posted his latest data on the use of Facebook, this time comparing the incoming college freshmen of Summer 2006 to Summer 2005.
Quick notes:
- more people enter college with already existing Facebook accounts
- less people announce their political affiliation
- people have more out-of-network friends
Fred notes some possible explanations for these trends. I posted my quick thoughts in the comments on his post.
You can find my quick analysis of Facebook here and all of Fred's posts related to his Facebook research here.
In related news, Danah Boyd posts about the latest…
clock | July 12, 2006Change Of Shift #2 is up on Emergiblog.
Jukebox edition of the Carnival of Education is up on School Me!.