May 29, 2009
Male Or Female? Coloring Provides Gender Cues:
Our brain is wired to identify gender based on facial cues and coloring, according to a new study published in the Journal of Vision. Psychology Professor Frédéric Gosselin and his Université de Montréal team found the luminescence of the eyebrow…
May 28, 2009
The finest workers in stone are not copper or steel tools, but the gentle touches of air and water working at their leisure with a liberal allowance of time.
- Henry David Thoreau
May 28, 2009
You have proven your fitness, evolutionarily speaking, not when you have babies, but when your babies have babies. So I am very excited that my babies - the three science blogging conferences here in the Triangle so far - have spawned their own offspring. Not once, but twice. The London franchise…
May 28, 2009
It appears that Jorge Cham has been reading some of these posts or associated FriendFeed threads, because today's PhDcomics strip is this one:
I am wondering how many of 'weissberg's' comments have been removed by the moderators over the years.
Also, if duplicate comments are posted 14 years…
May 28, 2009
Usually on Thursday nights I take a look at all seven PLoS journals to see what strikes my fancy. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. You can now also easily place articles on various social services (CiteULike,…
May 28, 2009
If you ever glanced at the circadian literature, you have probably encountered the statement that "circadian rhythms are ubiquitous in living systems". In all of my formal and informal writing I qualified that statement somewhat, stating something along the lines of "most organisms living on or…
May 28, 2009
Giant Dinosaur Posture Is All Wrong: Sauropods Held Their Heads High, Research Finds:
Famous depictions of the largest of all known dinosaurs, from film and television to museum skeletons, have almost certainly got it wrong, according to new research.
Oldest Evidence Of Leprosy Found In India:
A…
May 28, 2009
I and the Bird #101 is up on Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted)
The 104th edition of the Carnival of Space is up on Mang's Bat Page
Change of Shift Vol 3 Number 24 is up on CodeBlog
May 27, 2009
None of us suddenly becomes something overnight. The preparations have been in the making for a lifetime.
- Gail Kathleen Godwin
May 27, 2009
Last week also demonstrated another benefit of Open Access. Not just that everyone could re-use the images from the Ida paper without wondering "is this too much for Fair Use principles?" (yes, I have seen people re-post every single image from the paper into their articles/posts, plus lengthy…
May 27, 2009
There are 18 new articles in PLoS ONE today. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. You can now also easily place articles on various social services (CiteULike, Mendeley, Connotea, Stumbleupon, Facebook and Digg) with…
May 27, 2009
Pete Binfield, the Managing Editor of PLoS ONE, presented a webinar about article-level metrics to NISO - see also the blog post about it:
Article-Level Metrics (at PLoS and beyond)
Tags: PLoS PLoS ONE PLoSONE ONE Journal articlelevelmetrics article level metrics binfield COUNTER onlineusage usage…
May 27, 2009
The First Award for Best Science Blogging Judged by Steven Pinker
Celebrating the best of blog-writing on the web, 3 Quarks Daily will award four annual prizes in the respective areas of Science, Arts & Literature, Politics, and Philosophy for the best blog post in those fields. This year, the…
May 27, 2009
As you may know, scienceblogs.com is run on MoveableType 4 specially modified by SixApart for the site. The latest tweak was, apparently, a mistake, so the system was reverted to an older version (I have no idea what I am talking about, am I?) which makes posting and commenting painfully slow and…
May 27, 2009
There have been quite a few posts over the last few days about commenting, in particular about posting comments, notes and ratings on scientific papers. But this also related to commenting on blogs and social networks, commenting on newspaper online articles, the question of moderation vs. non-…
May 27, 2009
Virtual Smart Home Controlled By Your Thoughts:
Light switches, TV remote controls and even house keys could become a thing of the past thanks to brain-computer interface (BCI) technology being developed in Europe that lets users perform everyday tasks with thoughts alone.
Spectacular Deep-water…
May 26, 2009
We don't love qualities, we love persons; sometimes by reason of their defects as well as of their qualities.
- Jacques Maritain (1882-1973)
May 26, 2009
From PhDcomics.
May 26, 2009
An article that is likely to make the rounds of the science/medical blogosphere (and get the anti-vaccer trolls out of the woodwork):
Researchers long ago rejected the theory that vaccines cause autism, yet many parents don't believe them. Can scientists bridge the gap between evidence and doubt?…
May 26, 2009
There are 24 new articles in PLoS ONE today. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. You can now also easily place articles on various social services (CiteULike, Mendeley, Connotea, Stumbleupon, Facebook and Digg) with…
May 26, 2009
Last year in May, when I visited Belgrade, I gave interviews with Radio Belgrade, talking about science publishing, Open Access, science communication and science blogging. The podcasts of these interviews - yes, they are in Serbian! - are now up:
Part 1
Part 2
I know that this blog has some ex-…
May 26, 2009
Sometimes, you read a blog post on a science blog and think to yourself "Hmmm, perhaps I should submit this one for Open Lab 09", then fumble to find a blog with a submission button and end up giving up. Not any more!
Bill Hooker was bothered by this enough that he decided to something about it. So…
May 26, 2009
Mockingbirds In Fickle Climates Sing Fancier Tunes:
Why are some birds simple singers and others vocal virtuosos? Researchers at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent), the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and McGill University suspect that inconsistent climates may play a role. A large-…
May 25, 2009
The human brain is like a TV set. When it goes blank, it's time to turn off the sound.
- Pat Elphinstone
May 25, 2009
...until I pronounce the Blog Post Of The Month for May. Make sure your post is aggregated on ResearchBlogging.org. There are 33 entries there so far - make sure yours shows up there by May 31st at midnight EST.
May 25, 2009
Encephalon #71: Big Night - is up on Neuroanthropology
Friday Ark #244 is up on Modulator
Carnival of the Green #181 is up on Green Phone Booth
Praxis is dead (it takes a few months of hand-holding and arm-twisting for a carnival to get its own life,....)
Call for Submissions for the Diversity in…
May 25, 2009
I am trying to put together a list of science, nature and medical blogs based in North Carolina, mainly in order to update the Blogroll/aggregator on the Science In The Triangle media page. I tried to put together, out of my own memory, the names and URLs of blogs based in NC, but I need your help…
May 25, 2009
Primate Eye Evolution: Small Evolutionary Shifts Make Big Impacts -- Like Developing Night Vision:
In the developing fetus, cell growth follows a very specific schedule. In the eye's retina, for example, cones -- which help distinguish color during the day -- develop before the more light-sensitive…
May 24, 2009
Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.
- Henry Lewis Mencken
