jgoldman | June 13, 2010As graduate students, we all invariably, at one point or another, mentor or oversee an undergraduate research assistant who is doing research in our labs either on a volunteer basis or for credit. Occasionally in the summer, they get paid to do it, if the lab has an active grant with funding for that.
In my graduate career, I've overseen a handful of undergrad RAs. Sometimes they were helping with general lab tasks, sometimes they were helping with my own research. When I was an undergrad, I, myself, was an undergrad RA. When I was an undergrad RA, I regularly brought snacks in to the lab to…
jgoldman | June 13, 2010Evolutionary Psychology suffers from a PR problem, which can be mostly blamed on ignorant (even if well-intentioned) members of the population who don't know what they're talking about.
Evolutionary psychology attempts to describe the evolution of the mind and of behavior and, well, everyone has a mind, and everyone can observe behavior. This makes people think that they are experts. Anybody who has ever had a child knows everything there is to know about child development. Anybody who has ever owned a dog becomes an expert on canine behavior. Study after study demonstrates the fact that…
jgoldman | June 11, 2010The editors at 3 Quarks Daily have made their decisions and somehow chose ME as one of their nine finalists.
I've got some very stiff competition - no surprise of course, as these are some of the best science writers on the web, and some of the very people I try to emulate! Thanks to everyone who nominated me, everyone who voted, and the editors at 3QD. Now, it's all up to Richard Dawkins.
Here are links to all nine finalists:
Cosmic Variance: Free Energy and the Meaning of Life
My Growing Passion: The Evolution of Chloroplasts
Not Exactly Rocket Science: Gut bacteria in Japanese people…
jgoldman | June 11, 2010Bonobo Week continues! I'm donating whatever proceeds I receive from my blogging shenanigans for the entire month of June to help the bonobos at Lola Ya Bonobo.
Imagine that you're wandering in the desert and you come across two magic lamps. One lamp grants three wishes. It's your standard sort of magic lamp with a genie in it. (No wishing for extra wishes, of course.) The second magic lamp is, well, a moody magic lamp. It's inconsistent. Sometimes it grants one wish, and sometimes it grants seven wishes. But the thing is, you don't know for sure whether, when you rub the lamp and genie pops…
jgoldman | June 10, 2010The official song of the World Cup, Waka Waka (This Time For Africa), by Shakira.
Totally awesome song. But also, animals playing soccer!
(h/t @avflox)
jgoldman | June 10, 2010I knew the time would eventually come that I'd have to institute a comment policy.
Here it is. A copy can also be found on the CONTACT page.
The Comment Policy:
I don't like to moderate my comments so don't make me. I have better things to do.
This blog is not a democracy; it's a benevolent dictatorship. If I want to delete
a comment, I shall do so, and may do so without explanation. If I edit a comment, I will
always make this abundantly clear.
Use common sense and common courtesy. Unless specified as an "open comment thread," I prefer that comments are kept focused and on-topic. Please…
jgoldman | June 10, 2010That's right, kids, it's that time of month again. Ocean time.
This month's Carnival of the Blue is up at Blogfish.
Awesome posts, and I always encourage, a great way to find new blogs to read. This month particularly, there are some really interesting and important posts to read concerning the oil spill. And speaking of oil spill, have you seen this awesome infographic?
Here's the part with the link to my salty post this month:
Jason Goldman at The Thoughtful Animal wonders if whales and dolphins should have "human rights," and also in the category of comparing us to ocean animals, Zen…
jgoldman | June 9, 2010Bonobo Week continues! I'm donating whatever proceeds I receive from my blogging shenanigans for the entire month of June to help the bonobos at Lola Ya Bonobo.
Primate researchers used to think that only humans voluntarily share their own food with others. At the time, it was a reasonable conclusion to make, since lots of studies indicated that chimps don't. But that was before anyone checked to see if bonobos were willing to share their food with others.
So Brian Hare and Suzy Kwetuenda tested pairs of the bonobos from the Lola Ya Bonobo sanctuary in DRC. In all cases, the two…
jgoldman | June 8, 2010Recent events have confused me, a little bit. In trying to figure this all out, I thought I'd pose a question to the readership:
Is it possible to ask an empirical question about the effects of a certain human-made product or activity, without implicitly condoning the existence of that product or activity?
Here are some examples that spring to mind:
Can we investigate the effects of offshore drilling on the ecosystem, even if we think offshore drilling is bad?
Can we investigate the effects of the burning of increasing amounts of fossil fuels on the environment, without implicitly supporting…
jgoldman | June 8, 2010Thanks for your votes, everyone!
One of the three posts of mine initially nominated for the 3 Quarks Daily Science Blogging Prize made it to the semi-finals! Somewhat unsurprisingly, it was the post on oral sex in fruitbats.
Check out the other semi-finalists, here.
And also congratulations to my sciblings (and former sciblings) who also made the semi-finals: Ed Yong, Scicurious, Eric Johnson, and Christie Wilcox!
jgoldman | June 8, 2010Here are my ResearchBlogging Editor's Selections for this week:
Which conflicts consume couples the most? eHarmony Labs has some answers.
Neurocritic has some issues with a recent paper describing differences in brain activation in omnivores, vegetarians, and vegans. Is it really a case of Amygdala Vegetariana?
Is junk food addictive? Another blog, Highlight Health, examines this study.
How does alcohol affect teenage brains? Are there correlations between availability and violence? Scepticon explores these questions.
jgoldman | June 7, 2010Maryn McKenna, and her blog Superbug 2.0 has been downloaded (uploaded?) into the Borg.
As she says:
What you can expect to see on Superbug: antimicrobial resistance of course, and all the things we do to make it worse. (Anyone want to talk about chain drugstores giving antibiotics away for free?) But also: infectious diseases, especially emerging ones; zoonotic diseases, and the bacterial and viral traffic between us and the species we share space with; food policy and food safety; and public health, and especially public health policy and politics. Most of all, expect Superbug to be an…
jgoldman | June 7, 2010
A few weeks ago I emailed Vanessa Woods and asked her pretty please if I could review her book. After reading all of the bonobo and chimpanzee papers written by Vanessa and her husband Brian Hare (both now at Duke) over the years, as well as their research on domesticated dogs and silver foxes (some of which I wrote about on the old blog), I couldn't wait to check out the book. So I was super excited to find it waiting in my department mailbox this past Wednesday morning. By Friday night, I had read the book cover to cover.
So, here's the short review: read this book.
And, okay, watch this…
jgoldman | June 6, 2010Yesterday Dr. Isis informed the world that, unfortunately, Isis the Dog passed away. A sad day in the life of any pet owner, I imagine it is especially troubling for Little Isis.
Being the proprietor of the SB home for all things animal and thoughtful, I asked the goddess if I could construct a blog memorial for him, and so I have.
Feel free to leave a message for the Isis clan in the comments below.
jgoldman | June 6, 2010Yesterday afternoon, I watched the livestream of the "All Creatures Great and Smart" session of the World Science Festival in New York City. The session was absolutely fantastic, and featured Brian Hare, Vanessa Woods, Jeremy Niven, Patrick Hof and Klaus Zuberbühler.
The conversation challenged long-held assumptions about the differences between "animal" and "human", and included fascinating discussion about pin-sized brains that can count, categorize, and hold a grudge against those who've tried to swat them. Does your dog really think and feel like a human? Do our closest primate…
jgoldman | June 4, 2010
Figure 1: Great White Shark, Carcharodon carcharias.
I saw this clip on the news last night, but when I went to look for the video online, it hadn't been uploaded yet. How awesome to find it this morning, already blogged by my friends at LAist!
This video was caught at Will Rogers State Beach in Malibu. Great whites are known to frequent these waters during the summer, so this isn't much of a surprise, but how cool to see the video of them breaching like that!!? At least one of the sharks caught on video has been confirmed by experts at the local non-profit Shark Research Committee to be a…
jgoldman | June 4, 2010The first iteration of this post engendered quite a bit of discussion. Some of it within the scope of what I initially wrote about; much of it not.
I closed the comments and un-published the post while I considered what to do about it. I've decided to go ahead and re-publish the post, stripped of all editorializing. So what you have now is just description and explanation of the studies.
I had initially written:
Let's make a few things clear: I am not taking sides in the issue of whether or not pornography should be censored or restricted (but most forms of censorship make me very…
jgoldman | June 3, 2010Last month a pod of orcas was found off of Palos Verdes, near Los Angeles.
Well, they're back. Actually, it isn't clear if this is the same pod or not, but here's some more awesome footage of orcas found in the waters off of Dana Point, earlier this week.
Killer whales are not seen often in these waters, so this is particularly exciting for those who got to see them...though it makes me wonder if they're not trying to find new hunting grounds. Is there a shortage of orca food in their normal hang-outs?
(click through to see the videos, behind the cut)
And some more footage of the whales near…
jgoldman | June 2, 2010For the Doctoral Candidates at the Keck School of Medicine, Class of 2010, Eric Schulze was asked by his colleagues to give the student commencement address. The theme of his talk was, "Things I Should Have Been Taught About Science."
(video below the fold)
jgoldman | June 2, 2010Voting for the 3QD science blogging prize has opened. Eighty posts have made the initial nominations list, including 3 of my own:
The Thoughtful Animal: Does oral sex confer an evolutionary advantage? Evidence from bats
The Thoughtful Animal: Path Integration in the Desert Ant
The Thoughtful Animal: The Russian Fox Study
The ultimate winners will be picked by Richard Dawkins, but YOU can help determine the small group of finalists which will be sent to him for judgement.
So, go here to check out the nominees. Then click the link on that page to vote. I would be very grateful for your votes…