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So That's Why Climate Denialism is So Successful...

Kurt Cobb has a very funny essay that argues that plants and animals have joined with the climate denialists to bring about the better for them "World Without Us": The reversal of strategy began when domestic cats and dogs watched the Life After People series on The History Channel along with their putative owners. The cats and dogs then described scenes from the show to their wild counterparts. From there word swept through the animal kingdom and was overheard by many plants as well. Life After People seemed like a utopian fantasy until some enterprising house plants realized that they might…

Occupational Health News Roundup

Becoming a mayor or a journalist might not seem like a particularly life-threatening career choice, but in parts of Mexico wracked by drug violence these have become dangerous jobs. Tim Johnson of McClatchy Newspapers reports: As if Mexicans needed more evidence that criminal groups are trying to hijack the political life of the nation, it came with a ferocious triple-whammy punch in the past 24 hours. Assailants shot and seriously wounded the mayor-elect of a town in the border state of Chihuahua Friday afternoon, less than a day after commandos in Nuevo Leon state executed a sitting mayor…

Using Facebook to react to MSHA chief's latest on Massey investigation

I can't keep up with Ken Ward Jr.'s coverage of the trouble brewing, battle, strong difference of opinion between Secretary Hilda Solis/MSHA Asst. Secretary Joe Main and the United Mine Workers (UMWA), family members of deceased coal miners and journalists about the Department of Labor's decision to have closed-door interviews of witnesses as part of the Massey Upper Big Branch disaster investigation. Lest you think the press and blogs are the only way to take the pulse of the public, think again. Mr. Dennis O'Dell, the current UMWA H&S director, is sharing his disgust about MSHA's…

KBR and DoD expose workers and soldiers to a carcinogen but it's not a big deal

by revere, cross-posted at Effect Measure What's a little sodium dichromate, anyway? So it's a known human carcinogen and can do a lot of other nasty things. No big deal. Not for Iraq war contractor, KBR, anyway. At the time KBR was a subsidiary of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld's Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, Halliburton. So when they were given a lucrative contract to clean up and safeguard Iraqi oilfields after the Bush Mission was Accomplished in 2003, they told the soldiers and workers that the chemical, used as an antirust agent and then strewn all over the oil facilities,…

Safety Videos Spark Debate about "Accidents"

How do you best teach workers about safety?  How do you change peopleâs attitudes?  The Workersâ Comp board in Ontario, Cananda, and many safety instructors along with them, believes that gruesome pictures or videos work best.  Like driving by the scene of a car accident, it is hard not to look.  Perhaps by showing a horrific accident, workers will be more careful or take more precautions.  The Ontario Worker Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) produced a series of five short (30 second) videos for different industries each showing an âaccidentâ which occurs and then saying how this could…

Iron Triangle and Global Food Aid

An op-ed in the Baltimore Sun introduced me to a new use for the term "Iron Triangle," this one pertains industries and organizations involved in food aid.  In "It's Time to Stop a Tragic Waste," David Kohn writes how hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. food aid is squandered on subsidies to "corporate agribusinesses, shipping companies and large aid agencies."  Unlike other wealthy countries, he writes, the U.S. "insists on buying 99 percent of its food aid from U.S. farmers, at U.S. market prices, and then sending this food overseas." There are a multitude of reasons why this…

Administration Lets Murrelets Keep Habitat

Some good news on endangered species, for a change (via Dateline Earth): the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service will retain existing critical habitat currently designated under the Endangered Species Act for marbled murrelet populations on the West Coast. This is a reversal from the Bush Administration, which had been trying to reduce the habitat in order to allow more logging in the old-growth forests where the bird nests. The APâs Jeff Barnard explains: The Northwest Forest Plan, adopted in 1994 by the federal government to comply with federal court rulings, cut logging on national forests in…

Do the tropics have a flu season?

by revere, cross-posted from Effect Measure The scientific literature is full of specialized papers that on their face would seem to be of little interest. Here's a title like that: "Prevalence and seasonality of influenza-like illness in children, Nicaragua, 2005-2007" (Gordon et al., Emerging Infectious Diseases 2009 Mar). Over 4000 Nicaraguan children, aged 2 to 11 years old and living in the capital of Managua were followed for 2 years, April 2005 to April 2007 and observed for development of ILI (influenza-like illness). We know a lot about influenza in major industrialized countries in…

Aracoma Coal Miners "Died Over Money"

A wrongful-death lawsuit related to Massey Energy's Aracoma Alma coal mine commenced yesterday in West Virginia courthouse.  Mr. Donald Bragg, 33, and Mr. Elvis Hatfield, 46, died in a mine fire on January 19, 2006.  According to an Associated Press account (here) the widows' attorney Bruce Stanley told the jury that Massey Energy's CEO, Don Blankenship urged the mine's managers to focus on production, instead of maintenance, dust control or other non-production matters. "They died over money," Stanley said. Ken Ward of the Charleston Gazette reports here that the company's…

Farewell Letter from OSHA's Foulke

OSHA's Asst. Secretary Edwin G. Foulke Jr sent a farewell letter to the staff, dated Election Day Nov 7, recounting his goal on taking the job in March 2006: "I just want OSHA to be the best Agency it can be" Reading his 4-page farewell letter, he thinks he accomplished it.  He asserts: "without a doubt, we should all be proud of the fact that American workplaces are safer and more healthful today than ever before." Somehow I doubt that workers who developed bronchiolitis obliterans from exposure to the buttery-flavoring agent diacetyl, burned to death in the Imperial Sugar combustible…

Public Health Rocks!!

The front page of today's Washington Post announces "Public Health Is a Hot Field," reporting that an understanding of epidemiology, community-based interventions, disease surveillance and study design are high-demand topics on college campuses for undergraduate students.  I learned this exact thing two years ago when I was asked to teach part of the required curriculum for the George Washington University's (GWU) Bachelor of Science in Public Health degree.  Wash Post reporter Dan Brown writes: Public health courses "...are drawing undergraduates to lecture halls in record numbers…

Chinese baby formula scandal

by revere, cross-posted at Effect Measure Two of my grandsons were here today. They are just babies (16 months and month and half) but one of them is a little colicky. He looks like he is having cramps after downing his formula. But compared to some babies in China, it's nothing. The formula they've been drinking was adulterated with melamine, the same adulterant responsible for pet deaths from tainted dog food not long ago (see here, here, here). Dozens of poor babies have kidney stones. One has died. If you've never had kidney stones, this might not mean that much. But I've had them. Twice…

Interventions to Improve the Health of the Poor

The Council of Science Editors has organized 235 journals from 37 countries are publishing more than 750 articles on poverty and human development this week. For its theme issue, PLoS Medicine asked a variety of commentators from around the world to name the single intervention that they think would improve the health of those living on less than $1 per day. While reading the article, I was struck by three themes that emerged in multiple responses: Water and sanitation â Several respondents identified improved access to clean water and sanitation as a high-impact intervention. Sanjeev…

Are OSHA Stats Really Good News?

Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao announced that workplace injury and illness rates for 2006 were the "lowest ever recorded" and noted it was the fourth consecutive year of a rate decline for private sector employers. "The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report, showing the lowest rates since the Labor Department began collecting data in 1972, confirms that OSHA's consistent emphasis on prevention is paying off with lower on-the-job injuries and illnesses. This report encourages us to continue our balanced strategy of fair and effective enforcement..." Before we allow the Bush Administration…

Will OSHA Prove Us Wrong?

Just before the House passed legislation last month requiring OSHA to regulate diacetyl, OSHAâs press office went into high gear, announcing the agency was getting to work on just that issue. Two days before the vote, OSHA announced it was initiating rulemaking under section 6(b) of the Occupational Safety and Health Act. In other words, it was finally going to start the process of issuing a standard to protect workers exposed to hazardous flavor chemicals. As part of that process, it announced a stakeholder meeting, scheduled for October 17, 2007. (I'll be attending the meeting, and have…

Hand washing? Really Libertarians?

The latest entry in the "OMG really?" wars is brought to us by the libertarians, who, using the example of the brutal oppression of hand washing regulations, make total fools of themselves. Speaking during a question-and-answer session at the Bipartisan Policy Center on Monday, Tillis related a story from his tenure in the North Carolina legislature to help explain his overarching philosophy on the finer points of hand-washing. “I was having this discussion with someone, and we were at a Starbucks in my district, and we were talking about certain regulations where I felt like maybe you…

Maryland how I love thee

I'm so proud of my home state for affirming equality for all in the ballot box rather than in the courts. I was born and raised in Maryland, although I've spent more of my adult life in Virginia, one of the big things I've noticed in the divide between the two states (and I love both of them) is that Marylanders do a better job at taking care of each other, and running an effective state with high quality services. Marylanders believe government can work, and generally (outside of Baltimore) it does. Marylanders also reject bigotry, and with question 4 (the Maryland Dream act) and question…

A cup of...?

As I continue to fight the good fight against my first respiratory infection of the season, I will serve you a few portions of learnin' from the old blog. --PalMD Cupping goes back millennia. In the U.S., the marks of cupping are often seen in immigrant communities, particularly those from Southeast Asia, and are often mis-identified as signs of abuse. It's an interesting practice, with many different explanations, depending on the culture. It's often used to do the cultural equivalent of drawing out "ill humors". Of course, there is no scientific basis for this. Historically it is…

Another of our failures as science educators

There's been much written around here about the NYT's David Brooks' foray in to non-materialist neuroscience. Well, today the letters to the editor are in, and some of them are interesting (although most aren't particularly sophisticated). One in particular highlights some failures we've had as science educators (including a failure to educate editors): To the Editor: As an engineer, lawyer, computer programmer and Roman Catholic, I have a problem with the concept that the evolution of the species just happened. From an evolutionary perspective, we are probably somewhere in the chicken and…

I hate orange urine

Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are a very common problem, especially in women. The link provided offers some very good information, but briefly, women's urethrae (the tube the urine comes out of), are closer to the rectum than those of men (who have a built-in "spacer"). This allows bacteria from the colon to creep over to the urinary tract and cause burning, pelvic pain, frequent urination, etc. I treat UTIs daily. Most are uncomplicated, but some are quite serious (usually in the elderly and chronically ill). As medical problems go, I love UTIs. When a healthy, young woman comes in with…

What a horrible idea

This idea is so bad that I might even agree with a Scientologist about it (OK, not really). A company I will not name or link to has developed a home genetic test for bipolar disorder. What could be so horrible about making it easier for people to diagnose diseases? Well, first there is a problem of "begging the question": does the test do what it is purported to do? (Test X)⢠- tests for two mutations in the GRK3 gene that are associated with bipolar disorder. Patients who have either of these two mutations, are Caucasian, of Northern European ancestry and have a family history of…

Bad Charlottesville News

I've lived in Charlottesville Virginia now for about 8 years and one of the great things I love about it is the Corner community. I have a bar I like, there is a good music at the Satellite Ballroom where I plan on seeing They Might Be Giants this month. We've got lots of local businesses and restaurants where you feel like you're experiencing something unique and your money goes to local people you know and like. Then you hear crappy news like 4 local businesses are going to get shut down to put in a national chain store like a CVS and it's like a punch in the gut. In this case, the…

Another attack on a researcher

This time it appears to be a physical assault and an attempt to enter a home of a researcher that works with mice. The researcher described the attack in which people wearing masks attempted to break into her house during her daughter's birthday party. Although her identity is being protected, I admire her moxy, she's not going to back down. "I'm a scientist, I do research that's really valuable," she said. "One in seven women get breast cancer." She also said she refused to move from her Westside Santa Cruz home, where police say six masked intruders banged on her door and tried to…

You have my sympathies, Birmingham

Birmingham, Alabama apparently has a serious crime problem. That's bad news, but to compound it all, they've got a mayor who is a fecking idjit. Mayor Larry Langford has a plan to deal with crime. At Tuesday’s Birmingham City Council meeting, Mayor Larry Langford proclaimed Friday, April 25, a “day of prayer in sackcloth and ashes” in Birmingham. Birmingham Weekly reported two weeks ago that the mayor purchased 2,000 burlap sacks for ministers and other community leaders to wear at a Plan 10/30 summit. To many Christians, sackcloth and ashes symbolize humility and repentance, but the mayor’s…

Summer reading: memoirs in global health and field epidemiology

I know summer is winding down, but there's still plenty of beach time left and some great books to take along with you. Two giants in the field have recently released memoirs of their respective fights against infectious diseases: William Foege's House on Fire: The Fight to Eradicate Smallpox and Peter Piot's No Time to Lose: A Life in Pursuit of Deadly Viruses. I'll begin with William Foege. Foege is a native Iowan, an Epidemic Intelligence Service alum, and former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. His book, as the title suggests, focuses on his role in the fight…

MRSA found in Iowa meat

I've blogged previously on a few U.S. studies which investigated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in raw meat products (including chicken, beef, turkey, and pork). This isn't just a casual observation as one who eats food--I follow this area closely as we also have done our own pair of food sampling investigations here in Iowa, and will be doing a much larger, USDA-funded investigation of the issue over the next 5 years. Let me sum up where the field currently stands. There have been a number of studies looking at S. aureus on raw meat products, carried out both here in North…

You're too [pretty/young/female, take your pick] to be a microbiologist!

This wasn't the post I wanted to write about the ASM conference. There's been lots of great science discussed (I've tried to tweet some of it, but the wifi in both the conference center and my hotel have been spotty, so I've not had a chance to write anything comprehensive). Instead, I'm ticked off and venting via dashed-off blog rant. [Me, trying to make a purchase]: Do you have any of these in a box that doesn't say "from someone in New Orleans who loves you"? I was going to get them for my lab and that might be kind of creepy. [Retail salesguy]: Your lab? I'm not sure those are good for…

Field work 101...a crash course for my summer students

As I've mentioned, this has been a busy year. In the span of 3 months, 3 small grants were funded; enough to keep me busy for the next year. Though my training prior to arriving here was almost exclusively in bench microbiology (mostly molecular microbiology/molecular epidemiology), I knew when I took my current job that I wanted to expand that and go beyond just examining whatever samples someone else had on hand, and set up my own studies. Being Iowa, a big focus of our work is rural health and agriculture, so this has taken me out to cattle and pig farms--previously with a technician…

Of jackalopes and tree men--and the virus they have in common

It still amazes me sometimes what viruses are capable of doing. I've written a number of times about one virus in particular, the human papilloma virus (HPV). This is the virus implicated in cervical cancer, and it also plays a role in head and neck cancers. There are a number of different strains of HPV--some of them are oncogenic (cancer-causing), while others cause more benign infections, such as warts. A related virus in rabbits also causes a type of warts, which can replicate out of control and form horny growths (indeed, this is the likely origin of the jackalope myth). Humans…

DonorsChoose 2007--final call!

Edited to add: we've reached our goal! Thank you so much to all who participated; if others would still like to donate, Janet has a list of other blogger challenges--and remember that every completed challenge gets a 10% completion bonus from DonorsChoose, stretching your donation farther. Finally, donors--don't forget to register for prizes! The Scienceblogs DonorsChoose challenge is wrapping up--the contest officially ends at the end of the month. So far readers here have donated $1,590 to help out teachers and students, largely in districts with high poverty levels. I want to first…

Toxicologist Wins Public Health Award

By David Michaels Congratulations to Ron Melnick! Ron is a senior toxicologist and director of special programs in the Environmental Toxicology Program at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Since coming to NIEHS as a young toxicologist 36+ years ago, Ron has produced made a huge contribution to our understanding of the health effects of chemical exposures. Beyond this, Ron has worked tirelessly to ensure that NIEHS science is done in a way that it can be used in developing public health policy, and he has worked equally hard to ensure that policy makers use the best…

OSHA Launches Microwave Popcorn National Emphasis Program

Back in April we reported that OSHA, facing scrutiny over its failure to protect food and flavoring workers from exposure to the butter flavoring chemical diacetyl, had announced a National Emphasis Program for the microwave popcorn industry. Last week, OSHA published a directive (PDF) to launch this one-year program. OSHAâs effort will involve âinspection targeting, direction on methods of controlling chemical hazards, and extensive compliance assistance.â The most glaring hole in the program, as we noted earlier, is that it only covers microwave popcorn manufacturing. In 2000, OSHA was…

Over the Food Industryâs Opposition, California Moves Toward Banning Artificial Butter Flavor Chemical

By David Michaels Every month, more workers exposed to artificial butter flavor are being diagnosed with lung disease. Last July, two unions, with the help of the Scientific Knowledge and Public Policy Project, petitioned OSHA for an Emergency Temporary Standards to protect workers from exposure to diacetyl, a flavoring chemical that causes bronchiolitis obliterans, a debilitating and sometimes fatal lung disease. Nine months have passed, several workers have died, and, as far as I can tell, OSHA has done NOTHING. This continues to be a case study in regulatory failure. Meanwhile, things are…

NTP Takes a Step on Contractor Conflicts

A few weeks ago, we detailed some of the concerns about the review of the chemical Bisphenol-A (BPA) coordinated by the contractor Sciences International for the National Toxicology Programâs (NTP) Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction (CERHR). The story broke shortly before an expert panel on BPA was scheduled to meet, when Environmental Working Group reported that Sciences International has worked closely with tobacco and chemical companies â including Dow Chemical, a BPA manufacturer.  We noted that these were evidently previous clients of Sciences International, which…

MSHAâs New Rules on Counting Fatalities

MSHAâs Assistant Secretary Richard Stickler revealed yesterday the agencyâs new procedures for determining whether a work-related death âis to be counted as a reportable death in MSHAâs official statistics.â  In my post âCounting (or Not) of Workersâ Deaths,â I pushed Mr. Stickler to share the results of his review of MSHAâs fatality accounting system.  After reading the new policy, Iâm having one of those âbe careful what you wish forâ reactions. In a memorandum entitled âProcess for Determining Chargeability of Fatal Accidents,â Assistant Secretary Stickler provides a âFatal Injury…

OSHA at Thirty Five - Continued Discussion

There have been a number of thoughtful and challenging comments on the future of safety and health posted in the past week. I want to acknowledge some of these and also to suggest more discussion about the principles that might help choose which potential actions to increase worker protection should get priority attention. Donald Coit Smith raised legitimate concern about insurance funds being used to fund inspections rather when injured workers receive inadequate benefits to cover their lost wages after injuries. However, I cannot agree with his suggestion that penalty dollars be used to…

ExxonMobil Says It Will Stop Manufacturing Uncertainty â Who is Next?

By David Michaels In todayâs Wall Street Journal (sub required), Jeffrey Ball reports that ExxonMobil has decided to stop funding several of the groups that have been in the forefront of attacking the scientific evidence on global warming. The campaign to shame ExxonMobil appears to be working. Earlier this week, the Union of Concerned Scientists issued a damning report describing how the oil giant funneled nearly $16 million between 1998 and 2005 to a network of 43 advocacy organizations that seek to confuse the public on global warming science: In an effort to deceive the public about the…

Emerging Diseases and Zoonoses Series #14--Dog flu strikes Wyoming

Cheyenne shelter dogs to be euthanized All 70 to 80 dogs at the Cheyenne Animal Shelter will be euthanized because of an outbreak of canine influenza that has closed the shelter for more than two weeks, shelter officials announced. Shelter officials said there was no way to test for the virus quickly and thus no way to tell which dogs were infected. Shelter director Alan Cohen said that unless all the dogs were killed, he couldn't guarantee that they wouldn't re-infect themselves and other animals. "If I do not euthanize these animals, how can I let them loose knowing they might spread it to…

Belatedly, Nemoramjetia (= Avisapiens)

I've been so busy over the past several weeks that I've totally failed to keep up with several of my favourite blogs. One of them is Andrea Cau's Theropoda, written in Italian but translatable into English thanks to the wonder of google's translator widget (incidentally, my grandmother on my dad's side was Italian). The amount of detail Andrea puts in to his posts is awesome, as are the many novel excellent illustrations he uses (virtually all of which he produces himself). And I've only just seen this, dating from early October... Andrea posted it here, basically as a guessing game (all…

Because it would be wrong not to mention a sperm whale named like a tyrannosaur

To begin with, I want to thank everyone who continued to visit Tet Zoo while I was away - you managed to keep Tet Zoo in the top 5 on Nature Blog Network - and I was surprised and pleased that several long-running conversations developed in the comments section of the bunny-killing heron article. Awesome, thanks so much. My trip away was great and I had an excellent time, though what wasn't so excellent is that it was literally sandwiched in between two family funerals. I'm ok now though... For now, all I want to do is showcase the incredible new fossil sperm whale Acrophyseter deinodon,…

Building Manifolds with Products

Time to get back to some topology, with the new computer. Short post this morning, but at least it's something. (I had a few posts queued up, just needing diagrams, but they got burned with the old computer. I had my work stuff backed up, but I don't let my personal stuff get into the company backups; I like to keep them clearly separated. And I didn't run my backups the way I should have for a few weeks.) Last time, I started to explain a bit of patchwork: building manifolds from other manifolds using *gluing*. I'll have more to say about patchwork on manifolds, but first, I want to look at…

Heron tries to swallow giant lamprey. Chokes. Dies. Second heron tries same trick. Also chokes. Also dies.

It's well known that herons are gluttonous birds that will catch and eat (or try to eat) pretty much any animal within the right size range. Everyone knows that herons eat fish, but they also eat frogs, snakes, small mammals (including rodents and rabbits), and birds including doves, grebes and ducklings. We previously looked at a rabbit-eating Great grey heron Ardea cinerea here. I'm actually intending to talk about herons and their feeding behaviour at length at some stage; not today though. Over-enthusiastic attempts to swallow large prey items have resulted in various recorded heron…

Nobel laureates on being young and the future of science - guest post by Lars Fischer

Lars Fischer studied chemistry and now works as a science journalist, blogger at Fischblog and coordinator at the German-language science blogging site scilogs.de (which recently spawned the English-language sister site scilogs.eu). Lars and I spent a lot of time together at the Lindau Nobel meeting where Lars interviewed me and I asked Lars to provide a guest-post for my blog about the main 'take-home' message he got from the conference: Richard Feynman was 29 when he finally published his works on quantum electrodynamics. At the age of 22, Charles Darwin first set foot on the Beagle, and…

Ecuador Constitution Would Grant Inalienable Rights To Nature

L.A.Times: No other country has gone as far as Ecuador in proposing to give trees their day in court, but it certainly is not alone in its recalibration of natural rights. Religious leaders, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Dalai Lama and the Archbishop of Constantinople, have declared that caring for the environment is a spiritual duty. And earlier this year, the Catholic Church updated its list of deadly sins to include polluting the environment. Ecuador is codifying this shift in sensibility. In some ways, this makes sense for a country whose cultural identity is almost…

My picks from ScienceDaily

Say It In Song: Researcher Deciphers Meaning Within Bird Communication: To many people, bird song can herald the coming of spring, reveal what kind of bird is perched nearby or be merely an unwelcome early morning intrusion. But to Sandra Vehrencamp, Cornell professor of neurobiology and behavior, bird song is a code from which to glean insights into avian behavior. Pain Hurts More If Person Hurting You Means It: Researchers at Harvard University have discovered that our experience of pain depends on whether we think someone caused the pain intentionally. In their study, participants who…

My picks from ScienceDaily

Melatonin May Save Eyesight In Inflammatory Disease, Study Suggests: Current research suggests that melatonin therapy may help treat uveitis, a common inflammatory eye disease. People with uveitis develop sudden redness and pain in their eyes, and their vision rapidly deteriorates. Untreated, uveitis can lead to permanent vision loss, accounting for an estimated 10-15% of cases of blindness in the US. Uveitis has a wide variety of causes, including eye injury, cancer, infection, and autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis. There is currently no optimal…

Advice for potential graduate students

I wish every single laboratory web-page contained a disclaimer like this one: We currently have room in the lab for more graduate students. Before you apply to this lab or any other, there are a few things to keep in mind. First, be realistic about graduate school. Graduate school in biology is not a sure path to success. Many students assume that they will eventually get a job just like their advisor's. However, the average professor at a research university has three students at a time for about 5 years each. So, over a career of 30 years, this professor has about 18 students. Since the…

Light Pollution

There is a nice article in this month's National Geographic about Light Pollution. Unlike most popular articles on the topic which focus on the visibility of stars - an aesthetic problem - this article focuses on the effect of continuous light on animals and humans: We've lit up the night as if it were an unoccupied country, when nothing could be further from the truth. Among mammals alone, the number of nocturnal species is astonishing. Light is a powerful biological force, and on many species it acts as a magnet, a process being studied by researchers such as Travis Longcore and Catherine…

My Picks From ScienceDaily

Mammalian Clock Protein Responds Directly To Light: We all know that light effects the growth and development of plants, but what effect does light have on humans and animals? A new paper by Nathalie Hoang et al., published in PLoS Biology, explores this question by examining cryptochromes in flies, mice, and humans. In plants, cryptochromes are photoreceptor proteins which absorb and process blue light for functions such as growth, seedling development, and leaf and stem expansion. Cryptochromes are present in humans and animals as well and have been proven to regulate the mechanisms of the…

Mind Mashup: A Video Contest to Showcase Student Views on Information Sharing

SPARC just announced the Mind Mashup: A Video Contest: SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) today announced the launch of the first annual SPARC Discovery Awards, a contest to promote the open exchange of information. Mind Mashup, the theme of the 2007 contest, calls on entrants to illustrate in a short video the importance of sharing ideas and information of all kinds. Mashup is an expression referring to a song, video, Web site or software application that combines content from more than one source. Consistent with SPARC's mission as an international alliance of…