clock | July 5, 2010About a month ago, I told you about the book-reading event where Scott Huler (blog, Twitter, SIT interview) read from his latest book On The Grid (amazon.com). I read the book immediately after, but never wrote a review of my own. My event review already contained some of my thoughts about the topic, but I feel I need to say more, if nothing else in order to use this blog to alert more people about it and to tell everyone "Read This Book".
What I wrote last month,
"I think of myself as a reasonably curious and informed person, and I have visited at least a couple of infrastructure plants, but…
clock | July 5, 2010The list is growing fast - check the submissions to date and get inspired to submit something of your own - an essay, a poem, a cartoon or original art.
The Submission form is here so you can get started. Under the fold are entries so far, as well as buttons and the bookmarklet. The instructions for submitting are here.
You can buy the last four annual collections here. You can read Prefaces and Introductions to older editions here.
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A Blog Around The Clock: What does it mean that a nation is 'Unscientific'?
A Blog Around The Clock: My latest scientific paper:…
clock | July 4, 2010A signature always reveals a man's character - and sometimes even his name.
- Evan Esar
clock | July 3, 2010To pierce the curtain of the future, to give shape and visage to mysteries still in the womb of time, is the gift of the imagination. It requires poetic sensibilities with which judges are rarely endowed and which their education does not normally develop.
- Felix Frankfurter
clock | July 2, 2010There 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 just one click. Here are my own picks for the week - you go and look for your own favourites:
Radiographs Reveal Exceptional Forelimb Strength in the Sabertooth Cat, Smilodon fatalis:
The sabertooth cat, Smilodon fatalis, was an enigmatic predator without a true living analog. Their elongate canine…
clock | July 2, 2010I see - DrugMonkey, Janet, Pal and Jason are reviving the annual tradition of asking readers to say in the comments who they are. I did this in 2008 bit can't find if I did it in 2009. The original questions and instructions are:
1) Tell me about you. Who are you? Do you have a background in science? If so, what draws you here as opposed to meatier, more academic fare? And if not, what brought you here and why have you stayed? Let loose with those comments.
2) Tell someone else about this blog and in particular, try and choose someone who's not a scientist but who you think might be…
clock | July 2, 201049th edition of the Festival of the Trees is up on The Organic Writer
Friday Ark #302 is up on Modulator.
clock | July 1, 2010If there were no schools to take the children away from home part of the time, the insane asylum would be filled with mothers.
- Edgar Watson Howe
clock | July 1, 2010Carnival of Evolution #25 is up on Culturing Science.
Berry Go Round #29 is up on Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog.
clock | July 1, 2010Last week, my SciBling Jason Goldman interviewed me for his blog. The questions were not so much about blogging, journalism, Open Access and PLoS (except a little bit at the end) but more about science - how I got into it, what are my grad school experiences, what I think about doing research on animals, and such stuff. Jason posted the interview here, on his blog, on Friday, and he also let me repost it here on my blog as well, under the fold:
Here at Thoughtful Animal headquarters, we're starting a new series of seven-question interviews with people who are doing or have done animal…
clock | July 1, 2010I posted only 105 times in June. It is summer, and in summer traffic falls, weather is too nice to stay inside, and blogs tend to go on vacation or at least slow down. And I wrote about it in No, blogs are not dead, they are on summer vacation.
But this does not mean that this blog was on vacation. Along with a bunch of cool videos and announcements, I wrote several other posts, some garnering quite a lot of commentary, most in some way touching on media, blogging and science journalism.
See, for example, Why is some coverage of scientific news in the media very poor?
Or Am I A Science…
clock | July 1, 2010From the NCSU Libraries News:
The best in the world of science illustration will be hosted in a beautiful display featured in the D. H. Hill Library Special Collections Exhibit Gallery at North Carolina State University from June 14 through the first week in August. The Guild of Natural Science Illustrators (GNSI), founded at the Smithsonian Institution in 1968, is working with the NCSU Libraries to present "The Art in Science: Annual Exhibit of the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators." Ranging from pen and ink drawings to the latest digital animations, the juried exhibit is a great chance…
clock | July 1, 2010Blame 'Night of the Living Dead' for this, but many people mistakenly think that zombies are nocturnal, going around their business of walking around town with stilted gaits, looking for people whose brains they can eat, only at night.
You think you are safe during the day? You are dangerously wrong!
Zombies are on the prowl at all times of day and night! They are not nocturnal, they are arrhythmic! And insomniac. They never sleep!
Remember how one becomes a zombie in the first place? Through death, or Intercision, or, since this is a science blog and we need to explain this scientifically,…
clock | July 1, 2010As this is a Zombie Day on scienceblogs.com, here is a re-post of one of my old post about one of the coolest parasites ever (from February 04, 2006):
I am quite surprised that Carl Zimmer, in research for his book Parasite Rex, did not encounter the fascinating case of the Ampulex compressa (Emerald Cockroach Wasp) and its prey/host the American Cockroach (Periplaneta americana, see also comments on Aetiology and Ocellated).
In 1999, I went to Oxford, UK, to the inaugural Gordon Conference in Neuroethology and one of the many exciting speakers I was looking forward to seeing was Fred…
clock | June 30, 2010Article 249. It shall also be qualified as attempted murder the employment which may be made against any person of substances which, without causing actual death, produce a lethargic coma more or less prolonged. If, after the person had been buried, the act shall be considered murder no matter what result follows.
- Haitian Penal Code
clock | June 30, 2010...was just announced on everyONE blog. Go and see who won!
And while there, check out the latest edition of the (bi)weekly Blog/Media coverage.
clock | June 30, 2010There are 30 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 just one click. Here are my own picks for the week - you go and look for your own favourites:
Bermuda as an Evolutionary Life Raft for an Ancient Lineage of Endangered Lizards:
Oceanic islands are well known for harboring diverse species assemblages and are frequently the basis of research on…