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Miscellaneous Science Online Stuff

I was pleasantly surprised at how well the What does Science Online Want to Be? post was received-- I kind of expected that to cause more anger than it did. It did prompt a lot of discussion, most of it during the dinner hour in Chateau Steelypips, so it was really hard for me to keep up. Given the volume of stuff and my inability to respond promptly, I thought I'd try to round up a few things here: 1) Kelly Hills's post on cons vs. conferences is very good. This is something I said myself after Science Online this past year-- it felt very much like a SF convention. In ways both good and bad…

Nature: Researchers should blog more

From an editorial in this week's Nature: Indeed, researchers would do well to blog more than they do. The experience of journals such as Cell and PLoS ONE, which allow people to comment on papers online, suggests that researchers are very reluctant to engage in such forums. But the blogosphere tends to be less inhibited, and technical discussions there seem likely to increase. Moreover, there are societal debates that have much to gain from the uncensored voices of researchers. A good blogging website consumes much of the spare time of the one or several fully committed scientists that write…

Antarctica: Others Think I'd do a Helluva Job, Too

Video created by The Sneer Review. Since I have recently developed quite a history of visiting cold and snowy places, often during the winter (remember Morris, Minnesota in January? Or how about Helsinki, Finland in November, then again in February?), I wish to preserve that tradition. I am competing for the opportunity to go to Antarctica in February 2010 -- a dream adventure that I've always wanted to pursue (and almost did pursue when I was an undergraduate researching Fin Whales and Crabeater Seals at the University of Washington). To enter, all candidates must publish a picture of…

The Buzz: Scientists Push for Brain Doping

A group of psychologists, ethicists and neuroscientists have added their voices to the growing debate over the merits and demerits of brain droping, the use of cognitive enhancement drugs like Adderall or Ritalin to improve mental performance. Their commentary, published online Sunday in Nature, argues that any adult in full mental health should be able to use the drugs at will. "Given the many cognitive-enhancing tools we accept already, from writing to laptop computers," they ask, "why draw the line here and say, thus far but no further?"

Confirmed: Texans can be smart!

The recommendation I noted before has been officially and finally followed by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board: the Institute for Creation Research's application to offer an online master's degree program in creationist bullshit has been rejected. Bravo! The ICR has said they will probably appeal. Don't slack off, Texas, and keep the pressure on. Taurus: Great news! Soft drink executives are planning to market a new energy drink made from your urine, on the basis of vague, unfounded rumors of your vitality. This is not such happy news for the rest of us, however.

Twitter: What's All the Chirping About?

That is the title of the article in the latest issue of BioScience by Elia Ben-Ari (@smallpkg on Twitter) which just came online today (if you'd rather see the PDF, click here). It is a nice article about Twitter and the way scientists use it, the difference between 'lifecasting' and 'mindcasting' (with attribution to Jay Rosen for the concept), a brief mention of FriendFeed, and quotes from Jonathan Eisen, David Bradley and myself. It also mentions the National Phenology Network and North Carolina Sea Grant experiments in using Twitter for collection of scientific data.

Tomorrow is Earth Day

The Nature Conservancy has set up a webpage where you can make a difference on Earth Day 2006 by sharing a message of hope for the planet. When you share your Earth Day message, you'll become part of the Conservancy's free online community, the Great Places Network. Also, your message may be highlighted on The Nature Conservancy's website to inspire others to make a difference! Plus, you can download The Nature Conservancy's new nature image screensaver filled with nature photos. Disclaimers: I do not receive anything for mentioning this here except satisfaction from sharing this…

Darwin OnLine

A friend emailed this link and even though I have only begun to poke around on it, but already I find it fascinating. Darwin OnLine is a searchable webbed database that contains more than 50,000 text pages and 40,000 images of publications and handwritten manuscripts. It also has the most comprehensive Darwin bibliography ever published and the largest manuscript catalogue ever assembled. More than 150 ancillary texts are also included, ranging from secondary reference works to contemporary reviews, obituaries, published descriptions of Darwin's Beagle specimens and important related works…

My Inner European

Considering that the USA was disqualified early from World Cup competition, I decided that I need to find out who my inner European is, just so I know who to root for. I am currently enjoying every team, since each game is so exciting right now (ignoring the ref, who is a moron). So .. after taking this silly quiz, it looks like my new team is .. Your Inner European is French! Smart and sophisticated. You have the best of everything - at least, *you* think so. Who's Your Inner European? tags: Online Quiz

New Creation Science Attraction, and I say, "go for it!"

I am looking forward to the construction of the meatspace version of the currently on-line only "Creation Science Hall of Fame" on vacant land on Interstate 75 between the Creation Museum and the Ark Park. Someday this section of Northern Kentucky will be a veritable Miracle Mile of Creationism Related Facilities. It is about this time this industry got some competition. We know that the Invisible Hand of the Free Market is like god and makes everything better. What could possibly go wrong? Here's the story from the Courier-Journal Hat Tip: Joe

Don't Be a Dick

I'm probably about the last person with an interest in such things to get around to watching Phil Plait's (in)famous "Don't Be a Dick" speech, but I finally got around to it, and it's really excellent: Phil Plait - Don't Be A Dick from JREF on Vimeo. Phil has posted about the speech itself, online reactions to it, and the in-person response after the talk. His thoughts are well worth reading, to put the whole thing it better context. I really don't have anything to add, which is fine, because I should spend less time typing blog stuff anyway.

Harry Potter Museum Exhibit to Open in October

This fall, Harry Potter fans will get the chance to step inside the famous wizard's magical world through Harry Potter: The Exhibition, which opens at the Museum of Science, Boston on October 25, 2009, at 9 a.m. Tickets are now available online at mos.org or by calling 617-723-2500, 617-589-0417 (TTY). Visitors will be able to experience dramatic displays inspired... The Exhibition made its highly successful global premiere at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry last April and will run there through September 27, 2009, details from BMS

New Species: Idioneurula donegani

Idioneurula donegani Huertas & Arias 2007     Huertas, B. and J. J. Arias. 2007. A new butterfly species from the Colombian Andes and a review of the taxonomy of the genera Idioneurula Strand, 1932 and Tamania Pyrcz, 1995 (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae: Satyrinae). Zootaxa 1652: 27-40. The online journal Zootaxa has hosted the publication of 6723 new animal species since its inception in 2001, averaging over 2.8 new species per day. And that's just a single journal- there are scores of taxonomy journals out there. Taxonomy is an old science, but it remains on the frontiers of biological…

Slides and Audio Available for Speaking Science 2.0

On June 4, more than 120 people turned out for the Nisbet & Mooney Speaking Science 2.0 talk at the New York Academy of Sciences. The talk is now part of their online content, including an E-briefing summary along with the powerpoint slides synchronized with audio of our presentation. With this tool you can listen to the entire talk or scroll through the labeled sections and slides based on topic. NYAS has allowed free access to this member content by way of the following link from our respective Web sites.

Darwin online update

Well, Stranger Fruit beat me to it (after I told him about it!) but there's a new version of Darwin's works online that has many juicy goodnesses, such as the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th editions of the Origin. Now we can check if these creationists are quoting properly. It has images as well as OCR'd text, and some of these editions were scanned from the Darwin family's own library. Also, there are field notebooks and lots of other stuff. An OBE for John Van Wyhe, I say...

Books, books, books

Books for the summer, as recommended by the editorial staff at Seed Magazine. Reviews of Passions and Tempers: A History of the Humours, by Noga Arikha, and The Case Against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering, by Michael J. Sandel, from last weekend's New York Times. A gargantuan textbook of neuropsychopharmacology, made freely available online by the ACNP (via Mind Hacks). My own reviews of Jonathan Moreno's Mind Wars and Eric Kandel's In Search of Memory, both of which are now displayed in the sidebar on the left.

Neuromart: Best Thing Since Sliced Brain

PhDs are useful for all kinds of things. Some people become faculty, others go into industry, and some decide to market ridiculously nerdtastic neurologically-based gifts via the internet. Sure, the latter kind may be rare, but a good idea is still a good idea. Welcome to Neuromart, online purveyors of parapanalia related to my favorite organ (the brain, of course!). From brain models (you always wanted one of your very own, didn't you?) to brain candy (the sweet stuff, not the Kids in the Hall movie), Neuromart is sure to keep the dopamine flowing.

Sailfish Appreciation Day

GrrlScientist is having a sailfish appreciation day over at Living the Scientific Life. She's posting hot links to the online story at National Geographic about their cooperative fish herding techniques. Its really amazing. I trolled a "maori-style" sailfish image that could make a nice tattoo. It's shown here on a t-shirt from Google images. Sailfish are "oceanodromous", which means they occur widely throughout the world's oceans, live and migrate wholly in the sea. As opposed to anadromous fish, like salmon, which migrate to freshwater to spawn; or catadromous eels, like Anguilla sp.,…

Cocaine toothache drops

From this online gallery of modern and vintage psychiatric drug adverts. COCAINE TOOTHACHE DROPS Instantaneous Cure! Price 15 Cents. Prepared by the Lloyd Manufacturing Co. 219 Hudson Ave., Albany, N.Y. For sale by all Druggists. (Registered March 1885.) Cocaine is the new anaesthetic now used so extensively throughout Europe and this country by Physicians, Surgeons and Dentists. This preparation of Toothache Drops contains Cocaine, and its wonderful properties are fully demonstrated by the many recommendations it is daily receiving. Take no other except Cocaine…

This rating sounds about right

This one's been floating around ScienceBlogs and the blogosphere in general; so I thought, what the hell? (Oh, wait, did my use of the word "hell" affect my rating?) In any case, this sounds about right: Mingle2 - Online Dating You'll be happy to know that I don't really plan on trying to "evolve" to rate a PG-13 or R rating. I really see no need, although sometimes the comments probably earn such ratings. On the other hand, I won't shy away from "adult" content if I consider it sufficiently important that I want to blog about it.

Debate with Monckton

SMH Online plan to put up a live feed of the debate. I'll put up a link to the page if this happens. The format is now settled: Monckton opens the batting with a 15 minute presentation. Then I go for 15 minutes. Then we put two questions to each other (alternating). Then its questions from the audience. And finally we each get five minutes each to close things. Friday February 12th, 12:30 - 2:30 Grand Ballroom, Hilton Hotel, 488 George St Sydney $30 at the door, preregister by emailing cool@exemail.com.au

Editor's Selections: Visual Illusions, Oversharing on the Web, and Magical Healing Mice

Here are my ResearchBlogging Editor's Selections for this week. This week, Psychology and Neuroscience blogging brings us some fantastic science, as always. First and second, the fearless leader of ResearchBlogging, Dave Munger, provides us with two awesome visual illusions, and explains them: the Troxler effect, and spinning ellipses. Next, Krystal D'Costa of Anthopology in Practice discusses Bullying and Emotional Intelligence on the Web and the potential consequences of over-sharing online. Finally, another gem from Scicurious of Neurotopia: The Incredible Healing Mouse. Pierced, then not…

Slides and Audio of Nisbet/Mooney Framing Tour

On June 4, more than 120 people turned out for the Nisbet & Mooney Speaking Science 2.0 talk at the New York Academy of Sciences. The talk is now part of their online content, including an E-briefing summary along with the powerpoint slides synchronized with audio of our presentation. With this tool you can listen to the entire talk or scroll through the labeled sections and slides based on topic. NYAS has allowed free access to this member content by way of the following link from our respective Web sites.

Bathysphere Caption Contest!

The American Museum of Natural History in NYC put up old black and white pictures in an online exhibit called Picturing the Museum. Brian at Laelaps picked out some dinosaurliscious ones. Below is one from 1937 titles "Boys examining Bathysphere, Hall of Ocean Life". I can only imagine the awe they must be feeling with only a few years earlier that hunk of metal was down in the deepest trench of our oceans. What do they think they are saying to each other? This calls for a caption contest! Hat tip to the disperser, Michael B.

Reflections on Matter and Interactions

I'm teaching introductory mechanics for the umpteenth time, using the Matter and Interactions curriculum, as we have for a while. This is going to be my last time teaching out of M&I, though, because last year the department decided to switch to a different book. Starting this winter term, we'll be using Halliday, Resnick and Walker. My physics blogging over at Forbes tends toward the contemplative anyway, for a variety of reasons, but knowing that this is the last time through M&I has had me thinking even more along those lines. Thus, recent posts on really simple physics and what it…

How Evil Are You?

There is a nifty new online test that allows you to determine your evilness. A friend of mine earned the score of "twisted" which is quite evil, overall. Hoever, you have to go below the fold to find my score and to learn what yours is, too. How evil are you? Well, no, I don't work for AOL, but I do live in a nuthouse, does that increase my evilness? How the heck did this nuthouse story get started in the first place? . tags: online quiz, evilness

Some Links

A while back I did a public debate with Ron Bailey of Reason and Wesley Smith of the Discovery Institute, sponsored by the Donald and Paula Smith Family Foundation. Well, Reason magazine has just put audio and video of the event online. Check it out here. And another update: I'm doing a WashingtonPost.com "Live Online" discussion about The Republican War on Science this Friday at 11 pm ET. Here's the webpage. I hope many of you will tune in, and, hopefully, pose interesting questions.

Most effective use of new funding?

So there was a somewhat subdued response to the "what science fields are most underfunded", but it got me thinking about a slightly different question, namely: which science fields could rapidly produce more science results if given a sudden increase in funding? This is a somewhat non-trivial question, since generating expertise takes time, so does building equipment and collecting data. There are important fields, which would really have diminshing returns in response to sudden increases in funding - they are already manpower limited, and there is no fungible manpower where people with the…

My Parrot Has A Hobby

tags: Orpheus, hawk-headed parrot, red-fan parrot, Deroptyus accipitrinus accipitrinus, photography, parrots, pets Orpheus, a six-month-old red-fan (hawk-headed) parrot, Deroptyus a. accipitrinus, who lives with me. (flash, ISO, no zoom). Image: GrrlScientist 2008. I managed to capture a few pictures of Orpheus last night which I would have shared with you then, except that my wifi connection disappeared (boo!), so I had to wait until tonight. This picture, like all of the pics I captured last night, are not very good because my parrots have gotten wise to the ways of photography and have…

The Glossies Tell Me I'm Not A Man

I've felt largely like an outsider since I was a kid, but these days I rarely experience the full force of it except when I visit a news agent's and confront the glossy magazines. They carry hundreds of titles. And at a pinch I can maybe find one or two that might interest me mildly. I don't expect to find much of interest in the ladies section. The non-gendered mags are pretty few, and it doesn't really matter to me that I don't give a shit about interior decoration or design or antiques. What gets to me is the message the men's section broadcasts to me. "This is what interests men. If none…

Links for 2011-05-17

Generalist's Work, Day 5 « Easily Distracted "In humanistic writing, I'm struck by the sometimes uncomfortable mixing of a romanticist vision of authorship with the value of scholarship as a collaborative, collective and accumulative enterprise. In peer review, tenure review, grant applications and other venues where we set the benchmark for what counts as excellence, we often expect scholarly work to exhibit the author's "quality of mind", and that in turn is often best established by the degree to which the analysis and interpretation in scholarly writing appear to be original and highly…

DonorsChoose

Last year (just before I joined the fold) the Scienceblogs gang teamed up with a company called DonorsChoose to help out teachers with good ideas about how to make science education better. DonorsChoose is a website that lets teachers post proposals for funding, and lets potential donors search through those projects for ideas that seem to match their own sense of what's needed. This year, we're doing the Blogger Challenge again. If you click through the little thermometer link in the sidebar, or this link right here, you can pick one of the projects I've chosen and help fund any of the…

Should We Tinker With Plant Genes?

Some thoughtful and interesting letters in response to the OpEd that James McWilliams and I wrote recently for the NY Times. Here are some highlights: I think that there are many in the organic food movement who recognize that genetic engineering has a role to play in the future of food. But concerns about what it should be, and who should be making that decision, are valid. I am all for nonprofit groups and university researchers working to alleviate starvation in the third world. I trust their motivations and scientific integrity. I have no such faith in agribusiness. Traditional small…

Lesson: Never Check a Bag

You know those guys you see getting on planes with big shoulder bags that couldn't possibly be made to fit in those little test boxes they put by the gates that everybody ignores? I'm one of them, for good reason: whenever I check luggage, something goes wrong. Take yesterday, for example. I was out late Friday night, and we were scheduled for a two and a half hour layover in O'Hare airport in Chicago, and I just couldn't cope with the idea of lugging my big bag all over that deeply unpleasant airport (about which more later). The larger of my two bags was just full of dirty laundry and…

And the point of publishing scientific findings was what again?

Pencils ready? Here's a quick quiz; circle all that apply*: 1. You're a scientist and you've just published some research in a peer reviewed journal. You want: a. Scientists in your field to read and discuss your work. b. Interested non-scientists to get the important bits of what you found and why it matters, whether by powering through the article themselves or by getting a clear explanation of the article from a scientist. c. No discussion of your article at all -- once it's on the page in the journal, there's nothing else to say about it. d. All discussions of your findings to be based…

ScienceOnline2010 - introducing the participants

As you know you can see everyone who's registered for the conference, but I highlight 4-6 participants every day as this may be an easier way for you to digest the list. You can also look at the Program so see who is doing what. Antony Williams is the Vice President of Strategic Development for ChemSpider at Royal Society of Chemistry. He lives in Raleigh, NC, blogs on ChemSpider blog and tweets. At the conference, Antony will be quite busy - he will co-moderate the session "Citizen Science and Students", give two Ignite talks ""Crowdsourced Chemistry - Why Online Chemistry Data Needs Your…

I'm a Scientist, Get me out of Here!

tags: I'm a Scientist, Get me out of Here!, internet chatrooms, online program, technology, public outreach, scientists, employment, what do scientists do?, teenagers, streaming video This video describes a new online program targeted to UK teenagers; "I'm a Scientist, Get me out of Here!" This program's goals are to provide teens access to real scientists, to provide them the opportunity to get beyond stereotypes about scientists, to learn how science relates to real life and to provide the scientists with feedback on their communication style -- can they explain their work to teenagers?…

Is surfacestations.org dead?

The long slow wiki edit war over exactly what sort of denier AW is continues - RationalWiki is more informative - but the issue of surfacestations.org remains untouched. Is it alive? Dead? Undead? Having browsed around a bit I can't find anyone saying - or, indeed, caring - but being a caring sharing sort of individual I thought I'd poke it a bit. http://www.surfacestations.org/ is unpromising: NEWS Updated 07/30/2012 New paper in process, see details here. NOTE: Surfacestations.org gallery server has received heavy traffic and some attacks in the last 24hrs. The online image database aka…

World 2.0 at Rainbows End

Books: "Rainbows End" by Vernor Vinge. It's 2025 - What happened to science, politics and journalism? Well, you know I'd be intrigued. After all, a person whose taste in science fiction I trust (my brother) told me to read this and particularly to read it just before my interview with PLoS. So, of course I did (I know, it's been two months, I am slow, but I get there in the end). 'Rainbows End' is a novel-length expansion of the short story "Fast Times at Fairmont High" which he finished in August 2001 and first published in "The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge". The novel was written…

Gloomy Post

I have always scoffed at people who say there is only the Republicrat party in this country, but after reading this depressing piece by Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone I'm not so sure. What's taken place in the year since Obama won the presidency has turned out to be one of the most dramatic political about-faces in our history. Elected in the midst of a crushing economic crisis brought on by a decade of orgiastic deregulation and unchecked greed, Obama had a clear mandate to rein in Wall Street and remake the entire structure of the American economy. What he did instead was ship even his…

Deepak Chopra, placebo effects, and The Secret

If there's one thing that goes back to the very beginning of this blog (or at least it started in the first year), it's having a bit of fun with Deepak Chopra. I realize that to some it might seem like shooting the proverbial fish in a barrel. With a rocket launcher. On the other hand, I like to look at it this way. Deepak Chopra has a multimillion dollar alternative medicine and "quantum consciousness" empire milking the credulous to buy attend his lectures, buy his DVDs and books, and even to buy his video games. He's on television all the time, including appearances on Dr. Oz's show and on…

New York City trip - Part VII: Spamalot

Saturday, May 27th After revising our strategy - substituting quality for quantity - we had a good night's sleep and woke up at a more decent time on Saturday morning. I took the kids down to the hotel restaurant for breakfast for some delicious pancakes and waffles, while Mrs. Coturnix went to buy some matinee tickets for whichever (family-friendly) Broadway show she could get. 'Wicked' was the first choice, but those tickets have been sold out for months in advance. A couple of hours later, after waiting in the long line twice, she finally got a good deal on tickets for Spamalot from a…

Guster at SPAC, 8/17

Every summer, we go to a concert or two up at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC). We already had lawn seats for Springsteen, and last week, we had indoor seats for Guster and Ray Lamontagne. We ended up not using the actual seats, thanks to some exceptionally drunk college girls in the row behind us ("Do you need to throw up again?" is not a question you want to hear asked of the person seated immediately behind you), but we had good weather, and it was a pleasant evening sitting on the steps of the pavillion. Musically, there's not a whole lot to say about the show. If you've heard…

Semantic Enhancements of a Research Article

In today's PLoS Computational Biology: Adventures in Semantic Publishing: Exemplar Semantic Enhancements of a Research Article: Scientific innovation depends on finding, integrating, and re-using the products of previous research. Here we explore how recent developments in Web technology, particularly those related to the publication of data and metadata, might assist that process by providing semantic enhancements to journal articles within the mainstream process of scholarly journal publishing. We exemplify this by describing semantic enhancements we have made to a recent biomedical…

Links for 2010-07-30

Getting young scientists into the science teacher pipeline: IU News Room: Indiana University "Producing science teachers who can keep up with rapidly advancing fields and can also inspire students is not an easy task. With a grant from the National Science Foundation's Robert Noyce Scholarship Program, the School of Science at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis is challenging science majors -- individuals who enjoy and appreciate science -- to transfer their enthusiasm and knowledge to students in middle school and high school classrooms. Through the Noyce Summer Internship…

ScienceOnline'09 - interview with Erica Tsai

The series of interviews with some of the participants of the 2008 Science Blogging Conference was quite popular, so I decided to do the same thing again this year, posting interviews with some of the people who attended ScienceOnline'09 back in January. Today, I asked Erica Tsai, the co-organizer of the Friday evening events at ScienceOnline'09, to answer a few questions. Welcome to A Blog Around The Clock. Would you, please, tell my readers a little bit more about yourself? Who are you? What is your (scientific) background? I'm a graduate student in the Department of Biology at Duke…

AAI: Toni Marano

As soon as you walk into the conference hall, you can't miss the big posters of a semi-nude Toni Marano. She's selling videos to help with pilates training, and also does "lifestyle intervention". I just have to say…good for her. It's an unfortunate fact that atheist conventions are sometimes a little too gray and stodgy, and she's bringing a little life to the meeting. Along similar lines, I'm seeing more young people and more women in attendance; not enough of either, but still a good sign of a healthy, growing movement. So what do you think? Should I buy one of her dvds?

Such temerity!

People are telling me that my blog entries are getting sprinkled with creationist ads in the RSS feeds, like this: Heh. I think it's great. This is an old and familiar game that has been played for years, where creationists buy up lots and lots of ad placement on searches for topics in evolutionary biology, and I think they should continue to throw their money down that sinkhole. It seems like an entirely ineffective tactic, to try and dun people who are already willing to look at the evidence with appeals to their dogma. Shall I start taking out ads in the local church bulletins, perhaps?

Darwin Quotes

Man with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only to other men but to the humblest living creature, with his god-like intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system- with all these exalted powers- Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin. - Charles R. Darwin Support The Beagle Project Read the Beagle Project Blog Buy the Beagle Project swag Celebrate the Darwin Day Prepare ahead for the Darwin Bicentennial Read Darwin for yourself. ..and much, much…

Darwin Quotes

The plough is one of the most ancient and most valuable of mans inventions; but long before he existed the land was in fact regularly ploughed, and still continues to be thus ploughed by earth-worms. It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world, as have these lowly organised creatures. - Charles R. Darwin Support The Beagle Project Read the Beagle Project Blog Buy the Beagle Project swag Celebrate Darwin Day Prepare ahead for the Darwin Bicentennial Read Darwin for yourself. Thanks Michael Barton for today's quote.