personal
edyong | March 27, 2008My first ever feature article has just been published in this week's issue of New Scientist. It's about the ways in which songbirds are coping with the noisy din of cities. Low-frequency urban noises mask the calls that they use to attract mates, defend territories and compete with rivals. The race to adapt to this new soundscape has already seen some losers being forced out and some winners developing some intriguing strategies to cope with the clamour.
Robins have started to sing at night when it's quieter, while nightingales just belt out their tunes more loudly (breaking noise safety…
oracknows | March 26, 2008I just can't shake it. Try as I might to get rid of it, it just continues to grip my body like a tick that just won't let go.
I'm talking about the death crud, which I had thought originally to be a nasty cold but is now looking more and more like the flu. It descended upon me Friday night/Saturday morning and intensified over the last couple of days to the point where I did something both yesterday and today that I almost never do: Cancel afternoon meetings and come home early. In fact, I did it two days in a row--unprecedented. Naturally, a sane person might ask why I even went into work at…
pharyngula | March 25, 2008What an honor: Jeff Medkeff, an astronomer and discoverer of asteroids, has been generous to name a recently discovered set of distant rocks after Michael Stackpole, Rebecca Watson, Phil Plait, and me. That's right, there is now a few billion tons of rock and metal spinning overhead with my name on it, asteroid 153298 Paulmyers. You can find a picture of its orbit and location, just in case you want to visit.
Now I don't know much about astronomy — I know this rock doesn't have any squid on it, unfortunately, and that it's small, cold, and remote (hey, just like where I am now! Only more so…
sheril | March 24, 2008Dear PZ,
[It's worth pointing out, my problem is not with profanity. Regular readers know that long before I entered the blogosphere, I've vocally celebrated the right to free speech and independent thinking. However, when influential and well respected professors argue like children in a very public online forum, substantive points decompose to nonsense blows, which puts a poor lens on a field that already has an image problem. As visible teachers and bloggers in the sciences, it's within our power to make strides to improve that, and a well argued rebuttal, over a dismissive profane…
oracknows | March 23, 2008Sadly, unlike his namesake, Orac is not immune to human foibles and human vulnerabilities. In particular he's not immune whatever virus is going around at the moment. The damned thing felled my wife for over a week. I thought that I had avoided it, but apparently not. Now I'm starting to feel the unmistakable signs of its infestation of my body. Consequently, I don't feel up to any blogging today, and all I can hope for is that my version will not evolve into the debilitating death flu that I watched my poor wife suffer through. Fortunately, however, I've found a little something to make me…
edyong | March 23, 2008About a month ago, I migrated from the safe, stable climate of Wordpress to the unknown but promising habitat of ScienceBlogs. With four weeks having flown by, this seems like a good a point as any to have a bit of a navel-gazing retrospective about what's changed since the move.
And the answer is... erm, not that much, at least not on a qualitative level. Take a look at the posts I've written in the old and new versions of the site and I think you'll find that there's remarkably little difference in the topics covered or the style of writing. It's really important that people realise that…
drorzel | March 23, 2008Today is Easter Sunday, which I will be celebrating in the traditional manner: by, um, driving across half of New York and Pennsylvania... OK, maybe that's not the usual tradition...
I'm giving a talk tomorrow at Bucknell, so I need to get to Lewisburg, PA tonight. This will allow me to stop through Scenic Whitney Point and see my family, though, so I will get a little traditional Easter stuff in.
Anyway, for those who celebrate it, Happy Easter. For those who don't, have a nice Sunday. I've scheduled a couple of things to keep you amused tomorrow, but otherwise, don't expect much from me…
drorzel | March 23, 2008Ladies and gentemen, one of the three worst pictures ever taken of me:
There is, of course, a story behind this. It's not a particularly good story, but there is one...
That's my college ID, from my freshman year at Williams. It's actually the second ID I got, because while I was on spring break with the rugby club, I lost my wallet, and all my ID with it. When we got back to campus, I had to start replacing all that stuff, and the first stop was the Security office, to get a new ID.
I wasn't real happy about this, so the first picture taken by the young woman working the camera looked…
clock | March 22, 2008If you live in the UK and would like to meet me on April 9th, go here to organize - add a comment with your preferences of place/time/menu/events....
jstemwedel | March 20, 2008Well, light can still escape the gravitational pull of my world, but it does feel like it's getting noticeably smaller.
Three recent data points:
At a soccer game the other weekend, the team I coach was playing a team some of whose players I coached last Spring season. The parent of one of those former players of mine greeted me as "Dr. Free-Ride" -- apparently, he had stumbled upon my blog!
(Younger offspring's immediate reaction: "Oh, so you've seen my drawings!")
One of my students this term turns out to be the sister of the parent of my former player.
Today, I got an email from Steinn…
jstemwedel | March 20, 2008Since March is Women's History Month, I thought it might be appropriate to recognize some women who were a part of my history -- namely, the women who taught me chemistry and physics. (This shouldn't be interpreted as a slight against the women who taught me biology -- I simply don't remember them as well -- nor against the men who taught me science. They made an impact on me, but this post isn't about them.)
I didn't realize it until just now, but none of my science teachers in junior high or high school were women. That strikes me as kind of weird. In contrast, during my undergraduate…
terrasig | March 19, 2008Two political posts in two days. Apologies to those who come here for the science but these are the issues getting my attention and energy this week.
Billy Bragg is a special guy in my life and this song from 2002 was particularly prescient.
In memory of those lost in the 11 September attacks, the Spanish 11 March bombings, the thousands of allied forces and Iraqi people dead and injured, and all around the world whose needs have gone unmet in exchange for financing an unguided and unnecessary war. . .
clock | March 18, 2008My spring traveling schedule has now crystallized. This is my schedule - if you are in any of those places at just the right time, let me know and let's meet.
I'll be arriving in London on April 9 early in the morning. I'd like to have a huge bloggers' meetup that first night, if possible, as I will spend the rest of the time in UK at the PLoS offices in Cambridge (and if you live there, let's meet). I may also need a place to stay that first night in London (I have some family and friends there as well, so I may stay there). I'll stay in the UK until April 15th in the afternoon.
I'll…
jstemwedel | March 17, 2008Following up on an earlier post, I wanted to say a little about the Synopsis Championship that took place last week. It's sort of a judge's-eye view of the fair -- from a very enthusiastic and impressed judge.
I walked over to the convention center from campus, and it actually took my awhile to find the fair because the last time my teaching schedule was such that I could judge the fair, they held it in the main exhibition hall. This year, it was in its own hangar-like building.
Judges checked in, got their name tags, judging-team assignments, and guidelines for judge and for talking with…
oracknows | March 17, 2008Thursday through Sunday, I happened to be in Chicago for the Society of Surgical Oncology annual meeting. Leave it to surgeons to schedule a meeting the weekend before St. Patrick's Day in Chicago.
In Chicago.
That means the drinking in the city started Friday after business hours and continued all the way through Sunday--and that was just the natives. Everywhere I went on Friday and Saturday night, there were staggering people dressed in green hanging on to each other. Another lovely thing was that the meeting was at the Sheraton (one of my favorite hotels in Chicago, it's crappy, slow, and…
clock | March 15, 2008The early orders of the XO laptop arrived quickly. My wife and daughter have been enjoying them for three months now. But the late orders got pretty much stuck - they were overwhelmed with the numbers. We got a couple of apologetic e-mails offering to send us back the money if we are sick of waiting, but we decided to be patient. Finally, this morning, my son's XO arrived. And so did Anton's. Now I am mad at myself for not getting one for me as well...
pharyngula | March 14, 2008This is my least favorite time of the year in Minnesota. I hate early spring.
Everything is melting during the day: there's a constant drip-drip-drip, puddles everywhere, the snow is shrinking away from all those untrammeled areas surrounding us, and during the day, the walkways are all like shallow streams. And then at night it freezes again.
Which brings me to by big complaint: I get up early in the morning, and I step outside, and the sidewalks are all these beautifully smooth sheets of ice; it's like a Zamboni has gone down the streets of Morris, polishing everything. There's this path…
terrasig | March 13, 2008[Hi Mom. Will call you soon but you really need not read this post. Love, Your son.]
Bora/Coturnix just alerted me to the FDA approval of a home sperm-check test that can be used to determine the effectiveness of one's vasectomy. The product, SpermCheck Vasectomy, was developed by Dr John C Kerr and fellow researchers at the University of Virginia through their faculty business start-up program. This test could minimize the embarrassment of the 500,000 US men who undergo the 3rd most popular contraceptive procedure by obviating the need to bring a 90-day post-vasectomy semen sample to the…
edyong | March 12, 2008Nineteen months ago, I wrote my first article for this blog and yesterday, I wrote my 200th. It continues to be a fantastically rewarding experience. I think that it's made me a better (or at the very least, a more careful) writer and most importantly, it's given me a way of keeping up with the awesome research that comes out on an almost daily basis.
I'm not usually that good at keeping up with new hobbies and I think sticking with this one for a comparatively long time is testament to how enjoyable it is. On any typical day, there's a small pile of papers on the left side of my desk that I…