Science
awild | September 29, 2008
Heterospilus sp., head & compound eye, Costa Rica
Here are some shots from my training session this morning at the Beckman Institute's Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). I haven't used SEM for years- wow! Great fun. Click on each image to enlarge.
Heterospilus sp. mesosoma
Heterospilus sp., ovipositor
For contrast, here's a photo of a wasp in the same genus taken with my standard Canon macro gear:
Heterospilus sp. Costa Rica, taken with a Canon 20D dSLR & macro lens
We'll be deciding over the coming months which type of images to use for our project. As you can see,…
drorzel | September 29, 2008In the comments to last week's science majors follow-up post, commenter Jim G calls me out:
OK, I agree with that 100%, and I'm sure everyone who reads this post has observed the phenomena you mention dozens of times or more. But I wonder whether you have a proposal, or if you're just pointing out the problem. With no snarkiness intended, to change this we need something a bit more concrete than "it's the fault of the kids/parents/media/poverty," or "someone needs to spend more money" to fix it.
Really, I'm curious. I don't want to clutter up your blog with my own theories; but this is your…
pharyngula | September 29, 2008This is a very simple, lucid video of Spencer Wells talking about his work on the Genographic Project, the effort to accumulate lots of individual genetic data to map out where we all came from.
I've also submitted a test tube full of cheek epithelial cells to this project, and Lynn Fellman is going to be doing a DNA portrait of me. I had my Y chromosome analyzed just because my paternal ancestry was a bit murky and messy and potentially more surprising, and my mother's family was many generations of stay-at-home Scandinavian peasantry, so I knew what to expect there. Dad turned out to be…
drorzel | September 29, 2008October is almost upon us, which means that the winners of the 2008 Nobel Prizes will be announced soon. Very soon-- the first announcement (for Medicine) is next Monday. The most important announcement-- the Nobel in Physics-- is next Tuesday, October 7.
This is a good excuse for a contest, so:
Leave a comment on this post predicting the winner(s) of one of this year's Nobel Prizes. Anyone who correctly picks both the field and the laureate will win a guest-post spot on this blog.
Ground rules and fine print:
- Comments must clearly state both the field and the name of the winner(s) being…
grrlscientist | September 29, 2008tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books
"One cannot have too many good bird books"
--Ralph Hoffmann, Birds of the Pacific States (1927).
The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that are or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle bird pals, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is published here for your enjoyment. Here's this week's issue of the Birdbooker Report by which lists ecology, environment, natural history and bird books that are (or will…
rallain | September 28, 2008When mowing the lawn, I like to listen to podcasts. One of my favorites is [Buzz Out Loud](http://bol.cnet.com). This weekend, I was listening to episode 817 and one of the topics of discussion was MySpace and their DRM free music stuff. [Wired](http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/09/myspace-launche.html) had a description of what they were going to do. That is not my point. The point is the claim that you could make an infinite number of playlists. How about I calculate (or estimate) the number of different playlists one could make.
First, the idea behind the idea. Calculating the number…
awild | September 28, 2008Via The Other 95% comes an absolutely charming animation set to the British public's opinion on evolution.
If the style looks familiar, it's from Nick Park, the creator of Wallace and Gromit.
razib | September 28, 2008When I look through the GSS I am struck, and sometimes disturbed, by the way attitudes toward science track various demographic slices. It is no surprise that Fundamentalist Christians tend to be suspicious of science, but blacks and the poor also tend to be much more hostile than whites and the middle and upper classes. So I was curious as to whether there was a systematic sex difference as there are on some issues (astrology) but not on others (abortion). What differences there are seem very modest. In fact, I am struck that the difference in daily familiarity with science does not…
drorzel | September 28, 2008There's an interesting exchange over at the Reality-Based Community around the topic of "earmarks" for science, like the grizzly bear DNA study McCain keeps mocking. Michael O'Hare argues that science should not be funded by earmarks:
Almost any piece of scientific research, especially in biology, that isn't called "Cure cancer!" is liable to the kind of ignorant ridicule lobbed at these. Sure, some research is deeply silly and some is not worth doing. But that non-specialists can make fun of something from its title means nothing, and these japes indicate only the smug ignorance of the…
catdynamics | September 27, 2008There will be a strange and wonderful gathering at the Apple Soho, NYC store at 7 pm on wednesday night...
It is The Jonas Brothers!!!
No, wait! That was Last Month.
Damn.
They rock. (Or so I'm told...)
But, it gets even better!
This wednesday, Oct 1st, at
the Apple store in Soho, New York City
it is Blogging Science: What's Hot, What's Not
7:00-8:30 pm, sharp.
Be there, or be at home having a quiet dinner watching Jeopardy reruns...
Part of the Apple - Science thingy they are doing.
We will be provocative, we promise, and we'll talk about stuff and science thingies, and probably…
awild | September 27, 2008
Atta texana queen and worker
Ant queens are those individuals in a nest that lay the eggs. They're pretty important, of course, as without reproduction the colony dwindles and disappears.
Understandably, ant-keepers have an interest in making sure their pet colonies have queens. Conversely, pest control folks trying to get rid of ant colonies need to be sure that they've eliminated queens. Whether your interest is live ants or dead ants, I'll give some pointers in this post for recognizing queens.
In many species the difference between workers and queens is obvious. Consider the…
awild | September 26, 2008The lab I work in at the University of Illinois has recently acquired funding for several graduate student positions. If you are considering a career in taxonomy, genomics, phylogenetics, biodiversity, tropical ecology, or parasitoid wasps, click here for information about the positions.
Ponder the following: you'd get your graduate degree from one of the finest entomology institutions in the world. Plus, it's paid for. And, if you choose the Heterospilus project, you'll get the rare honor of working with, um, me.
ddobbs | September 26, 2008This week's Science is particularly rich in stories, it seems. These stories require a paid subscription, alas -- but the write-ups here, in Science's weekly mailing, make pretty good reading on their own for those without a subscription. My favorites:
From the Minds of Babes
I became fascinated with baby cognition when I did a story on Liz Spelke's work with infants while also raising a couple. Spelke and others have focused on the wee'ns's innate or very early powers of cognition, including numerosity and early logic and perception. Here, though, is an interesting study that proposes…
pharyngula | September 26, 2008Geologists have just discovered the oldest terrestrial rock yet: some badly battered bit of something called a faux-amphibolite from Northern Quebec, Canada that has been dated to 4.28 billion years ago. I'm afraid most of the paper is way above my head — lots of radioisotope measurements, discussions of the details of the local geology, etc. — but I can at least note that this means Ken Ham is wrong by a factor of over 713,000. I am impressed by both the age of the rocks and the magnitude of the error a creationist can sustain without exploding into a cloud of pink pixie dust that fades to…
grrlscientist | September 25, 2008I thought I'd mention the upcoming Science Blog writing discussion that is scheduled for Tuesday, 1 October, at Manhattan's Apple Store in Soho. This isa panel that will discuss the value of a blog to communicating with the public about one's research. The panel will be moderated by Katherine Sharpe and, along with me, includes several of my SciBlings, Jake Young, Jessica Palmer, Steinn Sigurdsson, and Brian Switek.
What: Apple Pro Session panel with ScienceBloggers
Date: Wednesday, 1 October 2008
Time: 7 - 8pm ET
Location: 103 Prince Street [map].
You might also wish to refer to several…
hrynyshyn | September 25, 2008I usually like to refer to the actual study, but I can't find it, so we'll have to make do with the Independent's story on a survey of thousands of British primary and secondary schoolchildren that found most have no idea that science is something of value.
The story starts off with the now predictable gnashing of teeth over the finding that "among every generation of school leavers, there are tens of thousands of potential scientists who are, partly owing to ignorance, turning their backs on careers with a science component." But the really depressing part comes in the form of some…
bioephemera | September 25, 2008Shelley Batts, Nick Anthis, and Tara Smith authored an article on science blogging which appeared yesterday in PLoS Biology. In their words,
We propose a roadmap for turning blogs into institutional educational tools and present examples of successful collaborations that can serve as a model for such efforts.
The article gives solid examples of how blogging has facilitated scientific collaboration, in fields from plant genetics to science policy. I don't think anyone disputes that blogs can open the lines of communication and enable interactions across research groups, institutions, and…
oracknows | September 24, 2008I've written about their antics, both silly and vile, many times before.
Animal rights activists in general and PETA in particular. In doing so, I've come to the conclusion that they are so far off their rockers that they are simply impossible to parody. Just yesterday, to reinforce that point, PETA wrote an open letter to Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield of Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream. It has to be read to be believed:
September 23, 2008
Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, Cofounders
Ben & Jerry's Homemade Inc.
Dear Mr. Cohen and Mr. Greenfield,
On behalf of PETA and our more than 2 million…
bioephemera | September 24, 2008
Shadow Hand
Check out this slideshow of robot hands from Wired. It tracks the evolution of the hand from the first attempts to duplicate the functionality of a human hand, to integration of self-monitoring proprioceptive and sensory capabilities, to replicating the anatomical and physiological structure of the human hand - both in order to better understand the biology, and to accommodate the connection of prostheses. On the way, it becomes obvious what a thing of complexity and beauty the human hand really is.