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grrlscientist | July 10, 2009How can you resist doing as the Bard of the Internetz asks?
She should be first on any list --
GrrlScientist! GrrlScientist!
Let no one's vote be lost or miss'd --
GrrlScientist! GrrlScientist!
Let one and all her cause assist --
Come join with me; I must insist!
Just move your fingers, hands, and wrist --
GrrlScientist! GrrlScientist!
Come raise your voice and clench your fist --
GrrlScientist! GrrlScientist!
Come march, or strut, or do the twist --
GrrlScientist! GrrlScientist!
Her cause is just; you can't resist;
Don't let her lose, or I'll be pissed!
(I'll stop for now -- you've got the…
grrlscientist | July 10, 2009The current Antarctic Trip Vote count is as follows; 921 - 683 - 652 - 621 - 401 out of 266 candidates registered. I am still in second place, and now there's a new third place candidate who is benefiting from a renewed surge of support.
If you've already voted, then please encourage your family, friends, colleagues and neighbors to vote for the person whom you think would be best for this unique job: traveling to Antarctica for the month of February 2010 and writing about it for the public on a blog. Here is my 300-word essay; hopefully, you will agree that I am a very well-qualified…
grrlscientist | July 10, 2009
Image: Orphaned.
Reduce GrrlScientist's Antarctic Vote Threat Level from Orange to Green by voting for her today!
Details: Quark Expeditions is searching for an Official Blogger to join a voyage to Antarctica. Their goals, according to an email I received recently from their official spokesperson, Prisca, are to have their official blogger write a daily blog entry in English about his or her experience on this Antarctic trip, and to help raise public awareness of the environmental and conservation issues that pertain to the Antarctic. To select their official blogger, they are asking…
mspringer | July 10, 2009From the front door of the physics building to my apartment is about two miles. That's not all that far, so lately I've taken to just walking instead of riding the bus. In theory it's a relaxing time to think and look at the interesting things that you miss from a vehicle, aside from being exercise. In practice all that's true, but tempered by the fact that it is as hot as a freaking autoclave outside.
This entire week the temperature has peaked out at around 100 degrees, or >310 K for those of you who think in SI. It's tolerable but not especially fun. It'll probably get quite a bit…
cortex | July 10, 2009Over at The Big Money, Mark Gimein has a fascinating article on Swoopo.com. Gimein calls Swoopo "the crack cocaine of auction sites" and says it's "the evil bastard child of game theory and behavioral economics." The site works like this:
Consider the MacBook Pro that Swoopo sold on Sunday for that $35.86. Swoopo lists its suggested retail price at $1,799; judging by the specs, you can actually get a similar one online from Apple (AAPL) for $1,349, but let's not quibble. Either way, it's a heck of a discount. But now look at what the bidding fee does. For each "bid" the price of the computer…
grrlscientist | July 9, 2009The current Antarctic Trip Vote count is as follows; 884 - 668 - 613 - 587 - 389 (how did yesterday's fifth place entrant lose 63 votes overnight??) out of 260 candidates registered. I am still in second place, and third place is creeping up on me rather quickly.
If you've already voted, then please encourage your family, friends, colleagues and neighbors to vote for the person whom you think would be best for this unique job: traveling to Antarctica for the month of February 2010 and writing about it for the public on a blog. Here is my 300-word essay; hopefully, you will agree that I am a…
gregladen | July 9, 2009Book note: I have received my copy of Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens our Future by Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum of The Intersection, and am now reading it for review. I am probably going to finish it this weekend, so you can expect something on Monday or Tuesday.
dgmacarthur | July 9, 2009A quick pointer to a new blog on the genomics scene that's just been officially launched: Genomics Law Report, a corporate blog from legal firm Robinson, Bradshaw and Hinson. One of the contributors, Dan Vorhaus, is an advisor to the Personal Genome Project and provides one of the highest signal-to-noise ratio genomics feeds on Twitter.
Dan's latest post, an excellent analysis of 23andMe's latest push into consumer-driven research, is a good place to start reading.
Subscribe to Genetic Future.
Follow me on Twitter.
gregladen | July 9, 2009This is illegal. Do not do this in the US. Or, do it only for CD's that you totally own. Like, you are the artist formerly known as Prince and you are going to rip your own DVD off of your own DVD. That is probably not legal either.
So, for those of you tuning in from Bora Bora:
And remember, Linux is not for everyone.
Arrrrrr....
gregladen | July 9, 2009.... or is there a honest to goodness glitch in the way browser shares are counted?
There is indeed evidence that IE browser share has dropped at the expense of Firefox over recent months. There is some evidence that there are problems with the way in which different versions of IE are counted which could be screwing up the stats. Regardless, Market Share by Net Applications, the service which provides a monthly market share assessment, has failed to produce the July 1 results claiming that the data are under review.
Can you say ... "Confirmation Bias?"
Some details of this murky…
grrlscientist | July 9, 2009tags: blogosphere, meme, reader demographics meme
Every once in awhile, I ask my readers to identify themselves by demographic groups -- gender, age, what you do, what you aspire to do, favorite books, and anything else you'd like to tell me because honestly, I find you all to be quite fascinating. I think about you all nearly constantly -- what stories you might like to read, what photographs and videos might amuse you -- and I'd like to learn more about you. I am participating in the "Who are You?" meme, inspired by my ScienceBlogs colleagues [Ed, DrugMonkey, SciCurious, Janet Stemwedel,…
cortex | July 9, 2009John Branch has an absolutely fascinating and beautifully told article in the Times today on Diane Van Deren, one of the premier ultra-runners in the world. Last year, she won the Yukon Arctic Ultra 300, which follows the treacherous trail of the Yukon sled dog race for hundreds of miles. (She was the first woman to ever complete the 430 mile version of the race.) This weekend she's participating in a race in Colorado that has a total elevation gain of 33,000 feet. But here's the neuroscientific twist: Diane is missing a chunk of her right temporal lobe, which makes it easier for her to…
grrlscientist | July 8, 2009The current Antarctic Trip Vote count is as follows; 865 - 654 - 610 - 540 - 452 out of 255 candidates registered. I am in second place, and third place is creeping up on me rather quickly. Wow, am I that undesirable as an official blogger?
If you've already voted, then please encourage your family, friends, colleagues and neighbors to vote for the person whom you think would be best for this unique job: traveling to Antarctica for the month of February 2010 and writing about it for the public on a blog. Here is my 300-word essay; hopefully, you will agree that I am a very well-qualified…
cwilcox | July 8, 2009It's amazing how the field of stem cell research has advanced so much in such a short amount of time. Today, just a little over a decade after the first stem cell line was produced, scientists announced another breakthrough - turning stem cells into sperm.
In a paper published in the journal Stem Cells And Development (PDF), British scientists from Englandâs Newcastle University detail a technique for turning stem cells with male chromosomes into reproductive germline cells and prompt them to divide into sperm.
Like non-stem derived sperm, the in vitro versions have 1/2 the amount of genetic…
gregladen | July 8, 2009The Citizens Jury on Election Recounts is a privately funded entity that has assembled 24 jurors and given them stipends and various resources to evaluate the recount process and make recommendations. The "jurors" are randomly selected regular people.
"I think there needs to be many different examinations of the lessons learned from the recount," said Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, who, along with Rep. Laura Brod, R-New Prague, has endorsed the citizen jury concept for this hyperlocal and hypertopical issue. "Citizens are the ones participating in the elections, and they have…
gregladen | July 8, 2009Have you ever noticed that many google servies, like most or all of the google apps including Gmail and Google Docs, are "Beta"?
Well, not any more:
Like many software products, Google's Gmail service was first released with a "beta" label on it. In the software industry, a product that is in beta is still in its testing phase. Beta versions, which are sandwiched between internal "alpha" versions and final "release" versions, typically have a lifespan of weeks or perhaps months. But Gmail was different. Released on April 1, 2004, it was still in beta five years and tens of millions of users…
sb admin | July 8, 2009Several months ago, I attended presentation by Michael Taylor, a former FDA deputy commissioner for policy whoâd recently become a professor here at the George Washington Universityâs School of Public Health. Taylorâs presentation, âBuilding a Prevention-Oriented Food Safety System: FDAâs Challenge and Opportunity,â explained why itâs so hard to ensure that our nationâs food supply is safe; factors range from the complexity and variety of food products to the fragmented regulatory structure for food. I remember that during the Q&A, someone brought up âthe egg rule,â and it prompted groans…
grrlscientist | July 8, 2009
Image: appears here with the kind permission of Wetjens Dimmlich [Slow Loris Fickr site].
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Quark Expeditions is searching for an Official Blogger to join a voyage to Antarctica. Their goals, according to an email I received from their official spokesperson, Prisca, are to have their official blogger write a daily blog entry in English about their experience on this Antarctic trip, and to help raise public awareness of the environmental and conservation issues that pertain to the Antarctic. To select their official blogger, they are asking candidates to enter a…
grrlscientist | July 8, 2009Shortly after I arrived in Helsinki and was suffering from jet lag, my friend, Bora, published this interview he had with me via email. Bora -- "Coturnix" -- is the main organizer of the ScienceOnline conference series held in North Carolina in January. Each year, he interviews the speakers from that year's conference and publishes those interviews on his blog to help generate greater public interest in the conference and in science blogging in general, and to help the public learn more about the people who write the blogs that they enjoy. The best part of my interview is the featured image…
mspringer | July 8, 2009There's a continuum of crazy in the world of conspiracy theories. On one end are the at least somewhat plausible ideas like that Oswald didn't act alone in the JFK assassination. On the other end are the downright schizophrenically crazed theories, say that the world is actually run by evil reptilian aliens in disguise.
I'd put the chemtrail folks down toward that crazier end. They are of the opinion that the trails left by jet aircraft are in fact government chemicals of unknown but certainly nefarious purpose.
As Carl Brannen notes, if they haven't put a conspiracy interpretation behind…