clock | March 19, 2007It has been known for quite a while now that bipolar disorder is essentially a circadian clock disorder. However, there was a problem in that there was no known animal model for the bipolar disorder.
Apparently that has changed, if this report is to be believed:
"There's evidence suggesting that circadian genes may be involved in bipolar disorder," said Dr. Colleen McClung, assistant professor of psychiatry and the study's senior author. "What we've done is taken earlier findings a step further by engineering a mutant mouse model displaying an overall profile that is strikingly similar to…
clock | March 19, 2007You know how on comment threads on blogposts about evolution you, sooner or later, get a commenter saying something that reveals complete lack of understanding of even the basics of evolutionary biology? It is usually accompanied by some creationist canard as well. What do you do? If you stop to explain the basics, the thread gets derailed. You REALLY want to discuss that latest study, not go back to basics over and over again.
So, instead of explaining the basics, you post a link to the appropriate page on the TalkOrigins FAQ or Index of Creationist Claims and move on with the…
clock | March 19, 2007This is a crosspost to effect a Googlebomb, correcting an injustice against a fellow feminist blogger. Jill Filipovic, who blogs at Feministe and Ms. JD, is a NYU law student who has been the subject of cyber-obsession on a discussion board allegedly populated by law students. The discussions regarding Jill Filipovic (and many other female law students) are sexist and sexual in nature, rating the women’s physical attractiveness and fantasising about sexual contact, both consensual and non-consensual. Neither Jill Filipovic or any other of these women contributed, or gave their permission to…
clock | March 19, 2007New Bird Species Found In Idaho, Demonstrates Co-evolutionary Arms Race
One does not expect to discover a bird species new to science while wandering around the continental United States. Nor does one expect that such a species would provide much insight into how coevolutionary arms races promote speciation. On both fronts a paper to appear in The American Naturalist proves otherwise.
Julie Smith, now at Pacific Lutheran University, and her former graduate advisor, Craig Benkman at the University of Wyoming, have uncovered strong evidence that coevolution has led to the formation of a species…
clock | March 19, 2007Jurassic Crocodile Is Unearthed From Blue Mountains In Eastern Oregon:
An ancient sea-going crocodile has surfaced from the rocks of Crook County in eastern Oregon. Really. It's discovery by the North American Research Group (NARG), whose members were digging for Jurassic-age mollusks known as ammonites, is another confirmation that the Blue Mountains consist of rocks that traveled from somewhere in the Far East, says retired University of Oregon geologist William Orr, who was called in to examine the find for the state.
clock | March 19, 2007Being constantly online and at the same time out of academia skewed my perspective, and I kinda expected that most of my old profs would not be so hot about publishing in online open-sorce journals (and even thinking that Science is still a place to go, oy vey!), but this is quite disheartening, especially for the medical (that woudl include biology, I presume) field:
Scientists Are Wary Of Online Journals
Scientists and researchers appreciate the speed by which online journals can distribute new findings to their colleagues and the academic world, but they fear non-traditional publication…
clock | March 19, 2007Every time someone proposes a radical rewriting of science textbooks, one needs to proceed with caution. There is so much evidence for electrical potentials in nerve cells, this sounds really fishy:
Action Of Nerves Is Based On Sound Pulses, Anesthetics Research Shows:
Nerves are 'wrapped' in a membrane composed of lipids and proteins. According to the traditional explanation of molecular biology, a pulse is sent from one end of the nerve to the other with the help of electrically charged salts that pass through ion channels in the membrane. It has taken many years to understand this…
clock | March 19, 2007The case is made by an atheist, of course - Amanda - but the important part of the post is the explanation of why is it impossible in the current educational system in the USA and why is the current system inherently conservative.
clock | March 19, 2007Homing Pigeons Get Their Bearings From Their Beaks:
It has long been recognized that birds possess the ability to use the Earth's magnetic field for their navigation, although just how this is done has not yet been clarified. However, the discovery of iron-containing structures in the beaks of homing pigeons in a new study1 by Gerta Fleissner and her colleagues at the University of Frankfurt offers a promising insight into this complex topic. The article will be published online mid-March in Springer's journal Naturwissenschaften.
Social Life Of Honeybees Coordinated By A Single Gene:…
clock | March 19, 2007Tarheel Tavern #108 is up on The View From The Cheap Seats
Let me know if you want to host next week....
clock | March 18, 2007Who forces time is pushed back by time; who yields to time finds time on his side.
- The Talmud
clock | March 18, 2007There used to be two big independent papers in the Triangle: Spectator and Independent.
The former was full of information about local events, movies, restaurants. The latter had some of the best political and social writing anywhere.
Then, several years ago, the two papers fused into one and Independent Weekly was born, putting together the best of both worlds. It is an indispensable weekly read for the Triangle folks.
Chapel Hill has its own local indy paper - the Daily Tar Heel (which I should get into the habit of getting regularly).
Now, Carrboro is getting its own - the Carrboro…
clock | March 16, 2007Osvaldo_Cavandoli aka Cava, the author of the amazing and hillarious cartoon La Linea, one of my childhood favourites, has died about two weeks ago. Here is the very first episode:
There are several more available on YouTube (I just watched about a dozen and laughed out loud).
Unlike most of the episodes seen on TV this one below is definitely NSFW (i.e., if your work does not find this safe, you should find a saner employer):
The subtitles, in Croatian, are hillarious if you do not understand Italian.
[Hat-tip: cicciosax]
clock | March 16, 2007Never before have we had so little time in which to do so much.
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1882 - 1945