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Hey, where's my booklet?

Way back in July, I proposed that an appropriate response to the inane creationist ads that were appearing on scienceblogs was for people to take advantage of one, an offer of a free booklet on creationism, and then we'd all tear it apart mercilessly. I ordered mine, a lot of you did likewise, and some of you have even written critical posts already. I forgot. It wasn't my fault, though. They didn't send me my booklet! I jumped through their hoops, I filled out their form, I did everything they asked, and I set the issue aside, anticipating that the arrival of tripe in the mail would be my…

Poincare, Perelman, and Prizes

About 10 days ago, I wrote about [Grigory Perelman and his proof of the Poincare conjecture][poincare]. This is a quick followup. There's a more detailed story over on [Seed][seed]. The Fields medal was supposed to be presented this past week, and they planned on presenting it to Perelman. He turned it down. He refused to come to the conference where the award was presented; refused to accept the award in absentia. He wants nothing to do with it. Even a personal visit from the head of the Fields committee to his mothers apartment in St. Petersburg wasn't enough to convince him to come out…

Personal Tidbit: Jobs

One more bit of personal blogging, and then it'll be back to the math. You may have noticed that I haven't been as active in the discussions on my posts for the last few weeks as I would normally be. There are two reasons for that; one I've mentioned before - my father's illness. The other is actually something good. As of today, I'm unemployed. Briefly. After 11 years at IBM Research, I decided to change jobs. Today was my last day working for IBM. One week from monday, I'll be starting work for Google, as a Software Engineer at their New York lab. Nothing against IBM - it was just time…

Back to the Basics?

Here at ScienceBlogs, we've got our own back-channel forums for the bloggers to chat with each other. An idea that came up, which a bunch of us are interested in, is doing some posts about basic definitions and basic concepts. There are many people who read various blogs around here who've had problems with definitions of some basic ideas. For example, there's the word vector - there are at least two very different uses of the word vector around here at SB: there's the form that people like me use (the mathematical vector), and there's the form that epidemiologists/biologists use. For…

A very unusual present

When I picked up my mail this afternoon, I was surprised to find several large boxes waiting for me. I was surprised when I opened them, both by the nature of their contents and by the fact that there was no note to say who sent them. Whoever it was, thank you! I don't think anyone has ever given me a gift quite as unexpected. I now own… …a set of disposable vaginal specula and a very nice LED illuminator! Man, when you've got a speculum, everything starts to look like a vagina. I cocked an inquisitive eye at the Trophy Wife™, but she backed away quickly and is hiding from me now. I am going…

Because you can never have too many tapirs

Dave Hone (of Archosaur Musings) kindly provided the following photo, taken in Seoul Zoo. It features a South tropical American tapir - but which one? Test your skills... I love tapirs. But they're not always nice. In 1998 a Malayan tapir Tapirus indicus at Oklahoma Zoo bit a keeper's arm clean off, and also caused facial injuries and a punctured lung to the woman during the attack. The tapir had a two-month-old baby, and this presumably explained its aggressive behaviour. Also worth noting is that Haddad et al. (2005) described a fatal attack by a tapir on a man, though in this case the…

Welcome, Dr M. P. Taylor

As you'll know if you've already seen the announcement over at SV-POW!, my friend and co-author Mike P. Taylor successfully defended his Ph. D. yesterday: congratulations again, Mike. Mike's thesis was titled Aspects of the History, Anatomy, Taxonomy and Palaeobiology of Sauropod Dinosaurs: its contents (listed here) will soon see publication; indeed, some chapters are already published (Taylor & Naish 2007) or in press. Here, Mike shakes hands with Eric Buffetaut (his external examiner) while a very jovial Andy Gale (his internal examiner; he looks suspiciously like Eddie Izzard in this…

Mystery Bird: Hooded Vulture, Necrosyrtes monachus

tags: Hooded Vulture, Necrosyrtes monachus, Marabou Stork, Leptoptilos crumeniferus, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz [Mystery bird] Hooded Vulture, Necrosyrtes monachus (background: Marabou Stork, Leptoptilos crumeniferus), photographed at the Ndutu Safari Lodge, near Serengeti National Park, Tanzania, Africa. [I will identify this bird for you in 48 hours] Image: Dan Logen, 21 January 2010 [larger view]. Nikon D300, 600 mm lens with 1.4 extender ISO 800, f/5.6 1/400. Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification. Since this African mystery bird is easy to…

Foucault's Pendulum

tags: Foucault's Pendulum, physics, rotation, Pendulum, Jim LaBelle, Dartmouth University, wow, streaming video This video features physics and astronomy professor Jim LaBelle, as he discusses the truly fascinating science behind a classic physics experiment, Foucault's pendulum, while seated next to Dartmouth University's pendulum in Fairchild Tower. While scientists already knew that the Earth had a rotation, they had struggled to come up with a way of definitively proving this was so. In 1851, French scientist Leon Foucault gave a sensational demonstration in the Paris Pantheon proving…

TEDTalks: John Kasaona Tells Us How Poachers Became Caretakers

tags: How Poachers became Caretakers, Namibia, conservation biology, endangered species, wildlife, poachers, John Kasaona, TEDTalks, TED Talks, streaming video In his home of Namibia, John Kasaona is working on an innovative way to protect endangered animal species: giving nearby villagers (including former poachers) responsibility for caring for the animals. And it's working. TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al…

Shuttle Launch Preparation Choreographed Like Ballet

tags: Shuttle Launch Preparation Choreographed Like Ballet, Space Shuttle, space exploration, space flight, NASA, Scott Andrews, Stan Jirman, Philip Scott Andrews, photography, time-lapse video, streaming video This video is simply stunning and the photography is masterful. In this video, we are looking at time-lapse photographs by photographers Scott Andrews, Stan Jirman and Philip Scott Andrews, who decided to demonstrate the process of launching a shuttle in a new and innovative way. Using time-lapse photography, they turned the 6 week process of prepping a shuttle into this gorgeous four…

TEDTalks: Dee Boersma: Pay Attention to Penguins

tags: Pay Attention to Penguins, birds, penguins, environment, global warming, ethics, climate change, Dee Boersma, TEDTalks, TED Talks, streaming video Think of penguins as ocean sentinels, says Dee Boersma -- they're on the frontlines of sea change. Sharing stories of penguin life and culture, she suggests that we start listening to what penguins are telling us. TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on…

Update: Planning to Return to Gorgeous Helsinki, Finland

tags: Helsingin tuomiokirkko, Suurkirkko, Helsinki Cathedral, Helsinki, Finland, travel, cities, architecture, photography Helsingin tuomiokirkko or Suurkirkko (Helsinki Cathedral), Helsinki, Finland. This is an Evangelical Lutheran cathedral located in the center of Helsinki, Finland. Image: GrrlScientist, 23 July 2009 [larger view] My spouse has made arrangements for us to return to gorgeous Helsinki, Finland. We will attend his student's defense, and hang out in the city. I already have plans to photograph Suomenlinna, the Luonnontieteellinen Museo (our hotel is across the street from…

Sonnenuntergang, 5

tags: Sonnenuntergang, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, travel, nature, sunset, photography Sonnenuntergang. Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Image: Bob O'Hara, 20 April 2010 [larger view] Sunset over Frankfurt, as photographed from the bedroom window. This sunset was influenced by the Icelandic volcano, Eyjafjallajökull. The light gold above the sun is a real cloud, but the darker haze surrounding the sun is the ash cloud. This ash cloud made the sun look fuzzy and at times, almost completely obscured it. Today, the sky cleared for a few hours and everything seemed normal once more, but in the…

TEDTalks: Michael Specter: The Danger of Science Denial

tags: The Danger of Science Denial, vaccines, modern medicine, poverty, environmental destruction, science, cultural observation, film maker, animal behavior, Michael Specter, TEDTalks, streaming video Vaccine-autism claims, "Frankenfood" bans, the herbal cure craze: All point to the public's growing fear (and, often, outright denial) of science and reason, says Michael Specter. He warns the trend spells disaster for human progress. TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their…

Mystery Bird: White-crowned Sparrow, Zonotrichia leucophrys

tags: White-crowned Sparrow, Zonotrichia leucophrys, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz [Mystery bird] White-crowned Sparrow, Zonotrichia leucophrys photographed at Attwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge, Texas. [I will identify this bird for you in 48 hours] Image: Joseph Kennedy, 25 January 2010 [larger view]. Nikon D200, Kowa 883 telescope with TSN-PZ camera eyepiece 1/400s f/8.0 at 1000.0mm iso400. This sweet little bird was my "dissertation species" .. can you name it? There are several subspecies as well, each with slightly different habits and ranges .. maybe you can name…

TEDTalks: Mike deGruy: Hooked by an Octopus

tags: Hooked by an Octopus, animals, zoology, invertebrates, octopus, marine biology, film maker, animal behavior, Mike deGruy, TEDTalks, streaming video Underwater filmmaker Mike deGruy has spent decades looking intimately at the ocean. A consummate storyteller, he takes the stage at Mission Blue to share his awe and excitement -- and his fears -- about the blue heart of our planet. TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have…

Mating slugs

I know PZ has recently posted a picture and a video of slugs mating. But these pictures were taken here in North Carolina, by blog reader Kris Barstow, who says: The year was 1999 plus or minus a year, the site was a few miles from Asheboro, NC. I don't recall the season, but it was warm, and there is definitely a chill there in the cold seasons, so I assume spring or summer. It was about half an hour after sunrise; I was walking my dog. I would occasionally carry my camera "just because ..." I saw these two acting strangely on the surface of the wooden shed. They actually attached themselves…

Take a Child Outside Week

From today's Carrboro Citizen: Next week, Sep 24-30, is "Take a Child Outside Week," and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences has planned some specific activities to promote awareness (www.naturalsciences.org). A visit to the Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh begins with awareness on the outside. Along the half-block-long north side of the museum facing Jones Street, there is a wild garden in dramatic contrast to the strictly regimented lawn and shrub monoculture of the North Carolina Legislature across the street. ----------------------- Every week should be "Take a Child…

Today: SCONC monthly meeting at BRITE

From SCONC: Wednesday, Sept. 17 6-7:30 p.m. SCONC monthly meeting at BRITE Please join us as we visit BRITE -- the Golden LEAF Biomanufacturing Research Institute and Technology Enterprise -- at NC Central University in Durham. (http://brite.nccu.edu) David Kroll, SCONC member, blogger and chairman of pharmaceutical science at Central, will be our host. We'll tour BRITE's 52,000 square foot laboratory and classroom facility where students train with scientific equipment and instrumentation found in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry, meet some faculty, and talk about biotech drug…

Effects of Developmental Exposure to Bisphenol-A on the Ovary and Brain

From SCONC: Even if you haven't heard of Bisphenol A (BPA), you've likely been exposed to it. The endocrine disrupting compound is common in plastic infant bottles, water bottles, food cans and lots of other products. Scientists debate its dangers but the National Toxicology Program (based in RTP) acknowledges BPA as a source of "some concern" due to its possible harm to the brains and behavior of fetuses, infants and children. On Wed. Feb. 18, at noon, come hear NCSU assistant biology professor Heather Patisaul share what she's finding about BPA's potential permanent effects in a talk…

Great Experiments as a teaching tool

Chad is musing about teaching a class based on classical experiments in physics: The idea would be to have students pick one of the classic experiments in science from, say, before WWII, track down the original papers, and read them to work out how things were done (tracing back other references as needed). Then they would look into how the experiment could be updated using more modern technology, and what the pros and cons of the different versions are. Ideally, they would do some version of the experiment themselves, and write up the results as well. However.... I have very little idea what…

Housekeeping news

A) If you click on any individual post on any Scienceblogs.com blog, you will see new sharing buttons on the bottom which make it very easy for you to, with a single click, send the link to that post to Twitter, Facebook and other social networking services (or e-mail to friends). B) There is a new page on Scienceblogs.com - this one - where you can see all the comments made recently on all of our blogs. And, lo and behold, they are not all on Pharyngula posts! Once you scroll down and read them all, just refresh the page to see the new ones. Click and add your own comments. Get to know the…

Scienceblogs.com Reader Community

From the Overlords comes this message that you, the readers, should take a look at and provide us, in the comments, with feedback: In the next three to four weeks, we'll be creating and unveiling a user registration program ... This will allow users to sign in, create a profile, track discussions they're interested in, customize their content, and interact with one another directly. We will also be introducing other benefits for registered users such as entry into prize drawings and possible rewards for commenting. ... registration will be optional at least to start, so no need to worry about…

The Borg is taking over the World!!!

Those of you who were at ScienceOnline'09 already know this, because the news was first announced there, but now it is official - we have a new addition to ScienceBlogs.com: along with the English-language and German-language networks, we now also have the Portuguese-language network! Please welcome...drumroll.....Scienceblogs Brasil!!! ScienceBlogs Brazil has 23 blogs (several of which were the part of the original Lablogatorios network that metamorphosed into Sb.br) covering a whole range of scientific topics. With more or less regularity, some of their best posts will be translated into…

SciAm, how could you?

As another sign of the ongoing decline of our traditional science media, Scientific American runs a superficial article on plastic surgery with a rather dubious source. We spoke with osteopathic physician Lionel Bissoon to help us get to the bottom (so to speak) of some of the cellulite hoopla. Bissoon runs a clinic for mesotherapy (injections of homeopathic extracts, vitamins and/or medicine designed to reduce the appearance of cellulite) in New York City, and is the author of the book The Cellulite Cure published in 2006. Why, SciAm, why? Also, I had to gag on the guys analysis of…

Open Access in the developing world - yes, it is a Good.Thing.

A few days back a paper came out (not OA, sorry), with a keen grasp of the obvious: Open Access is useful for those living in countries where they do not have much access. Duh! Furthermore, those who barely do any science at all, i.e., in the least developed countries, don't cite, so there is no difference between OA and TA there. And yet more, their methodology was fraught with errors galore. I am happy to report that this paper was debunked by several people already - so check them out: Evans and Reimer greatly underestimate effect of free access Research highlights from Dr. Obvious:…

Open Science - post-mortem analysis of H.M.'s brain

As you know, H.M. died last week. Listen to this brief (9 minutes) NPR Science Friday podcast - you will be able to hear Henry Gustav Molaison's voice. But most importantly, he has donated his brain to further scientific study. His brain will be sliced and stained and studied at The Brain Observatory at the University of California, San Diego. But the way they are going to do it will be in a very Open Science manner. Dr. Jacopo Annese, who is leading the project said, in this interview, that the entire process will be open - there will be a forum or a blog where researchers from around…

Roosevelts on Toilets

If you are wondering why I posted this picture and what it all (including the title of this post) means, you need to read the comment threads on these posts: The Transition to Daylight Savings Time and the Risk of Myocardial Infarction The Response from Janszky and Ljung -- Dr. Isis Defends the Blogosphere What is 'the normal way to debate and discuss scientific findings' anyway? Spring Forward, Fall Back - should you watch out tomorrow morning? Notes of importance Bora is the Most Brilliant Man Ever and I Love Him Pseudonimity, scientific criticism and respect on the blogs... Discourse give…

Back!

After four days - last three of which I had no internet access - and after11 hours of travel door-to-door (or 8 hours from entering an airport and exiting another airport), I am home. Exhausted. As I knew that several other Sciblings had to deal with the chaos of NYC air-travel this weekend. We were prepared - took it slowly and easily. Read a book. Could not login to JetBlue wireless (I think my PLoS laptop has so many layers of security, it does not allow me to connect to public wifi deemed too dangerous - that's why I need to get myself a Mac AirBook, or a Wee, for travel). People-…

Praxis #1 - second call for submissions

The new blog carnival, covering the way science is changing (or not changing enough) in the 21st century - Praxis, is about to start. The call for submissions is now open - send them to me at Coturnix AT gmail dot com by August 14th at midnight Eastern. The business of science - from getting into grad school, succeeding in it, getting a postdoc, getting a job, getting funded, getting published, getting tenure and surviving it all with some semblance of sanity - those are kinds of topics that are appropriate for this carnival, more in analytic way than personal, if possible (i.e., not "I will…

Thought-provoking reading of the Day: White Denial

White denial: Obama, race and America's selective memory by Hal Crowther: A lot of Americans are like German tourists, who never harmed or perhaps even met a Jew, and are amazed to find a chilly reception in Tel Aviv. Though Jim Crow was considerably more recent than Adolf Hitler, lapel-pin patriots and insulated media hypocrites experience acute shock--or feign it--when they hear the heated rhetoric of black pride and empowerment from people like Rev. Jeremiah Wright. I'm still shaking my head over a Wright-bashing column by Time magazine columnist Joe Klein, invoking "liberal masochism" and…

Praxis #1 - call for submissions

The new blog carnival, covering the way science is changing (or not changing enough) in the 21st century - Praxis, is about to start. The call for submissions is now open - send them to me at Coturnix AT gmail dot com by August 14th at midnight Eastern. The business of science - from getting into grad school, succeeding in it, getting a postdoc, getting a job, getting funded, getting published, getting tenure and surviving it all with some semblance of sanity - those are kinds of topics that are appropriate for this carnival, more in analytic way than personal, if possible (i.e., not "I will…

Storm

Last night, the skies opened. And that sky-opening business is always kinda tricky - the sky-trap-door engineer has to make sure that everything goes well. And last night, as Jesse Helms was going up in the sky to meet his Maker, the trap-door kinda got stuck. Or perhaps ol'e Jesse wanted to send one last fart at 'Liberal Zoo' as he used to call Chapel Hill. The thunderstorm was very sudden and powerful and much of the area lost electricity. We were without power for about 5 hours - from 8:30pm till 1:30am. So, we lit up the candles. Kids played Monopoly. I, being offline, read a book -…

How atrazine affects development?

PLoS ONE paper The Herbicide Atrazine Activates Endocrine Gene Networks via Non-Steroidal NR5A Nuclear Receptors in Fish and Mammalian Cells will be one of the topics covered by Science Friday on NPR tomorrow - tune in if you can, or wait until the podcast is posted on the site later tomorrow night: Researchers report that the common weedkiller atrazine may be able to disrupt hormonal signaling in humans. The herbicide is the second-most-applied weedkiller in the United States, with uses from suburban lawns to agricultural production of corn and sorghum. In recent years, atrazine has been…

Neuroethology in Vancouver

Bjoern Brembs is at the ICN meeting and is blogging about the talks he saw. If I went, I would have probably attended a completely different set of talks, e.g., on birdsong, memory in food-caching birds, aggression in crustaceans, strange sensory systems, spatial orientation and animal cognition, but I am certainly glad that Bjoern has highlighted the best of what he saw there: Robert de Ruyter van Steveninck: Velocity estimation and natural visual input signals Martin Egelhaaf: Active vision: a strategy of complexity reduction in behavioral control Roy Ritzmann: Movement through complex…

I am in....

...Frisco. The flights were smooth and uneventful. I went straight to PLoS, met some people I knew from before and others I knew only over e-mail, did the requisite paperwork, got familiarized with my computer and the beginning of getting familiarized with the 'behind the scenes' of the software used by PLoS journals. My apartment is gorgeous - the owner must be an artist of some kind (probably pottery, as she is spending this month in North Carolina at Pendletonn school) as the place is so artistically and tastefully furnished and decorated. SF is a very hilly place - I will get fit and…

Evolution in NY Times

You probably know by now, but you can access for free (at least for a couple of days) a whole slew of articles about evolution on the Science page of New York Times. Most are excellent, as usual (hey, it's not the front page or some lukewarmly-pro-creationist he-said-she-said op-ed they tend to publish every now and then). Most of the blogospheric responses are to the article by Douglas Erwin. As always, framing something as conflict sells the paper. I don't think we are all eagerly awaiting a 'paradigm shift' in evolutionary biology. Much of the new thinking has been around for decades…

Open Access at Harvard

When Harvard does something, all the others follow. Perhaps this is the tipping point for Open Access as a whole. Peter Suber and Gavin Baker have the best commentary and all the links to other worthy commentary in a series of posts worth studying: More on the imminent OA mandate at Harvard Harvard votes yes Text of the Harvard policy Roundup of commentary on Harvard OA policy More on the Harvard OA mandate Stevan Harnad's proposed revisions to the Harvard policy Three on the Harvard OA mandate More comments on the Harvard OA mandate Also read Revere: Unfettered access to scientific work…

Congratulations! 49 more primaries to go.

Final results of the Iowa caucuses: Senator Barack Obama : 37.58% Senator John Edwards : 29.75% Senator Hillary Clinton : 29.47% Governor Bill Richardson : 2.11% Senator Joe Biden : 0.93% Uncommitted : 0.14% Senator Chris Dodd : 0.02% Precincts Reporting: 1781 of 1781 (Percentages are State Delegate Equivalents.) More important numbers: Total Voter Turnout (approximate): 356,000 Percentage of total vote 24.5% Obama 20.5% Edwards 19.8% Clinton 11.4% Huckabee (R) Biden and Dodd have quit the race. Media pundits - catastrophic: Frameshop: Obama And The 'Balance' Frame With Obama's Win, What to…

Science Blogging Conference - who is coming? (SciBlings 2)

There are 98 days until the Science Blogging Conference. The wiki is looking good, the Program is shaping up nicely, and there is more and more blog and media coverage already. There are already 85 registered participants and if you do not register soon, it may be too late once you decide to do so (we'll cap at about 230). Between now and the conference, I am highlighting some of the people who will be there, for you to meet in person if you register in time. A lot of SciBlings are planning to come this year, representing a wide range of interests and blogging styles, from the ecology of…

Will Raymond For President!

OK, that is an overstatement (for now). Will Raymond for Town Council! There. That's better. I thought Will must be busy as I did not hear from him lately and he did not show up at any of the recent bloggy events in the area. So, he was busy preparing for his second run for the Town Council. He did not make it last time around, but now the voters know him better, so anything can happen! And having the broad support of local bloggers is not something to scorn at in a place like Chapel Hill either! I am sure that he'll announce on his blog when he needs locals to volunteer, but until then (…

My picks from ScienceDaily

Mouse Vision Has A Rhythm All Its Own: In the eyes of mammals, visual information is processed on a daily schedule set within the eyes themselves--not one dictated by the brain, according to a new report in the journal Cell. The researchers found in mice that the eyes' normal rhythmic response to light requires only that a molecular "clock" inside the retina go on ticking. The retina is a layer of nerve tissue covering the back of the eyeball, which is often likened to the film in a camera; without it, images can't be captured. How Snakes Survive Starvation: Starving snakes employ novel…

Movie star for a day

The last time I was interviewed on location here in Morris was the fateful day that I was taped for a little movie that became Expelled…and we know how that turned out. It's happening again, only this time it's not some secretive intelligent design proponent coming in on false pretenses: it's Josh Timonen of the Richard Dawkins Foundation stopping by. I think I'm fairly safe this time, and don't expect to be turned into the villain of the documentary they're putting together. It takes some dedication to do this. We're a long 3 hour drive from the nearest airport, reached by way of a notorious…

New and Exciting in PLoS Biology

Basic Math in Monkeys and College Students: Adult humans possess mathematical abilities that are unmatched by any other member of the animal kingdom. Yet, there is increasing evidence that the ability to enumerate sets of objects nonverbally is a capacity that humans share with other animal species. That is, like humans, nonhuman animals possess the ability to estimate and compare numerical values nonverbally. We asked whether humans and nonhuman animals also share a capacity for nonverbal arithmetic. We tested monkeys and college students on a nonverbal arithmetic task in which they had to…

My picks from ScienceDaily

Young Chimps Top Adult Humans In Numerical Memory: Young chimpanzees have an "extraordinary" ability to remember numerals that is superior to that of human adults, researchers report. Artificial Jellyfish, Explosives Sensor Among Projects Being Developed At Undersea Technology Center: Artificial jellyfish, explosives sensors and seabed batteries are among the diverse research projects under way just nine months after the creation of a Center of Excellence in Undersea Technology in collaboration with the Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Rhode Island. Heads Or Tails? Scientists Identify Gene…

They are out to get us

The animals have had about enough of us, I guess. The latest weird story of animals attacking: An Indonesian villager had to be rushed to hospital after a horse bit off one of his testicles during a freak attack. The 35-year-old man was unloading sand from a horse-drawn cart at a construction site in Sulawesi earlier this week when the attack occurred, Indonesia's state-run news agency Antara reported. A witness said the animal suddenly lunged at the man, sinking its teeth into his crotch. Shocked bystanders loaded the man into a car to take him to hospital, before one noticed a piece…

That was predictable

The case of the Brazilian child who was raped, impregnated, and then had an abortion has taken a predictable turn. Sensible, rational people saw this as a tragedy, but one with a simple partial solution: the abortion was necessary to save the life of a young girl who could not possibly bear the burden of an unwanted pregnancy. The Brazilian Catholic church saw it differently and excommunicated everyone associated with the decision. Then the president of Brazil took a public stand against the church's unjust decision. Now at last, we hear from the top of the Catholic hierarchy…and the Vatican…

Meet me at Harvard on Friday

Back at Scifoo I met Anna Kushnir. And then we met again. And then, inspired by the conversations at Scifoo, Anna decided to organize a day-long, student-hosted conference about the future of scientific publishing - Publishing in the New Millennium: A Forum on Publishing in the Biosciences. And she decided to invite me to appear on one of the panels. So, later this week, I will be in Boston, more precisely Cambridge MA, discussing Open Access and Science 2.0. I am arriving on Thursday in the early afternoon and leaving on Saturday in the early afternoon, so there is plenty of opportunity…

Open Access Taking Over The World!

Liz Allen posted this on the Wall of the PLoS Facebook group yesterday: Here's a fun Friday activity for all of you who like to track the stats of the inevitable rise and world domination of OA! Heather from SPARC turned me onto this. it's almost as much fun as watching the number of members to this group grow, we are now at 700!. Did you know that there are currently 2893 OA journals in the directory of open access journals (http://www.DOAJ.org) and that 63 new ones came on board in the last 30 days, that's about 2 per day. Wow. Another cool mash up site (great logo, takes a minute or so to…