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42nd Street Times Square Transfer Corridor Subway Art 19

tags: Times Square, 42nd street Times Square, 35 Times, subway art, NYC through my eye, photography, NYC 35 Times (2005). Glazed ceramic panels. Artist: Toby Buonagurio. Photographed at 42nd Street Times Square in the transfer corridor (between the 1, 2, and 3 trains and the Shuttle). Image: GrrlScientist 5 November 2008 [larger view]. Unfortunately, the vandals have attacked this piece, too. The commission for this work was received in 1992 and the art work was finally installed in 2004 and 2005. The complete work consists of 35 ceramic panels installed in over 800 feet of passages at…

Mystery Bird: Snow Bunting, Plectrophenax nivalis

tags: Snow Bunting, Plectrophenax nivalis, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz [Mystery bird] Snow Bunting, Plectrophenax nivalis, photographed near Cameran Lake Road, Okanogan County, Washington State. [I will identify this bird for you tomorrow] Image: Marv Breece, 26 November 2008 [larger view]. Canon EOS 350D 1/800s f/8.0 at 300.0mm iso400. Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification. Rick Wright, Managing Director of WINGS Birding Tours Worldwide, writes: Now here's a Christmas cookie of a bird, all white sugar and maple frosting! If we can turn for a…

42nd Street Times Square Transfer Corridor Subway Art 8

tags: Times Square, 42nd street Times Square, 35 Times, subway art, NYC through my eye, photography, NYC 35 Times (2005). Glazed ceramic panels. Artist: Toby Buonagurio. Photographed at 42nd Street Times Square in the transfer corridor (between the 1, 2, and 3 trains and the Shuttle). Image: GrrlScientist 5 November 2008 [larger view]. Unfortunately, as you can see, the vandals have been busily trying to destroy some of these works .. The commission for this work was received in 1992 and the art work was finally installed in 2004 and 2005. The complete work consists of 35 ceramic…

Mystery Bird: Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch, Leucosticte tephrocotis

tags: Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch, Leucosticte tephrocotis, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz [Mystery bird] Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch, Leucosticte tephrocotis, Photographed at Meadows Campground, Hart's Pass, in the Okanagan of Washington State. [I will identify this bird for you tomorrow] Image: Lee Rentz, 19 October 2008. Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification. Rick Wright, Managing Director of WINGS Birding Tours Worldwide, writes: Undistinguished in shape -- sort of finch-like, sparrow-like, birdish -- but what colors this bird has! The combination of…

Mystery Bird: Vermilion Flycatcher, Pyrocephalus rubinus

tags: birding, bird watching, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz [Mystery bird] Vermilion Flycatcher, Pyrocephalus rubinus, photographed in Arizona. [I will identify this bird for you tomorrow] Image: Rick Wright [larger view]. Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification. Rick Wright, Managing Director of WINGS Birding Tours Worldwide, writes: Neatly hidden away in the mesquite leaves, this bird's tail isn't going to be of much use to us, beyond ruling out any species that is caudally either extravagantly short or long. Those leaves help us as much as they hinder…

Alternative Holiday Cards Available

I know that the holidays were originally celebrated by non-religious folk -- more commonly known as "godless heathens" by the religious wingnuts of all persuations in the crowd -- but our holidays were savagely stolen, repackaged and sold as religious consumer events devoted to orgiastic spending, so I'd like let you know that you are not stuck sending out schmaltzy religious holiday cards any longer. Now you can reclaim our holidays for what they were: time for celebrating the solstice and spending peaceful time with our loved ones, instead of spending money we don't have on trinkets that…

What Are You Thankful For?

tags: Thanksgiving, what are you grateful for?, giving thanks Image: orphaned [larger view]. Thanksgiving is a celebration of the things that we are thankful for, so I thought I'd make a list of everything I am grateful for; I found a wonderful little cafe and deli that provides free wifi (and an outlet where I can plug in my laptop, which is strategically hidden behind their cookies), so I am thankful that I have free wifi today, when all my usual sources of wifi are closed to the public. (If you happen to be in the neighborhood, stop by and say hello!) I am thankful that I still…

Nice letter

A short letter in this week's Science echoes a point I made in my last article: lying to students will not win them over to your cause. It's what will eventually lead to the defeat of creationism, which prompts them to lie ever more in order to drown out that damning evidence. I was always a mediocre student, especially in high school. I never really knew what I wanted to do, and nothing seemed to excite me. This changed in my senior year, when a creationist visited my biology class. On that fateful day, all the science students were herded into the school auditorium, where we listened to a…

Another Ceiling Incident

There are days when I think that I am cursed. You might recall that it was not too long ago when my bathroom ceiling caved in, making my bathroom unusable for eight days. Unfortunately, now my living room ceiling above and next to my large picture window is getting ready to cave in. This means I might even lose the pane of glass itself -- and knowing the special laws that govern my life, the glass will likely fall into my apartment and shatter on the floor, and become mixed in with hundreds of pounds of plaster, lathe and cockroach and mouse shit, causing me AND my birds great emotional…

Tomorrow is Scientia Day! Are You Ready?

Image: wemidji (Jacques Marcoux). Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est (And thus knowledge itself is power) -- Sir Francis Bacon. Since Tangled Bank has gone the way of the Dodo (Passenger Pigeon, Carolina Parakeet, Ivory-Billed Woodpecker -- insert the name of your favorite extinct species here) and will probably never be seen again, despite promises to the contrary, there is a huge hole in the science writing blogosphere. A hole that must be filled. So I am proposing to do just that: I am starting a new science blog carnival, Scientia, which will be be THE science blog writing carnival.…

Scientia Wants YOU

Image: wemidji (Jacques Marcoux). Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est (And thus knowledge itself is power) -- Sir Francis Bacon. Since Tangled Bank has gone the way of the Dodo (Passenger Pigeon, Carolina Parakeet, Ivory-Billed Woodpecker -- insert the name of your favorite extinct species here) and will probably never be seen again, despite promises to the contrary, there is a huge hole in the science writing blogosphere. A hole that must be filled. So I am proposing to do just that: I am starting a new science blog carnival, Scientia, which will be be THE science blog writing carnival.…

Scientia is Seeking Submissions

Image: wemidji (Jacques Marcoux). Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est (And thus knowledge itself is power) -- Sir Francis Bacon. Since Tangled Bank has gone the way of the Dodo (Passenger Pigeon, Carolina Parakeet, Ivory-Billed Woodpecker -- insert the name of your favorite extinct species here) and will probably never be seen again, despite promises to the contrary, there is a huge hole in the science writing blogosphere. A hole that must be filled. So I am proposing to do just that: I am starting a new science blog carnival, Scientia, which will be be THE science blog writing carnival.…

No surprise, you're all a bunch of mutants

The BBC has an article on the recent direct measurement of human mutation rates, and while it's not a bad article, it does seem to express the view that the result is something novel. It's not; it's a confirmation of a standard measure that scientists have known about for a long, long time. We have estimated the number of novel mutations in newborn human individuals to be somewhere between a hundred and a few hundred (best estimates were on the order of 150) based on a couple of facts. We've had measurements of the fidelity of the enzymes that catalyze replication, and since we know both the…

I Get Books ..

I receive a fair number of books to review each week, so I thought I should do what several magazines and other publications do; list those books that have arrived in my mailbox so you know that this is the pool of books from which I will be reading and reviewing on my blog. Open Lab 2008 (2009). Read more about it. I contributed to this book. Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America-and Found Unexpected Peace by William Lobdell (Collins; 2009). I requested this title and am almost finished reading it. Land of the Lost Souls: My Life on the Streets by…

TONIGHT in NYC: Eric Maisel Talks about Living Well Without Gods

Who: Eric Maisel, PhD What: free public presentation, "Living Well Without Gods" Where: University Settlement, 184 Eldridge Street (and Rivington St.) [map] 273 Bowery (Bowery & Houston) [map] When: 730pm, Thursday, 17 September Eric Maisel, PhD, is the author of more than thirty works of fiction and nonfiction. His latest book is The Atheist's Way: Living Well Without Gods, in which he discusses how to find rich personal meaning in life despite the absence of beneficent gods and the indifference of the universe to human concerns. In his book, Maisel addresses atheists who don't always…

Tomorrow Night in NYC: Eric Maisel Talks about Living Well Without Gods

Who: Eric Maisel, PhD What: free public presentation, "Living Well Without Gods" Where: University Settlement, 184 Eldridge Street (and Rivington St.) [map] 273 Bowery (Bowery & Houston) [map] When: 730pm, Thursday, 17 September Eric Maisel, PhD, is the author of more than thirty works of fiction and nonfiction. His latest book is The Atheist's Way: Living Well Without Gods, in which he discusses how to find rich personal meaning in life despite the absence of beneficent gods and the indifference of the universe to human concerns. In his book, Maisel addresses atheists who don't always…

Last Call: Scientia Pro Publica

Image: wemidji (Jacques Marcoux). Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est (And thus knowledge itself is power) -- Sir Francis Bacon. Scientia Pro Publica (Science for the People) is a blog carnival that celebrates the best science, nature and medical writing targeted specifically to the public that has been published in the blogosphere within the past 60 days. To send your submissions to Scientia Pro Publica, either use this automated submission form or use the cute little widget on the right (sometimes that widget doesn't upload when the mother site is sick). Be sure to include the URL or "…

One Week From Tonight in NYC: Eric Maisel Talks about Living Well Without Gods

Who: Eric Maisel, PhD What: free public presentation, "Living Well Without Gods" Where: University Settlement, 184 Eldridge Street (and Rivington St.) [map] 273 Bowery (Bowery & Houston) [map] When: 730pm, Thursday, 17 September Eric Maisel, PhD, is the author of more than thirty works of fiction and nonfiction. His latest book is The Atheist's Way: Living Well Without Gods, in which he discusses how to find rich personal meaning in life despite the absence of beneficent gods and the indifference of the universe to human concerns. In his book, Maisel addresses atheists who don't always…

Scientia Pro Publica Needs YOU

Image: wemidji (Jacques Marcoux). Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est (And thus knowledge itself is power) -- Sir Francis Bacon. Scientia Pro Publica (Science for the People) is a blog carnival that celebrates the best science, nature and medical writing targeted specifically to the public that has been published in the blogosphere within the past 60 days. To send your submissions to Scientia Pro Publica, either use this automated submission form or use the cute little widget on the right (sometimes that widget doesn't upload when the mother site is sick). Be sure to include the URL or "…

Missiology?

I have learned something new today: you can get a Ph.D. in converting the heathen! DEVELOPING A CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENT IN INDIA By DANE WINSTEAD FOWLKES submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in the subject MISSIOLOGY at the UNIVERSITY OF THE FREE STATE SUPERVISOR: PROFESSOR PIETER VERSTER November 2004 Here's the abstract, if you've got a hankerin' to head on over to India and undermine the Hindu religion, it might be useful. This dissertation acknowledges the need for Church Planting Movements among the unreached peoples of India. Of…

Scientia Pro Publica Needs YOU!

Image: wemidji (Jacques Marcoux). Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est (And thus knowledge itself is power) -- Sir Francis Bacon. Scientia Pro Publica (Science for the People) is a blog carnival that celebrates the best science, nature and medical writing targeted specifically to the public that has been published in the blogosphere within the past 60 days. To send your submissions to Scientia Pro Publica, either use this automated submission form or use the cute little widget on the right (sometimes that widget doesn't upload when the mother site is sick). Be sure to include the URL or "…

Scientia Pro Publica Needs YOU!

Image: wemidji (Jacques Marcoux). Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est (And thus knowledge itself is power) -- Sir Francis Bacon. Scientia Pro Publica (Science for the People) is a blog carnival that celebrates the best science, nature and medical writing targeted specifically to the public that has been published in the blogosphere within the past 60 days. To send your submissions to Scientia Pro Publica, either use this automated submission form or use the cute little widget on the right (sometimes that widget doesn't upload when the mother site is sick). Be sure to include the URL or "…

Seeking Submissions: Scientia Pro Publica

Image: wemidji (Jacques Marcoux). Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est (And thus knowledge itself is power) -- Sir Francis Bacon. Scientia Pro Publica (Science for the People) is a blog carnival that celebrates the best science, nature and medical writing targeted specifically to the public that has been published in the blogosphere within the past 60 days. To send your submissions to Scientia Pro Publica, either use this automated submission form or use the cute little widget on the right (sometimes that widget doesn't upload when the mother site is sick). Be sure to include the URL or "…

At Long Last: A Little More Good News

After this little bit of good news, it seems almost gluttonous of me to tell you that I have a little more good news to share with you. Yesterday, while I languished at home, ill and without stable or consistent wireless access, I finally managed to access email .. and when I did, I learned that ... I received an email from the book reviews editor at Science magazine, asking me to write (what else?) .. a book review. Science, you say .. Do you mean ... ? Why yes, I do mean ... ! The editor emailed me to ask if I'd write a review of a particular book, Birdscapes: Birds in Our…

The Wall around Old Town, Part 4: Get Down Off that Wall

tags: Old Town, Tallinn, Estonia, cities Light. Photographed in Old Town, Tallinn, Estonia. Image: GrrlScientist, 22 July 2009 [larger view]. (raw image) I thought I was done sharing pictures from the wall surrounding the Old Town portion of Tallinn, but I was wrong. After looking through my images today, I realized I have more that I want to share with you. The wall. Photographed in Old Town, Tallinn, Estonia. Image: GrrlScientist, 22 July 2009 [larger view]. (raw image) This is a look at the wall as it curves around the city. I really like this image because there is so much to see…

Scientia Pro Publica Needs YOU!

Image: wemidji (Jacques Marcoux). Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est (And thus knowledge itself is power) -- Sir Francis Bacon. Scientia Pro Publica (Science for the People) is a blog carnival that celebrates the best science, nature and medical writing targeted specifically to the public that has been published in the blogosphere within the past 60 days. To send your submissions to Scientia Pro Publica, either use this automated submission form or use the cute little widget on the right (sometimes that widget doesn't upload when the mother site is sick). Be sure to include the URL or "…

Seeking Submissions: Scientia Pro Publica

Image: wemidji (Jacques Marcoux). Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est (And thus knowledge itself is power) -- Sir Francis Bacon. Scientia Pro Publica (Science for the People) is a blog carnival that celebrates the best science, nature and medical writing targeted specifically to the public that has been published in the blogosphere within the past 60 days. To send your submissions to Scientia Pro Publica, either use this automated submission form or use the cute little widget on the right (sometimes that widget doesn't upload when the mother site is sick). Be sure to include the URL or "…

Seeking Submissions: Scientia Pro Publica

Image: wemidji (Jacques Marcoux). Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est (And thus knowledge itself is power) -- Sir Francis Bacon. Scientia Pro Publica (Science for the People) is a blog carnival that celebrates the best science, nature and medical writing targeted specifically to the public that has been published in the blogosphere within the past 60 days. To send your submissions to Scientia Pro Publica, either use this automated submission form or use the cute little widget on the right (sometimes that widget doesn't upload when the mother site is sick). Be sure to include the URL or "…

The Wall around Old Town, Part 2: Inside the Wall

tags: Old Town, Tallinn, Estonia, cities A room inside the wall around Old Town. Photographed in Old Town, Tallinn, Estonia. Image: GrrlScientist, 22 July 2009 [larger view]. (raw image) This is a room inside the wall that surrounds the Old Town portion of Tallinn, Estonia. As you can see, this room is in remarkably pristine condition, despite being older than god. Sorry that the pic is so bad, but the ambient lighting was impossible to deal with. Another look at the room inside the wall around Old Town. Photographed in Old Town, Tallinn, Estonia. Image: GrrlScientist, 22 July 2009 […

A Day in Tallinn, Eesti Vabariik, Part 2

tags: Tallinn Estonia, travel, photography, Europe Tallinna sadam, Eesti Vabariik (The Port of Tallinn, Estonia). Image: Ralf Roletschek (Wikipedia) [larger view]. [NOTE: Does this announcement sound familiar? Hopefully, I will not have this trip ruined by undergoing surgery to have a piece of titanium screwed into the bone of my wrist this time, which cost the travel insurance company more than $10,000 -- and still counting. Ahem.] I am SO EXCITED! As if spending three glorious weeks in Helsinki, Finland isn't enough, I will be visiting Eesti Vabariik, or Estonia, tomorrow. I will arise…

Bird flu data: how good?

H5N1 bird flu is now in 55 countries, in each of which it has severe economic consequences on the poultry industry and carries with it an unknown but potentially catastrophic public health threat. Since it is s a disease of animals (primarily birds), much of the work has been done by veterinarians and ornithologists. One would expect us to have a great deal of information, given the attention this nasty virus has received, in the laboratory, the field and among the general public and press. And we do. But a recent paper in the journal BioScience (published by the American Institute of…

What is their problem?

Man, the comments on my guest editorial at the Raw Story are nuts. I don't know if the word "secular" brought out a flock of trolls, or if that place is always infested with these uncomprehending goons. There are a couple of people who seem baffled by the fact that I wrote a positive piece on the virtues of secularism, yet my prior comment on Melinda Barton was a negative work that concentrated on criticizing her sloppy logic and sneaky redefinitions. It's bad enough that they are surprised that one person can use two different tactics, but they're also suggesting that the fact that I didn't…

Transfusions and desperation

An article in the current issue of Annals of Internal Medicine again raises the issue of passive immunization to treat H5N1 using plasma from recovered cases (Eurealert). The idea is that antibodies against H5N1 in the convalescent blood of a recovered case would be therapeutically effective. This is an old idea and was tried in the 1918 flu pandemic. The current paper is said to be confirmed by a handful of uncontrolled studies published ninety years ago during that catastrophe. The idea certainly has biological plausibility. It also has the feeling of an act of desperation. The logistics of…

Jump down, turn around, pick a bale of GM cotton

Genetically modified cotton resistant to bollworm is a reality and five million Chinese cotton farmers have embraced it. It works, too, killing bollworm larvae that used to kill their cotton. IN the late 1990s it looked like a miracle. Pesticide use was cut by 70%. After seven years, though, the miracle is looking more like a curse because new pests called mirids have rushed into the pest vacuum and taken up shop. "The farmers are very upset about it, because GM cotton was such a wonderful thing, and they don't understand why it won't work now," says Shenghui Wang of Cornell University in…

Bush, the Cardinal and stem cells

The ultra right US House of Representatives has voted to lift some restrictions on embryonic stem cell research and the Senate will likely follow suit, maybe as soon as today (New Scientist). The bill effectively zeroes out a five year ban on federal financing of stem cell research by allowing researchers to use federal grants to use embryonic stem cells dervied from surplus embryos produced by in vitro fertilization that would otherwise be destroyed. Currently it is very difficult for academic researchers to do any embryonic stem cell research because the only allowed cell lines (derived…

Measles and mumps World Cup action

The 64 World Cup soccer (fotbol) matches started a week ago in 12 German cities and will continue until July 9. Three million soccer fans are expected from Europe and beyond. Three of the cities where matches will be played, Cologne, Dortmund and Gelsenkirchen, are in the German state of Nordrhein-Westfalen. So is a measles outbreak in children and young adults. The Ukraine is also experiencing a large measles outbreak, with case numbers exceeding 20,000 by the end of February. The Ukrainian National team qualified for the tournament and will undoubtedly have many fans there. Meanwhile…

Knowledge Interoperability

Below, John Wilbanks answers our final question. Cross-disciplinarity seems to work best when there's a problem that has a few facets that are apparently unconnected, but the disconnect comes from the artificial way we divide up the knowledge. Because in reality the problem is simply the problem, but scientists get trained into reductively narrow disciplines to become experts in those disciplines, get grants, and get tenure. Overcoming the narrow reductive natures that get trained is one of the challenges here—the scientists on cross-discipline teams spend a ton of time just learning the…

Design Fiction

Anthony Dunne's call for mass speculation (in political science, genetics, ethics, economics, pretty much every discipline) is founded on a refreshing optimism. Dunne: "Today we don't just need solutions, we also need dreams." He is right—designers that are too polite to take chances and postulate wild hypotheses are doomed to simply churn out next year's model. So Dunne's idealized designer functions kind of similar to a science-fiction author, an individual engaged in a projective practice that aspires to produce novelty and innovation rather than style. Ironically, in a recent article for…

The Neurology of the Soul

Below, Edward Einhorn answers the second of our three questions. I have long wanted to work on a project I have called The Neurology of the Soul. I have conceived of it as a theater piece, as I do a lot of theater about neurology, but I think conceptually it is an exploration that could happen across many mediums. I am fascinated with the research on the neurology of love, the brain activity of attraction. How do the neurological processes mesh with the poetics of love that humankind has written about over the millennia? And how do those expressions of feeling feed back into the…

Michelle Borkin on Making Essential Technology Cheaper

Below, Michelle Borkin responds to the question: The boundaries of science are continually expanding as scientists become increasingly integral to finding solutions for larger social issues, such as poverty, conflict, financial crises, etc. On what specific issue/problem do you feel we need to bring the scientific lens to bear? Advances in science and computing have extraordinary potential to address social issues around the globe. The challenge is making sure there are people dedicated to leverage the newest scientific advances and make them applicable and affordable to the cause at hand…

Around the Web: Some resources on the Panton Principles & open data [Confessions of a Science Librarian]

As part of a workshop on Creative Commons, I'm doing a short presentation on Open Data and The Panton Principles this week to various members of our staff. I thought I'd share some of the resources I've consulted during my preparations. I'm using textmining of journal articles as a example so I'm including a few resources along those lines as well. The Panton Principles Why does Dryad use CC0? #sparc2012 a manifesto in absentia for Open Data Information mining from Springer full-text: I ask for freedom Textmining Update: Max Haussler's Questions to publishers: They have a duty to reply…

Do people still use microarrays? [evolgen]

Larry Moran points to a couple of posts critical of microarrays (The Problem with Microarrays): Why microarray study conclusions are so often wrong Three reasons to distrust microarray results Microarrays are small chips that are covered with short stretches of single stranded DNA. People hybridize DNA from some source to the microarray, which lights up if the DNA hybridizes to the probes on the array. Most biologists are familiar with microarrays being used to measure gene expression. In this case, transcribed DNA is hybridized to the array, and the intensity of the signal is used as a…

Oh, wait, that's right, I have a BLOG [See Jane Compute]

Um, hi. Apparently I've been gone for a while. Yeah. Sorry about that. Life's been a bit crazy around here lately, and I feel like I'm barely keeping my head above water. I'm not sleeping. I'm not taking care of myself. I'm sick. I'm stressed to the gills. I have way too much to do. I feel like I work all the damn time. Hmmm, maybe that's because I *do* work all the damn time. In addition to not having time to breathe blog, I haven't really been in the headspace to blog. I have a ton of stuff on my mind, but I'm not sure how to blog it. It's all about tenure, of course: the…

Helping Vermont [bioephemera]

Photo of Vermont highway courtesy of Kyle Cornell Last week, I had my long-awaited vacation semi-ruined when, thanks to Hurricane Irene, my flight back from the West Coast was cancelled. I had to rent a car and drive across the country in a rush - not my favorite way to spend three and a half days. But based on what I saw passing through New York, and what I've heard about the damage in Vermont, I can't complain: flooding has overturned homes, isolated entire towns, and destroyed everything some families own. Vermonters are a notoriously self-sufficient bunch, and I haven't seen that much…

Around the Web: Tradition & Angst, SHAREs, Virtues, Mozillas, Leaders and more

In Praise of Traditional Libraries How not to be a dick to a librarian What Librarians Lack: The Importance of the Entrepreneurial Spirit In Service? A Further Provocation on Digital Humanities Research in Libraries What I Wish I’d Known in Graduate School Academics will need both the physical and virtual library for years to come Throwing the Books at Each Other ACRL Value of Academic Libraries Bibliography The Librarian’s Love/Hate/Love Relationship with Books Life Sciences Library – Consultation News, Next Steps and Cruess-Boyer Report (McGill) Opportunities and Barriers for Librarians in…

Friday Fun: 20 heroic librarians who save the world

Librarians seem to be under siege these days, both from within and without. But at our core, librarians no matter where they work just want to make the world a better place. io9 has a wonderful older post with a list of fictional librarians who've perhaps put that motto into action a little more directly than most: 20 heroic librarians who save the world. Here's a couple, but definitely go on over to the post and check the rest out: Rex Libris in the Rex Libris comics Rex Libris is the "tough-as-nails Head Librarian at Middleton Public Library," who strikes fear into recalcitrant borrowers —…

Around the Web: More on open data, textmining the literature and The Panton Principles

My colleagues and I are taking our Creative Commons/Panton Principles presentation on the road to another library conference this winter. As a result, I'm still compiling more references on the topic so I thought I share what I've found recently with all of you. Of course, suggestions for more resources are always welcome in the comments. NLM APIs (library as data incubator) Harvard Releases Big Data for Books What does one do with millions of MARC records? Harvard Library Bibliographic Dataset Now Available via EBSCO Discovery Service™ from EBSCO Publishing Harvard Publicly Releases…

Friday Fun: Walter Mosley on The Case for Genre

Longtime followers of this blog will know that I'm a fan of genre fiction, and the more genres the better: science fiction, fantasy, horror, hard boiled and noir. And in a lot of ways those genre boundaries are fluid, and sometimes the authors themselves embody that fluidity. Walter Mosley is one of those authors, writing with great success in both the mystery and science fiction genres. Here's what he had to say recently in the Tor.com blog: The Case for Genre. In my opinion science fiction and fantasy writing has the potential to be the most intelligent, spiritual, inventive, and the most…

Friday Fun: 7 inventors killed by their inventions

I am somehow attracted to stories that are both incredibly sad and at the same time incredibly hilarious. A character defect, I know. There must even be some sort of name for the condition, like ludustristophilia. Or something. Anyways, this one really qualifies: 7 inventors killed by their inventions. It's kind of like the Darwin Awards, but twisted and distorted by a funhouse mirror. The life of an inventor is not an easy one. First you have to come up with a good idea that solves a problem in a way that no one has thought of before, and then you need to design and engineer your idea to…

Around the Web: Some resources on the Panton Principles & open data

As part of a workshop on Creative Commons, I'm doing a short presentation on Open Data and The Panton Principles this week to various members of our staff. I thought I'd share some of the resources I've consulted during my preparations. I'm using textmining of journal articles as a example so I'm including a few resources along those lines as well. The Panton Principles Why does Dryad use CC0? #sparc2012 a manifesto in absentia for Open Data Information mining from Springer full-text: I ask for freedom Textmining Update: Max Haussler's Questions to publishers: They have a duty to reply…