Uncategorized
grrlscientist | June 10, 2006This week's question from the mothership is a fantasy-type of question.
Question: Assuming that time and money were not obstacles, what area of scientific research, outside of your own discipline, would you most like to explore? Why?
There are several avenues of research that appeal to me, all of which are "cutting edge" fields that of course, are quite exciting.
First, I would love to study avian influenza viruses, which I think are utterly fascinating. I would be especially interested to research the evolution of lethality in these viruses and identifying which molecular changes are…
mikethemadbiologist | June 10, 2006Dr. Free-Ride has a getting-acquainted exercise for us newbies. My answers are below. You'll notice I didn't use that awful word meme; here's why.
3 reasons you blog about science:
1. To inform scientists and non-scientists about evolution, public health, and microbiology.
2. To taunt creationist morons.
3. Related to #2, if I blog about evolution enough, Jerry Falwell's head might just explode (it's a longshot, but worth trying anyway).
Point at which you would stop blogging:
When you pry my keyboard out of my cold, dead hands...
1 thing you frequently blog besides science:
Politics.…
stcynic | June 10, 2006I'm going tonight to hang out with an old and dear friend, Don Reese. He's performing this week in Grand Rapids and we always get together when he's anywhere near here. Being on the road sucks and it's always good to have a buddy around to spend the day with, share a meal with, and just talk to. Don is one of the very best road comics in the country and was one of the first comics I ever opened for back in 1990. We've been fast friends ever since.
Last night I just happened to be glancing at the blog of Randy Kagan, a very funny LA comic who was one of Mitch Hedberg's best friends. Last year…
mikethemadbiologist | June 9, 2006...I would be a fireman. OK, so a Science Blogs reader asks, "Assuming that time and money were not obstacles, what area of scientific research, outside of your own discipline, would you most like to explore? Why?"
I don't think I can limit it to one, but here's several areas that interest me:
Solar power. I would love to figure out how to build a more efficient solar panel.
Evo-devo. We finally have the tools to answer some really cool questions (I realize I am an evolutionary biologist, but evo-devo is still very far afield for me).
Astronomy. I don't know very much about it at all,…
grrlscientist | June 9, 2006If you are a soccer (football) fan in NYC, the least crowded bar in all of Manhattan will be Bourbon Street on 407 Amsterdam. This pub will open tomorrow at 9am to watch the England - Paraguay game and on Monday noon, you can watch the USA lose to play the Czech Republic.
(I'll probably be here tomorrow, but who knows if I'll show up Monday).
grrlscientist | June 9, 2006There are fewer than 100 identical quadruplets in the world.
A 26-year-old Indian woman has given birth to rare identical quadruplets and the girls are healthy after their first six weeks of life, an Indian news agency reported Friday.
Shruthi Vivekanandan, a software programmer from the southern city of Madras, delivered Aditi, Aakriti, Akshathi and Aapthi on April 25, Press Trust of India said.
I dare you to say their names -- fast -- three times! Just imagine the parents trying to call out to one of them ..
The babies were born 10 weeks early and weighed between 1.8 pounds and 2.2…
stcynic | June 9, 2006Dembski has posted a "UD exclusive" (like the Worldnutdaily, "exclusive" here means "we're the only ones who will publish this crap") by Jerry Bergman, certified creationist loon, attacking Steve Rissing, a biology professor from Ohio State and one of the founders of Ohio Citizens for Science (thus, in the interests of full disclosure, he is a colleague of mine and quite a nice guy as well). Part of that attack involved the Bryan Leonard situation, which has been written about by many others. I want to focus on one amusing part of the attack: student ratings. Half of Bergman's "exclusive"…
stcynic | June 9, 2006As all the new folks settle in, I want to draw particular attention to a few of them. This should not be taken as a comment on any blogs I don't mention, but merely as a boost to the ones I've already been a fan of in their previous homes or have some connection with. The others I am eager to get to know as well. The first one that jumps out is The Loom, the blog of Carl Zimmer. I was excited the moment I heard that Carl would be joining us here because, simply put, he is the best science journalist in the nation. Hands down. I'm not sure there's even a close second. The rest of us are…
grrlscientist | June 9, 2006Okay, my peeps, I have made an amazing discovery! I found a pub with free wifi AND affordable beer! I can sit on a sidewalk in Manhattan (well, until my battery konks out or I run out of money -- it's a race), watching horse racing on the pub TV, watching people and cars on the streets -- all while I drink beeeeer and write essays and musings for my blog. This is as close to heaven as I will ever get, to be sure (shaddup, PZ! I'm allowed!).
OMG, there is a HUMAN SKULL on the window sill above the doors (I'm sure it's all fakey and stuff) and they are playing Nirvana on the jukebox! Excuse me…
grrlscientist | June 9, 2006I just wanted to welcome my new SiBlings to ScienceBlogs -- there are 43 of us now! Some of the truly amazing additions to our stable of superstars include some of my favorites, The Loom, Effect Measure, and Scientific Activist. Hopefully, my regular readers will wander over to say hello to them (but please wander back, of course. I don't want to be forgotten in all the excitement). We also have a new front page that was launched today at noon (EST) that you should check out. It was designed in response to reader feedback (well, and some feedback from us, too).
I also wanted to let you all…
tqa | June 9, 2006This is the first time I've been associated with a website that sells advertising space, and what with them paying the bills and all, I figured that clicking on the ad was the least I could do in return. I wasn't planning to actually post anything about it, but there's a cool little applet over at the Discovery Channel's Krakatoa site. If you click here, you'll find a small program that lets you create a virtual volcano. If you've ever wondered why some volcanoes (like Mt. St. Helens or Krakatoa) explode violently, while others (like Kilauea) produce much more sedate lava flows, head over…
purepedantry | June 9, 2006Hi,
Most of this stuff appears in the About or Contact section but I thought I would put it out front on the first day.
My name is Jake Young, and I am an MD-PhD student focusing on Neuroscience at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Yes, my parents are quite proud, but I assure you that at present it qualifies me for very little other than arguing the finer points of tissue culture. Despite abject lack of qualifications, this blog will at least attempt to delve deeply into science and other things. Actually, I hope for that to someday be my epitaph: "Jake, he talked a lot about science and…
stcynic | June 9, 2006ScienceBlogs is set to launch into a new phase in about 15 minutes, with about 25 new blogs joining the list. They're also rolling out a whole new homepage that looks dramatically different from the old one. I can't tell you all the new blogs that are joining us, but a few of them are really exciting to me personally because I'm a fan already. And I can't wait to explore the rest of them and find new gems. So head on over there in a little while and see the new kids on the block. And if you run into Tim, our tech guy, you might wanna give him some oxygen.
tqa | June 9, 2006As I mentioned the other day, some of the kids in the neighborhood and I decided to conduct some experiments into the Mentos + Coke = geyser phenomenon. I thought I'd have pictures and/or video to show you, but due to technical problems (technically, I was the problem) the experiments didn't get captured for posterity. Still, we conducted some good experiments, got a little sticky, had a lot of fun, and learned a bit about doing science on the way.
Here's what we did:
Hypotheses:
There were three different questions that the kids wanted to look at: if the kind of candy used makes a difference…
ddobbs | June 9, 2006The Public Library of Science — the wonderful open-access journal — features a fine, thought-provoking piece by staffer Lisa Gross on Scientific Illiteracy and the Partisan Takeover of Biology. Gross takes a sobering look at how the fast pace of today's science and the public's lack of understanding of scientific basics and principles (like the nature of empiricism) are exploited by some who seek to "[turn] scientific matters like stem cells and evolution into political issues."
But it's not a despairing story. She spends a lot of time describing how Jon Miller, director of the Center for…
tqa | June 9, 2006If all goes according to plan, this post should appear right about the time that this blog "goes live." (And if all doesn't go to plan, the delete feature works just fine, so no worries there.) That being the case, this is probably going to be the first post that my readers see, so I'd like to take a minute to welcome both of you to the new homestead.
If you've followed me over from the old place, thanks, and you're probably not going to find a lot in this particular post that's all that new. I've been posting here invisibly for the last few days, so there are some other posts up that you…
tqa | June 8, 2006Razib has two interesting posts up at Gene Expression (1,2) that touch on something related to my own research: the question of whether or not "species" are really "real" biological entities, or just artificial groupings that humans use to make the world easier to understand. Razib has, he admits, "serious issues with the idea of species as such," and believes that focusing on things like the best way to define "species" can get in the way of understanding what is really going on.
I certainly can't argue with the second point. Focusing on how to define "species" can certainly get in the way…
grrlscientist | June 8, 2006My favorite blog carnivals were published on the same day (well, more or less) for the first time ever!
The Tangled Bank, issue 54, is now available. There are lots of contributions for you to read, including three from me!
I and the Bird, 25th edition, has been published by Rob's Idaho Perspective. There are a lot of wonderful essays and photos here for those of you who love to look at and read about birds. In addition to my contribution to I and the Bird, Rob also generously mentions my weekly link harvest, Birds in the News. This recognition is much appreciated because each edition of…