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gregladen | October 17, 2009There are several methods.
1) The lower the social security number, the older the bird, but this does not work on most migratory species;
2) You ask for its birth certificate, but they often fake these.
3) Go here and read this post on how to do it using Science.
gregladen | October 17, 2009The Giant's Shoulders Blog Carnival is now up and running at Quiche Moraine. This is an outstanding carnival pointing to some blog posts you will not want to miss.
Seriously. Click here.
grrlscientist | October 16, 2009
Image: wemidji (Jacques Marcoux).
Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est (And thus knowledge itself is power)
-- Sir Francis Bacon.
Have you read an especially good essay about science, nature or medicine lately? If so, why not share it with the world by submitting the URL for this essay to a blog carnival designed to share excellent writing with others? You don't need to be the author of an essay to submit it for consideration, and this is one way that blog carnivals grow in size and influence: by sharing with others.
Scientia Pro Publica (Science for the People) is a traveling blog carnival…
gregladen | October 16, 2009The One Hundred and Elevendieth I and the Bird Web Carnival ... which is all about birds ... is posted here, at one of my favorite blogs: The Twin Cities Naturalist. Please go check it out. Click on all the links. Digg and stuble upon, fark and reddit, and maybe even read each of the excellent entries into this, the longest running blog carnival of nature topics ever.
mspringer | October 16, 2009Today Texas A&M was a bit of a madhouse. Huge crowds, hundreds of police, unseasonably-suited and grim-faced men with mirrored sunglasses, unmarked helicopters circling overhead, TV cameras circling below, and completely borked traffic.
Why? Not just one but two Presidents of the United States are making speeches this afternoon. Obviously most of the fuss is about President Obama, but George H.W. Bush is there as well since he's the one putting on this particular shindig. It's is a non-partisan service-oriented civic pride sort of thing. I'd like to see them it but it's an invitation-…
cortex | October 16, 2009The New York Times wonders if E-Books are inherently less pleasing for the brain that ink on a page. They canvass a diverse group of experts, most of whom focus on the nature of attention during the reading process. They see old-fashioned printed books as a distraction-free medium, stark and pure and elemental. Here, for instance, is Maryanne Wolf, a neuroscientist at Tufts and author of the excellent Proust and the Squid:
I have no doubt that the new mediums [like E-Books] will accomplish many of the goals we have for the reading brain, particularly the motivation to learn to decode, read…
gregladen | October 15, 2009Down below the fold where it says "CLICK HERE" .... don't click there! First, make sure the following things are true:
1) You are alone.
2) Your computer's sound is turned up.
2) Nobody can hear you.
OK, go...
CLICK HERE
cortex | October 15, 2009I've got a new article in Nature this week on the growing number of learning and memory enhanced strains of mice, and what these smart rodents can teach us about the human mind. I also discuss Luria's The Mind of A Mnemonist and the stunning research demonstrating that the cognitive deficits of many neurodevelopmental disorders, including Neuroï¬bromatosis, Down's Syndrome and Fragile X, have actually proven to be reversible, at least in mouse models. The article is behind a paywall, but here's the lede:
Ten years ago, Princeton researcher Joe Tsien eased a brown mouse, tail first, into a…
awild | October 15, 2009Every year my part-time photography business does a little better than the year before. A few new clients, a few new venues, a few more visitors to my web sites. It's not a meteoric rise by any measure, but considering the current economic situation I am counting my blessings.
Naturally, of course, when business is good I muse about expanding it. What would it take to become a full-time professional photographer?
If I replaced all the time I spent running PCRs with time spent calling up potential clients and marketing my wares, and replaced the time I spent writing papers with time…
pronald | October 15, 2009
After a short blogging break, Tomorrow's Table is back at its new home here at ScienceBlogs. On this weblog I will discuss topics related to food, farming and genetics.
I am a Professor at the University of California, Davis where I study the response of rice to diseases and flooding. For more on my research, please see my lab website here. You can also take a look at series of posts called "Blogging from Bangladesh" that I wrote about one of my rice projects.
I teach a class called Genetics and Society that aims to educate students in the basic concepts of genetics and the process of…
sb admin | October 15, 2009
After a short blogging break, Tomorrow's Table is back at its new home here at ScienceBlogs. On this weblog I will discuss topics related to food, farming and genetics.
I am a Professor at the University of California, Davis where I study the response of rice to diseases and flooding. For more on my research, please see my lab website here. You can also take a look at series of posts called "Blogging from Bangladesh" that I wrote about one of my rice projects.
I teach a class called Genetics and Society that aims to educate students in the basic concepts of genetics and the process of…
mspringer | October 15, 2009I propose a Fermi Problem.
Over the lifetime of an average light bulb, what is the total mass of all the electrons that have flowed through?
Work on that if you have an idea how to proceed, or just take your best plausible guess. Remember it's a Fermi problem, so we're looking for estimates rather than detailed calculations. My suggested solution method under the link.
Ok, here's my rough shot. Each electron will transfer energy to the bulb roughly equal to the energy associated with the potential of the electric field produced by the voltage at the plug. For wall current, that's about…
gregladen | October 14, 2009How to find out the official US time:
Click here for the US Gummit Official Time Web site.
grrlscientist | October 14, 2009
Image: wemidji (Jacques Marcoux).
Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est (And thus knowledge itself is power)
-- Sir Francis Bacon.
Have you read an especially good essay about psychology, behavior or neurobiology lately? If so, why not share it with the world by submitting the URL for this essay to a blog carnival designed to share excellent writing with others? You don't need to be the author of an essay to submit it for consideration, and this is one way that blog carnivals grow in size and influence: by sharing with others.
Scientia Pro Publica (Science for the People) is a traveling blog…
gregladen | October 14, 2009I just listened to this and it was good. He seems to have been living in a cave. Full of stick figures.
So, Des, you'll tell me about this tattoo later right?
And now, for an eg:
mspringer | October 14, 2009Supposedly there's no such thing as bad publicity, and indeed just about every large organization from business to charity spends tremendous amount of time and money trying to get noticed by the public. You'd think therefore that it would be a good thing that particle physics gets the press it does. You'd think, but then you see news stories like this, from which we can get the gist by quoting the second paragraph:
...Then it will be time to test one of the most bizarre and revolutionary theories in science. I'm not talking about extra dimensions of space-time, dark matter or even black…