jgoldman | May 20, 2010[Below is a longer, less edited version of an article I wrote for my department newsletter this month.]
Is science blogging something that belongs to Science or to Journalism? Clearly more and more scientists are communicating online. In a time when mainstream media are obliterating their science departments, science blogging is growing, and the few science journalists left are increasingly turning to science blogs for story ideas. And so is the general public. A recent press release from ScienceBlogs indicated that the network, the top social media network in the science category, had…
jgoldman | May 19, 2010A song for Mom's birthday.
The best gift (by my own calculation) I ever gave my mother was a custom mousepad with an MRI image of my brain on it. I don't think that this youtube video comes close, but one can only give so many MRI mousepads before it becomes a little redundant.
jgoldman | May 19, 2010Regular readers of this blog know that while I think studying animal cognition, behavior, and communication is (sometimes) fun and (always) interesting, the real importance - the why should I care about this - is because by understanding animals, we can attempt to learn more about ourselves.
I've written about this before. Here are the relevant excerpts:
When human adults show complex, possibly culture-specific skills, they emerge from a set of psychological (and thus neural) mechanisms which have two properties:
(1) they evolved early in the timecourse of evolution and are shared with other…
jgoldman | May 18, 2010Two songs by Venezuelan singer Carlos Baute:
First, Te Regalo:
Second, Colgando En Tus Manos, with Spanish singer Marta Sanchez
jgoldman | May 18, 2010Fascinating Psychology and Neuroscience blogging as always this week. After several weeks behind me as Psych and Neuro Editor, I can confirm that is indeed really, really hard to just pick a few posts each week. But pick them I must...here are my Research Blogging Editor's Selections for this week:
Starting light, Neurokuz shares an interesting study looking at whether music choice affects exercise performance.
Moving on, Bill Yates of Brain Posts considers late maturation as a confounding variable in diagnosing ADHD.
Michelle Dawson, of The Autism Crisis, has an interesting look into the…
jgoldman | May 17, 2010This past weekend, I was searching around the interwebz looking for something interesting to write about for Monday Pets. Lately, Monday Pets has been somewhat cat- and dog-heavy, so I was looking for something a bit different. I asked on twitter if there were any requests or recommendations. Friend of the blog Dave Munger responded: "What about snakes?"
What about snakes indeed? There are many parallels between myself and Indiana Jones, but one big one is that we both hate snakes. Another similarity is whenever I travel by plane, I leave a series of red dashes to mark my path. We both look…
jgoldman | May 16, 2010Before we get into the regular bloggy shenanigans this week, I would like to share some personal news. Those of you who have been regular readers have certainly read about my family's dog, Argo. Those of you who have been reading since the initial incarnation of this blog at wordpress may remember that I only adopted Argo around four months ago, when he was about 18 months old. He has quickly become an important part of the family (he initially lived with me; now he lives with my parents and brother, where he has a backyard and much bigger house to run around in).
This past week, we found…
jgoldman | May 15, 2010No, I suppose you can never truly trust a killer whale.
(h/t Dr. Isis)
And for those who are unfamiliar, here's the original (not the original music video, since I can't find one):
Today Was A Fairytale, by Taylor Swift
jgoldman | May 14, 2010Figure 1: From the good folks at Fake Science, something particularly relevant for me, these last few weeks.
Here's a round-up for this week. Since I missed doing it last week, I'll include a few extra things that I would have included last week.
Did you catch my Research Blogging Editor's Selections for this week? Here's a link. And last week's.
Also, we're relaunching Ask A Scienceblogger. Have any burning questions about science? Do you stay awake at night wondering about something? Ask us.
Awesome Things, Science and otherwise:
Check out Daniel Simons' awesome new version of the…
jgoldman | May 13, 2010This might be in my top 5 favorite songs, ever, in the history of songs. Long, but totally worth it.
30,000 Pounds of Bananas, by Harry Chapin.
jgoldman | May 13, 2010Yesterday, I wrote about this paper on chimpanzees learning (or not) to spit water into a tube to retrieve a peanut.
I was so very sad to see that there were no supplementary materials included with the paper. No awesome videos of chimps spitting water into a tube to share with you.
So I sent an email to Dr. Claudio Tennie, the lead author of the paper, and postdoc at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, inquiring as to the possible existence of a video. It seems that there aren't any available. But, he gave me a link to an awesome video already on youtube of an…
jgoldman | May 12, 2010I found a terrific blog called Fake Science.
Here's a little bit of timely information for you, straight from the Fake Science vaults.
jgoldman | May 12, 2010What is culture? One simple definition might be: a distinctive behavior shared by two or more individuals, which persists over time, and that ignorant individuals acquire through socially-aided learning.
There are at least four different ways to learn a particular behavior or problem-solving strategy. That is to say, there are four different ways to learn. The first is social facilitation, in which one individual does the same thing as the demonstrator at the same time. Essentially this is a situation of on-line matching of motor actions. For example, I might learn the steps to a complicated…
jgoldman | May 12, 2010Scienceblogs is bringing back the popular Ask A Scienceblogger program.
Sayeth the overlordz:
Whatever you've wondered, now is your chance to ask. ScienceBlogs is reinstating our former Ask a ScienceBlogger series, in which (you guessed it), you get to ask ScienceBloggers questions, and they answer them!
Once we have a database of questions, we'll choose one a time to pose to our ScienceBloggers, and round up the answers for you here. They can be about anything you want, but of course the more interesting we find them, the more likely we are to choose them. ;-)
There are two ways to submit…
jgoldman | May 11, 2010Add to the list of expensive toys with lasers that I want.
Figure 1: Micro Temp Digital Infrared Thermometer, Pro Model. $59.99 at Cabelas.com
Imagine never having to clean a cooking thermometer, ever again!
jgoldman | May 11, 2010Though they are routinely found in the waters off of California, large marine mammals like killer whales don't usually come so close to shore - it seems they prefer to stick to the farther side of the channel islands.
But yesterday, a small pod of killer whales was found in the waters between Palos Verdes and Santa Catalina Island.
KABC-TV had some nice footage of the pod:
Can't see this embedded video? Click here to watch!
Amazing that this comes on the same day that a lone grey whale was spotted in the Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of Tel Aviv!
(h/t: LAist)
jgoldman | May 11, 2010Here are my ResearchBlogging Editor's Selections for this week.
This week, Psychology and Neuroscience blogging brings us some fantastic science, as always.
First and second, the fearless leader of ResearchBlogging, Dave Munger, provides us with two awesome visual illusions, and explains them: the Troxler effect, and spinning ellipses.
Next, Krystal D'Costa of Anthopology in Practice discusses Bullying and Emotional Intelligence on the Web and the potential consequences of over-sharing online.
Finally, another gem from Scicurious of Neurotopia: The Incredible Healing Mouse. Pierced, then not…
jgoldman | May 10, 2010Deborah Blum has plugged herself into the Borg, and brought her blog Speakeasy Science along with her for the ride.
She says:
Although my most recent book, The Poisoner's Handbook, is about murder and the invention of forensic toxicology in the early 20th century, my earlier works have focused on primate research, the science of affection, biology of gender differences, and even a 19th century scientific quest to prove that we live on after death. Does this variety of interests suggest a short attention span? Well, maybe. But it's more that I'm fascinated by the intersection of science and…