personal
drorzel | February 6, 2010It's been brought to my attention that there hasn't been any cute-baby video posted here for a while, so let me rectify that with a couple of clips. First, SteelyKid discovers that it's kind of difficult to fill Daddy's shoes:
For both our sakes, I hope those never fit her.
A clear indication of inheritance at work is the way she talks with her hands, as seen in this second clip:
I have no idea what she's saying, but she certainly says it with feeling.
pharyngula | February 6, 2010I think the Irish must be a competitive people — I had mentioned that the students in Galway had kept me out well past midnight with an ever-flowing tap, so here they had to keep me going at a series of pubs and restaurants until the barkeep threw us out at 1:30am. It was a fine end to a grand week in Ireland.
This morning Mark Ravinet gave me a tour of the city and a bit of historical background on The Troubles, and we drove through the Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods that once were festering with active unrest — something we couldn't have done a few years ago, but that are thankfully…
pharyngula | February 5, 2010I just finished an afternoon lecture on evo-devo at Queen's University Belfast, which went well, I think. At least I didn't pass out at the lectern. Then I also did an interview with William Crawley that I think is going to be aired on the BBC on Sunday. I managed to remain conscious through all that, too. I'm leaving in about 15 minutes for the final lecture (Peter Froggatt Centre (Room G06) at Queen's University) of my grand tour of Ireland, and yes, I shall be perky and alert throughout it! If you're there, do not mock the bags under my eyes, the tremble in my hand, or the rumpledness of…
drorzel | February 4, 2010(A.k.a. "just under the wire Baby Blogging, because Kate forgot she took these pictures.")
In which SteelyKid performs a magic trick:
"Watch me make this pretzel disappear, Mom!"
"Wait a minute . . . "
"Hey! No photography! Now give me that camera and no-one will get hurt."
And that's why there's no Appa picture today.
terrasig | February 4, 2010Please forgive me for the cranky. I am still confined to bed and am only writing between fits of coughing that still occasionally drive me near unconsciousness due to hypoxia. I'm stuck at home trying to read some research literature across the VPN and proxy servers from my three faculty appointments that give me access to much biomedical research literature.
However, some journals are now no longer granting access if one's IP address does not come directly from the university, even if you are using the university VPN server. And then there's my love-hate relationship with Nature Publishing…
pharyngula | February 4, 2010Oh-oh. It's midnight here in Ireland. I've been out with the NUI Galway Skeptic Society, struggling to keep up with people much younger than myself again…and with the magical infinite flow of Guinness I've discovered in Irish pubs frequented by college students. I'm too old for this, I think.
But wait…young people and infinite Guinness…I think I've discovered the fountain of youth! I'd be even more excited about this if I didn't have to get up really early tomorrow to catch a train to Dublin.
laelaps | February 4, 2010I got a pretty nice surprise yesterday morning; Laelaps was listed as one of the "Top 30 Science Blogs" by the Times science magazine Eureka! I was proud to see this blog featured alongside those of Scicurious, Ed, Carl, David, Sheril, Bora, and many of the others who made the list. Even better, Eureka wants to expand the list to include the top 100 science blogs, so be sure to send in your nominations for the best of the best to eureka@thetimes.co.uk, with "Best blogs" in the subject line.
And, as Ed already said, Times science editor Mark Henderson deserves three cheers (and a bit more) for…
pharyngula | February 3, 2010I don't know who I am anymore. I was sent this summary of one of my talks in California, and apparently I'm an evil fool. Then I got this analysis of my influence, and apparently I'm honest and outspoken.
I get these wildly disparate descriptions of myself all the time. The net effect: I can't believe anything anymore. This must be why I'm an atheist!
pharyngula | February 3, 2010It looks like the Irish are finally fed up with me and I'm about to be flung from the top of a medieval castle, but that's actually me cautiously easing backwards and down to kiss the Blarney Stone.
The above kiss was made after Atheist Ireland aimed a camera at me to promote their organization. It might have helped if I'd switched the order.
(via Gavin Golden)
clock | February 3, 2010Yes, years after I left the lab, I published a scientific paper. How did that happen?
Back in 2000, I published a paper on the way circadian clock controls the time of day when the eggs are laid in Japanese quail. Several years later, I wrote a blog post about that paper, trying to explain in lay terms what I did, why I did it, what I found, and how it fits into the broader context of this line of research. The paper was a physiology paper, and my blog post also focused on the physiological aspects of it.
But then, I wrote (back in March 2006 - eons ago in Web-time) an additional blog post…
edyong | February 3, 2010[It's probable that only British readers will understand the joke in the headline. Everyone else: just pretend it's an uproariously funny pop-culture reference and we can move on.]
This morning, the Times published a list of its 30 best science blogs and I'm incredibly honoured to be on it. Twice. Once for Not Exactly Rocket Science, and again for my efforts at Cancer Research UK's Science Update blog.
A bit of background - the Times recently launched a monthly science supplement called Eureka and every issue, one of its writers selects their favourite science blogs. This list is a…
drorzel | February 2, 2010As mentioned previously, I'm giving a talk at the University of Maryland, College Park this Thursday, Feb 4 at 3:30 pm in the Lecture Hall (room 1110) in the Kim Engineering Building. The title of the talk is "Talking to My Dog About Science: Why Public Communication of Science Matters, and How Weblogs Can Help"-- stop by if you're in the area.
I'll be in the DC area on Friday as well, doing some other stuff, and I don't leave until Saturday. Unfortunately, the DC area is forecast to get heavy snow on Friday into Saturday, and given the way that part of the country gets its knickers in a…
pharyngula | February 2, 2010I am off to a fun start here in Ireland, with a busy day yesterday. I was on the Tom McGurk radio show, which is summarized by a listener. Basically, it was the cracker incident compressed into less than 10 minutes, with McGurk barking at me and an amazingly clueless and pompous senator, Ronan Mullen, brought in to wax indignant at my affront to Catholicism. It was not a good format to actually address the issues — Mullen actually dared me to blaspheme against Muslims, for instance, and all I had time to do was laugh at the hilarity of yet another instance of fatwah envy before they both went…
pharyngula | February 2, 2010It's a busy few days coming up. This afternoon I'm going to record an interview for a show called Culture Shock on Newstalk Radio, which is broadcast on Thursdays at 10pm on 106-108fm. I'll be at UCD tonight at 6:30, in Theatre B in the Science Hub.
Tomorrow I hop on a train for Cork, 7pm in Council Chambers Room, 1st floor, North Wing of Main Quadrangle, UCC. I'll be sharing the stage with a representative from Educate Together, and the subject will be on the importance of a secular education.
On Thursday, I'll be in Galway, speaking in the O'Flaherty Theatre, NUI Galway, at 6:30 pm. I see…
drorzel | February 1, 2010The message is: "I have a chair!"
SteelyKid's new chair is a kid-sized black fake-leather armchair from Target. We originally set out looking for a kid-sized table and chair set that she could use to draw on, but the only ones on offer at Babysaurus were chintzy particle board things with Disney characters all over them, and we're trying to limit our consumption of both of those. The armchair is kind of silly, but she was too cute climbing in and out of it for me not to buy it.
She's talking more and more these days, and has started to pick up adult hand gestures. Here she is explaining to…
revere | January 31, 2010I'm coming up for air during my grant writing (so far this weekend I've spent in excess of ten hours yesterday and today just writing; all the rest of the time I spent obsessing about what I wrote and what I still needed to write), but you know I'm desperate when I start posting stuff like this:
UF [University of Florida] researchers reviewed 96 cases that had complete medical records from more than 4,000 entries in the International Shark Attack File, a record maintained by UF's Florida Museum of Natural History. Assigning scores to clinical findings such as blood pressure, location and…
pharyngula | January 31, 2010On top of previous summaries, Zeno now recounts the tale of my visit to Sierra College. One amusing feature of the Q&A at Sierra was that a notorious creationist showed up, and I caused him considerable distress by turning his complaints against him by asking him to give his best evidence for god, and also by viciously inviting him to our post-talk libations. I am such a poopyhead.
I also got one horrified reaction to my Davis talk published by a faitheist. It's hilarious. The author professes to be an atheist, but then defends Christianity. Sort of.
Christians may refer to themselves as…
pharyngula | January 30, 2010I had a nice break for about 14 hours — I arrived in Minneapolis, and my wife showed up with her massage table (there's a reason she is the Trophy Wife™), but now I have to get on a series of planes to arrive after a series of stops in exotic Dublin, where I shall somehow find my way to someplace to stay for a day or so before giving a talk to the University College Dublin humanists. It should be fine, even if I am stumbling about a bit with uncertainty about where I'm going — the Irish are a hospitable people, and if nothing else, I can always find a pub.
Everyone uses that picture Larry…
jstemwedel | January 28, 2010... to the student in my "Ethics in Science" course.
Today was our second class meeting, which is essentially the first real class meeting -- the one in which, instead of just focusing on the overall arc of the course, and the assignments you'll be doing, and the mechanics of finding the information you need on the course website, there was actual content to discuss.
Owing to my sabbatical year, it's been two years since I taught this course. It's true that much of that sabbatical was devoted to thinking and writing about the subject matter of the course, but I'll admit that I had a moment…
drorzel | January 28, 2010Tonight was bath night, so here's a fresh and clean SteelyKid, showing off her pink penguin pajamas:
I'm pretty beat tonight, so that's all I've got: cute baby, penguin PJ's. That ought to be enough for anyone, though.