Random
catdynamics | February 11, 2011Yes, it is friday again, and once more we go to the Mighty iPod to seek guidance on dark matters...
Oh, Mighty iPod, we ask, topically, is the apparent seasonal modulation in DAMA really truly due to some sort of Light Cold Dark Matter, possibly with substructure?
Whoosh goes the iPod.
Whoosh.
The Covering: Another Nail in My Heart - Squeeze
The Crossing: Ghost Town (12" version) - Specials
The Crown: Dýravísur - various
The Root: Lunge da lei...De' miei bollenti (from La Traviata)
The Past: Ruder Than You - Bodysnatchers
The Future: Jingle Bell Rock - Bobby Helms
The Questioner:…
kbonham | February 11, 2011At the superbowl party at my house last weekend, most folks didn't really have a stake in who won. But several friends were rooting for Pittsburg to loose, largely due to their quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger. In case you don't pay attention to sports news (like me), Roethlisberger was twice accused of rape/sexual assault in the last two years. When folks were talking about it, I foolishly said something along the lines of, "well, what were the cirumstances of the rape?"
The Daily Show - Rape Victim Abortion FundingTags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily…
kbonham | February 10, 2011I was going to cover this paper, but Ed beat me to it (and did a far better job than I would have):
With a pulse of light, Dayu Lin from New York University can turn docile mice into violent fighters - it's Dr Jekyll's potion, delivered via fibre optic cable. The light activates a group of neurons in the mouse's brain that are involved in aggressive behaviour. As a result, the mouse attacks other males, females, and even inanimate objects.
Lin focused on a primitive part of the brain called the hypothalamus that keeps our basic bodily functions ticking over. It lords over body temperature,…
kbonham | February 10, 2011My common New Year's resolutions (get more exercise, keep my lab notebook up to date, etc) rarely make it off the starting block. In this I am hardly unique, and there are very good reasons why, so I usually also try to make one major, sort of intangible resolution. This year for instance (largely because of reading this book), I decided to try to be wrong more often. More precisely, I'm trying to want to change my mind.
It's hard to know how well this is going (with all of the things I'm not changing my mind about, it's obviously because I'm right), but alas, all my other resolutions have…
catdynamics | February 4, 2011while I contemplate 1200 candidate planetary systems, and a hundred black hole researchers, I turn to the Mighty iPod
ok, so I got no blogging on the new stuff or the backlog done this week
Oh, Mighty iPod One: exoplanets or black holes?
Whoosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.
The Covering: Girlfriend in a Coma - Smiths
The Crossing: Slow Ride - Bonnie Raitt
The Crown: My Feelings - Twin Sister
The Root: Let's Do Rock Steady - Bodysnatchers
The Past: The Muffin Man - Twin Sister
The Future: Jólin, Jólin (Jó)lin Koma Brátt) - Svanhildur Jakobs.
The Questioner: Damaged Goods - Gang of…
catdynamics | January 27, 2011It has been a long time since we dove into the divinations of the Mighty iPod...
but now, the spirit moves me, and we again spin the wheel:
Oh, Mighty iPod One, what oh what will become of JWST?
Whoosh goes the iPod.
Whoosh!
The Covering: The Hen - Jean-Philippe Rameau
The Crossing: Once in Royal David's City - King's College Choir
The Crown: Sweet Jane (Live) - Lou Reed
The Root: Always Look on the Bright Side - Monty Python
The Past: Cover Me - Björk
The Future: Joy To The World - Irish Tenors
The Questioner: Carol of the Bells - Barlow Girl
The House: Hong Kong Garden - Siouxsie and the…
kbonham | January 25, 2011For your ammusement, I give you the latest Science Signaling cover:
According to the journal,
The image shows the AVP neurons, which have their cell bodies in the hypothalamus and nerve terminals in the pituitary.
Oh really? Someone must have hired the little mermaid guy.
kbonham | January 23, 2011Mark Henderson of The Times is embarking on (what I think is) a great project - highlighting the contribution that the science savvy can have and are having on public discourse.
The intersection of science and politics is a growing interest of mine, though I don't have nearly as much credibility as many others around the blogosphere (but give me a break - I'm still in grad school). Go help him out, he wants to know
* What are the best examples of geek activism, what have they achieved and what can we learn from them?
* What else can geeks do to hold politicians and civil servants to…
kbonham | January 11, 2011New York Times columnist David Brooks wants to explain away the actions of Jared Loughner, the gunman that shot 20 people at a political event as the isolated actions of a deranged psycho:
All of this evidence, which is easily accessible on the Internet, points to the possibility that Loughner may be suffering from a mental illness like schizophrenia. The vast majority of schizophrenics are not violent, and those that receive treatment are not violent. But as Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, a research psychiatrist, writes in his book, "The Insanity Offense," about 1 percent of the seriously mentally…
kbonham | January 10, 2011Lately, I find myself disagreeing with PZ far more than I used to on a number of matters. Today though, I think he's 100% correct:
What we have here is an attempted assassination of a politician by an insane crank at a political event, in a state where the political discourse has been an unrelenting howl of eliminationist rhetoric and characterization of anyone to the left of Genghis Khan as a traitor and enemy of the state...and now, when six (including a nine year old girl) lie dead and another fourteen are wounded, now suddenly we're concerned that it is rude and politicizing a tragedy to…
catdynamics | January 5, 2011Been a long time since I linked to a Billy Bragg video.
And, look, he's got a new tune:
catdynamics | January 5, 2011don´t mind me, just gearing up for the AAS
hey: who is going to the AAS?
if you do go, first read Julianne's advice on how to give a 5 minute talk
- the correct answer, generally, is "don't" - I'm definitely in the "provide asynchronous communication paths and put up a poster" group
I completely ignored l'affaire Gaskell, mostly because I don't want to get dragged into some issues right now
At scienceblogs Dean's Corner is trying to start a dialog
while the redoubtable PZ's take is predictable and strident
Mike Brotherton also ponders the issue (do trace back to the entire series of…
heathero | January 4, 2011
Thanks to Viktor at StrippedScience for letting me borrow his microbe New Year's cartoon!
Happy New Year! I was catching up on my blog reader and came across the NatureNews top science stories of 2010. I was curious how many of these stories would have something to do with microbes... turns out quite a few do. Of the 12 science news-worthy events/discoveries selected, 3 were directly related: the claim of Arsenic-based life story, the new HIV drug Truvada (including viruses with microbes), and the synthetic genome from the Ventner institute.
In the style of 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon I…
kbonham | January 4, 2011I was going to leave all the promotion of ZOMGSCIENCE.net, to everyone else, but he (it has to be a he right?) did T-cells:
I like Sci's description best
Is it overwhelmingly informative? Nope. Is it clean and safe for children or work? Nope. Is it massively entertaining?!?! YES!
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*I'm not supposed to put expletives in titles anymore or else google gets mad at us
catdynamics | January 3, 2011Happy New Year!
Been kinda slow 'round here recently, need to catch up now.
So, er, who is going to AAS?
Seriously: what would it take to get Amazon, or Apple, say, to give me unlimited access to all current and future eBooks?
I like books.
We have a few thousand at home, including a healthy hundred or so eBooks by now, and the piles beside the bed now reach above the mattress - and it is a good thick mattress on a boxspring and tall frame - and I mean piles, at least one per household resident, excepting the cat.
But, much as I like buying books, browsing books, getting books for pressies…
catdynamics | January 2, 2011Icelandic media are reporting audible rumbles from Eyjafjallajökull sunday evening.
Earthquake activity is not up, though over the last few weeks there have been some small tremors under the glacier.
No sign of an actual eruption, and no sign of activity under her big sister, Katla.
Yet.
There is a spike in earthquake activity at the northern edge of Vatnajökull by Kistufell.
There are frequently surges of activity up there, it is right along the major line of the North Atlantic Ridge as it goes across the island, and there are at least three major active volcanoes right along there,…
kbonham | December 30, 2010I'm from California, but this is my third New England winter (though last year doesn't really count since Washington DC and New York stole al our snow). Even I know, this is a really important message:
And the tips for idiots (mentioned at 0:57) are especially important:
- Do not attempt to mow lawn
- Do not eat de-icing salt
- Do not start fires indoors
- If you pee on yourself, change pants immediately [it may start off feeling warmer, but wet cotton = hypothermia - kb]
- Wear mittens
- Snow is cold
- A garbage bag does not make a "great coat"
- Keep icicles out of eyes
Be safe out there…
kbonham | December 16, 2010A while back, ERV wrote about a rather silly study trying to equate viruses with obesity. I don't have anything to add to that, but I mention it because in that post, she linked to William M Briggs. He seemed to have a pretty good take on that study, and since I wasn't reading any other blogs by statisticians (and know fairly little about statistics), I added the blog to my RSS feed. It soon became abundantly clear that he and I do not see eye to eye on most issues; he seems very conservative, doesn't have a very high opinion of science, and might be a global warming denier (he never comes…