Miscellaneous
jrosenhouse | December 17, 2010I realize that other people have the cat blogging beat nailed down, but this story is just too heart-warming to pass up.
Now, back to grading finals...
jrosenhouse | November 11, 2010In happier news, the BSB (that's the Big Sudoku Book) is now finished! Yay! It will take a while to turn it around into an actual book, so look for it next summer. Now it's time to get back to the BECB (the big evolution/creation book). I'm still hoping to have a first draft of that done by the end of the year, but with everything else that's been going on that might not be realistic. I hope to get back to regular blogging shortly. Between book deadlines, the looming end of the semester, and now a basement flood, it's been hard to find the time.
jrosenhouse | November 11, 2010That way, if you have a flood in your basement that completely submerges the bottom shelves of your bookcases, you don't lose anything especially valuable.
Early on Monday morning a water main burst in front of my house. This caused water to back up through the toilet and shower drain in my basement, leading ultimately to close to two feet of water covering everything. Fun! I discovered the flood at 3:30 in the morning, the clear moral being that it's very important to keep eccentric hours. Had I been asleep like a normal person the water could have been in my living room before I noticed…
developingintelligence | October 27, 2010A really excellent PBS CBC (thanks m5) documentary on the surprising cognitive abilities of crows:
Watch the full episode. See more Nature.
See also how crows might be trained to do something a little more lucrative:
This latter video tells a great story, but as John Hawkes has pointed out, there is perhaps some confusion about how successful Josh Klein's more lucrative experiments actually were.
jrosenhouse | October 22, 2010Turns out I have a blog. Who knew! A combination of lack of time and, frankly, lack of enthusiasm have kept me from the blogosphere lately, but I thought I would poke my head up just to let y'all know I'm still here.
So let's see. I have a busy weekend on tap. Tomorrow is JMU's annual Shenandoah Undergraduate Mathematics and Statistics (SUMS) conference. It promises to be a big math party! I will be running the poster session. Of course, it goes against my grain to get up early on a Saturday, but once a year I will make an exception.
Then on Sunday there is the big Science Expo in…
jrosenhouse | August 26, 2010With classes set to start on Monday I am not in the mood for heavy fare. So how about some entertainment blogging!
Like all sensible people I am a big fan of the James Bond movies. That none of them, let's face it, are actually all that good, does not affect my inability to change the channel when I notice that one is on. I used to feel strongly that Roger Moore was the best Bond, but that is partly because, given my age, he was the first Bond I encountered. Lately I have moved on to a more ecumenical approach that recognized the strengths and weaknesses of all the Bonds (including…
jrosenhouse | August 25, 2010P. Z. Myers had heart surgery yesterday, to implant a few stents. It was all very worrisome, but since he is already back to yelling at HuffPo it seems that things will work out OK.
Best wishes for a speedy recovery, P. Z.
jrosenhouse | August 3, 2010Here's Rod Dreher giving lectures about civility:
What is it with science-oriented advocates who consider contempt a virtue? Who, exactly, do they think they are going to persuade? (You could say the same thing about sneering political bloggers, sneering religious bloggers, and, well, sneerers in all forms of public discourse, inasmuch as sneering seems to be a popular pose these days.) Most of us are tempted to sneer every now and then (I certainly am guilty of this), but some of these people adopt sneering as a basic intellectual stance to the world.
Here's Rod Dreher hectoring Anne Rice…
tsaunders | July 16, 2010Some unfortunate, but probably unsurprising news today - Peter and I have decided that we will no longer be publishing Obesity Panacea on Scienceblogs. Future posts will be found on our new site at http://blogs.plos.org/obesitypancea. We have come to this decision for a number of reasons, but the recent PepsiCo advertorial played the largest part.
For a full explanation of our decision, click here.
The RSS feed has been updated, so subscribing to our feed here on Scienceblogs will still bring you all of the content at our new home. If you experience any problems with the feed, please don…
pjaniszewski | July 9, 2010As our regular readers will recall, my partner, Marina, and I are travelling for the summer throughout South America as a means to celebrate the successful defense of both of our PhDs (Read about our travel adventures and reflections here).
I know things are hitting the fan at SciBlogs with the whole PepsiCo sponsored blog fiasco. I only superficially understand the ensuing controversy.
Alas, I have VERY limited internet access available, and thus would prefer to discuss another issue which I have noticed while moving through Bolivia for the past 2 weeks.
I've previously discussed the…
tsaunders | July 6, 2010Today we have Scibling Showdown # 2 - the pros and cons of grad school. This episode includes Jason Goldman of the Thoughtful Animal, Christie Wilcox of Observations of a Nerd and Scicurious of Neurotopia. We talk about how we chose our current labs, things we wish we had known before we started grad school, and where we plan to end up (spoiler: none of us have any idea!).
We also discuss how blogging plays into the graduate school experience, and here it sounds like we've all had overwhelmingly positive experiences. I think any student will admit that grad school is a bit bipolar -…
tsaunders | July 1, 2010
Happy Canada Day! It looks like a pretty nice day here in the capital as well as the rest of the country - a great chance to get in some physical activity with your friends and family! Enjoy the long weekend!
Travis
jrosenhouse | June 29, 2010It will continue to be bloggus interruptus around here for a while. There are two main reasons for this. One is simply that I have two books under contract, both of which must be at least substantially done by the time school starts up again at the end of August. That means I am already spending many hours a day trying to make words appear on a screen. Makes it hard to work up the enthusiasm for blog writing on top of that.
But the other reason is simply that I'm feeling a bit burned out. There's been plenty of blog fodder recently, but I just flat haven't felt like writing about it.…
pjaniszewski | June 25, 2010As our regular readers will recall, my partner, Marina, and I are travelling for the summer throughout South America as a means to celebrate the successful defense of both of our PhDs (Read about our travel adventures).
Many people often take holidays to relax and unwind from the stresses of their daily life. Unfortunately, this can result in a week or two of poor if not excessive eating and drinking and little physical activity - not the best way to recharge one's battery. As part of our South American adventure, we've tried to add as much physical activity into our travels as possible.…
jrosenhouse | June 24, 2010
My cat, Isaac, died on Monday. He never did anything like a normal cat, and that includes the manner in which he died. He went from no symptoms to multiple organ failure in less than a week. We'll come to that in a moment.
Cats like Isaac are the reason people own cats. If he were a person he'd be a hard-living, hard-drinking kind of guy, never afraid to tell you what he thought but ultimately with a heart of gold. He loved being handled and had no sensitive spots. Cradle him like a baby in one arm (not so easy to do considering his weight) and rub his tummy and he was a very happy cat…
pjaniszewski | June 9, 2010As our regular readers will recall, my partner, Marina, and I are travelling for the summer throughout South America as a means to celebrate the successful defense of both of our PhDs (Read about our travel adventures). Last week I discussed the dietary habits on the Galapagos islands.
This week I will discuss my experience at a local indigenous food market in Latacunga, Ecuador - a town a couple hours south of Quito.
Sitting on a filthy butcher's table with legs spread open, a toddler drinks fresh cow blood out of a plastic cup. Our eyes meet, as he finishes a gulp, and his face breaks into…
jrosenhouse | June 6, 2010Over the past few weeks I have been working my way through season three of Dexter. Somehow I had gotten my Netflix cue out of order, so that they actually delivered the final disc, number four, to me before sending me the other DVD's. This particular disc contained only a single episode, the final one of the season. I decided to hold onto it until I was ready.
When I am at my peak I can plow through a full season of a television show in a few days. In this case, however, I got a bit distracted with other things. It took me rather a long time to work my way through the rest of season…
pjaniszewski | May 31, 2010 (Photo by Marina Komolova)
As our readers may have noticed, Travis has been solely carrying the Obesity Panacea load, while I have been a bit absent since my PhD defense. As some of you may know, I am taking the summer off to travel through South America with my partner, Marina, who also just defended her PhD thesis. While you can follow our adventures on our travel blog, I am also keeping notes during the travels that may be of greater interest to the readers of Obesity Panacea. Here is the 1st in the series of posts on lifestyles throughout South America: Galapagos edition.
We have just…
tsaunders | May 26, 2010Sorry for the absence the past few days - I am just back from the Bluenose Marathon Weekend in Halifax, Nova Scotia. My girlfriend and I have a lot of family and friends in Halifax, so the race was a great excuse to spend the May long weekend visiting with them. Daun and I ran in the 10km and Half-Marathon respectively, and 12 members of my extended family from 3 different generations walked or jogged the 10km. This is my first time racing in the Bluenose, but last year I volunteered in the Youth Run, which was at least as much fun as racing, if not more so (and not just because of the…