grrlscientist | June 15, 2007tags: blog carnival
This is a new blog carnival, Doing It Differently, which just published its fifth edition. This blog carnival is devoted to the concept of stepping outside of the box and living our lives "beyond the norm". Whether you want to learn unique ways to think or act differently, or if you want to share your own unique ideas, this carnival is for you! There are ten essays that range from topics such as "The Lap Dancer Who Changed My Life" to "How I Lifted Fifty Pounds With My Mind". They also included a contribution from me, of course, so go over there to give them some support.
grrlscientist | June 15, 2007tags: online quiz
I kinda liked the results from this quiz -- how about you? How did you score?
You Are 86% Creative
You are an incredibly creative person. For you, there are no bounds or limits to your creativity.
Your next creation could be something very great... Or at least very cool!
How Creative Are You?
grrlscientist | June 15, 2007tags: schoolhouse rock, media-opoly, streaming video
This schoolhouse-rock satire streaming video was only shown only once on TV. [2:25]
grrlscientist | June 14, 2007tags: human genome, DNA, ENCODE
New research shows that the human genome is much more complex than once thought.
Image: ABC News.
A study was published this week in the journal Nature, revealing that genomes are more complex than previously thought. These studies, which analyzed just 1% of human genome, or DNA code, challenges the view that genes are the primary players in biochemistry. Instead, so-called "junk DNA" and other regions appear to collaborate with each other to form a network that controls gene expression and cell physiology.
ENCODE, short for The Encyclopedia of DNA Elements…
grrlscientist | June 14, 2007tags: Paris Hilton, humor, satire, streaming video
Okay, I hate to give in to the current state of media stupidity, but this video is just so funny that I had to share it with you. The last verse of this song is especially amusing. [2:47]
grrlscientist | June 14, 2007tags: bowhead whale, whaling, aging whales
This bomb lance fragment, patented in 1879, was removed from the neck of a male bowhead whale, Balaena mysticetus, killed near Barrow, Alaska, in May 2007. The shiny scars are the result of a chain saw cut.
Image: AP.
Here's an interesting twist to a sad story: In May of this year, eskimos killed a 49-foot male bowhead whale, Balaena mysticetus, off the coast of Alaska and unexpectedly discovered that he had survived a similar hunt more than a century ago. While butchering the whale's body with a chainsaw, they found that he was carrying a 3 1/2-…
grrlscientist | June 14, 2007tags: book review, Nature, The Open Laboratory
Some of you might be aware that The Open Laboratory: The Best Writing on Science Blogs 2006 (2007) was reviewed in this week's issue of Nature magazine. This is a volume that I, along with 49 other science blog writers, contributed to (actually, most of this book was put together while I was hospitalized and shortly after I was discharged, so Bora, the editor, kindly thought to choose one of my pieces for the book himself). You might be interested to read this Nature review, and it might also inspire you to submit an essay or two of your own to…
grrlscientist | June 14, 2007tags: blog carnival, bird, birding
I and the Bird, issue 51, is now available for your reading pleasure. Not only have they included a piece that I wrote, but as an added bonus, this issue is a sweepstakes where those people who correctly answer 20 questions will be placed into a drawing for a brand new copy of The Audubon Society Guide to Attracting Birds (Cornell University Press, 2006), signed by the author, Steve Kress. Now you really want to read that blog carnival, don't you?
grrlscientist | June 14, 2007tags: book review, birding, birds, Why Don't Woodpeckers Get Headaches, Mike O'Connor
Have you ever wondered if backyard birds can choke on peanut butter? If robins really are the first birds of spring? Where should you hang your new bird feeder? Whether there is such a bird as a horned House Finch? If the white Aflack bird a duck or a goose? What birds do when the temperatures and wind chill fall below zero? If penguins have knees? The answers to all these questions and more can be found in a delightful little book, Why Don't Woodpeckers Get Headaches? And Other Bird Questions You Know You…
grrlscientist | June 14, 2007tags: environment, humor, streaming video
Martin Short revisits his classic character Nathan Thurm, the nervous, sweating, chain smoking big business lawyer. In this skit, Robert F. Kennedy grills him on global warming and how his clients, the big oil companies, are contributing to it. [2:18]
grrlscientist | June 13, 2007tags: behavior, evolution, humans, mate choice
A recent study has found a strong correlation between a woman's choice of a partner and her relationship with her father. Basically, the better she was treated by her father when she was a child, the more closely that her partner's face resembled her dad's.
The team's leader, Lynda Boothroyd from Durham University in the UK, said that her findings add to our understanding of how we become attracted to certain types of people. Such knowledge could have important implications for fields such as relationship counselling, she added.
In this study,…
grrlscientist | June 13, 2007tags: dinosaurs, fossils, Kevin Padian
For those of you who posted comments or questions about The Agonized Deaths of Dinosaurs Captured in Stone, you will be pleased to know that Kevin Padian, one of the study's authors, has responded to you. He said that you had some very interesting thoughts -- I just wanted you all to know that I was so proud of you (awww, it's just like when I was teaching ... ). Anyway, I finally got back on wifi today to post his comments there for you to read.
grrlscientist | June 13, 2007tags: blog carnival, carnival of the vanities
The 245th issue of the Carnival of the Vanities is now available for your reading pleasure. This blog carnival links to the best recent writing in the blogosphere, regardless of topic. This issue was a few weeks slow, so they accepted more than one link from me, yippee!
grrlscientist | June 13, 2007tags: researchblogging.org, dinosaur, bird, fossil, Gigantoraptor erlianensis, China
An artist's painting of the newly discovered Gigantoraptor dinosaur, depicted with other smaller dinosaurs. Fossilized bones uncovered in the Erlian Basin of northern China's Inner Mongolia region show the Gigantoraptor erlianensis was about 26 feet in length and weighed 3,000 pounds. The discovery of the giant, birdlike dinosaur indicates a more complicated evolutionary process for birds than originally thought.
Image: Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology & Paleoanthropology (Beijing, China) [larger…
grrlscientist | June 13, 2007tags: environment, humor, streaming video
This wierdly humorous piece by an Australian comedy team, Clarke and Dawe, is something akin to a Monty Python sketch. It is funny despite the subject matter. [2:01]
grrlscientist | June 12, 2007tags: constitution, humor, streaming video
This biting political piece by Bill Maher has been around for a little while but it is but it is definitely worth watching. "I email myself a copy of the constitution every morning in the hopes that they [the Feds] will open it to see what it says." [6:11]
grrlscientist | June 11, 2007tags: reasoning, Wändi Bruine de Bruin, behavior
Have you ever known someone who is intelligent but still makes astonishingly stupid decisions again and again? According to a recently published study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, reasoning is a distinct skill, and not everyone possesses it in equal measure, even those people who are thought of as being intelligent. A "decision scientist" at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh claims that while reasoning abilities are influenced by intelligence and socioeconomic status, reasoning ability may also be a skill that…
grrlscientist | June 11, 2007tags: poetry, block city, Robert Louis Stevenson
Today, I am having a lot of trouble accessing the internet. On Mondays, my wifi access is typically provided by a pub because the libraries with wifi are closed. But this pub was closed until after 5pm tonight, so I had to wait and wait and wait some more. I finally ran into the owner of the pub and he said this problem will continue until they hire someone who can start working at three. I told him that he should hire me, and he laughed in my face (gee, thanks). Whatever.
I am not sure what I will do to remedy my internet access problem, since…
grrlscientist | June 11, 2007tags: Birds in the News, BirdNews, ornithology, birds, avian, newsletter
King penguin stretches on the Falkland Islands.
Image: BBC News [larger]
Birds in Science
If you've looked the articulated 150-million-year-old Archaeopteryx fossils, you probably have noticed that they all have a weirdly similar pose; their heads are thrown over their backs, mouths open and tail curved upwards. Scientists have been puzzled for years by what caused this distinctive pose, but now two paleontologists propose an explanation: this characteristic posture was the result of agonized death throes triggered…
grrlscientist | June 11, 2007tags: teaching, streaming video
Everyone knows that "those who can, do, while those who can't, teach". Right? Wrong. This streaming video of Taylor Mali, slam poet and teacher, speaks his mind regarding what teachers make. While it speaks to the traditional foundations of the teaching role, it also speaks to the heart and soul of it. Congrats to all of the teachers who have just finished up for the year, are on the home-stretch, or are about to get started again for another program this summer (or another phase of their year-round program)! [3:08]