clock | March 12, 2007This is the time when everyone is talking about the Daylight Saving Time and I always feel pressure to blog about it from a chronobiological perspective. And I always resist. As I will this year. So, here are a couple of related links instead:
Larry provides a brief history of time zones and the Dalyight Saving Time (and a cool map that goes with it).
Dave finds some data that the DST does not actually save any energy.
Among numerous newspaper articles, I thought this Boston Globe one gives the most accurate summary of what DST does to our circadian rhythms and sleep. It explains why it…
clock | March 12, 2007Zoran Djindjic, the first person I ever voted for, was assassinated on this day four years ago. He had the guts to deport Milosevic to The Hague and he got paid for it with a bullet.
clock | March 11, 2007Everything we feel is made of Time. All the beauties of life are shaped by it.
- Peter Shaffer
clock | March 11, 2007The most exciting thing about this study is that this is, as far as I am aware, the first instance in which it was shown that a circadian clock gene has any effect on sleep apart from timing of it, i.e., on some other quality or quantity of sleep (not just when to fall asleep and wake up, but also the depth of sleep and the amount of sleep need):
Performing Under Sleep Deprivation: Its In Your Genes:
People are known to differ markedly in their response to sleep deprivation, but the biological underpinnings of these differences have remained difficult to identify.
Researchers have now found…
clock | March 11, 2007Abandoning Net Neutrality Discourages Improvements In Service:
Charging online content providers such as Yahoo! and Google for preferential access to the customers of Internet service providers might not be in the best interest of the millions of Americans, despite claims to the contrary, a new University of Florida study finds.
"The conventional wisdom is that Internet service providers would have greater incentive to expand their service capabilities if they were allowed to charge," said Kenneth Cheng, a professor in UF's department of decision and information sciences. Cheng and his co-…
clock | March 11, 2007Brainrow
This Week in Evolution
Framing Conflict
The herptile blog
Bearded Dragon Resource Blog
East Bay Vivarium Blog
Philly Herping
Stewed Thoughts
The Thinking Blog
Mousemusings
clock | March 11, 2007Douglas Noel Adams was born at Cambridge, England on this day in 1952. After earning both bachelors and masters degrees there, he did some comedy acting and writing, including work with a couple of the Monty Python gang, and eventually wrote a radio series for BBC called "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." It first became a TV series, then a book. Actually a trilogy, which means that there are three volumes, except that this one has five. It had some science fiction elements, there's a dash of philosophy, but it was comedy. Here's a sample:
A common mistake that people make when trying to…
clock | March 11, 2007Species' Sizes Affect Lives Of Cells In Mammals:
Cells from the smallest to the largest of mammals often seem to be "one size fits all." Now a closer look reveals that whether a cell lives in an elephant, mouse or something in between can make a big difference in its life. Researchers from the University of Florida Genetics Institute, Harvard Medical School and other institutions developed mathematical models that they used to examine 18 cell types from mammals ranging from mice to elephants. They found two basic categories -- cells that stay the same size but have drastically different…
clock | March 10, 2007The generations of living things pass in a short time, and like runners, hand on the torch of life.
- Lucretius
clock | March 10, 2007Tikistitch, PZ Myers and John Wilkins are going through a list of "Most Significant SF & Fantasy Books of the Last 50 Years".
Considering I am a big SF reader, I was surprised as to how few of those I have read (only around 15!). Most of the titles on the list are just around 40-50 years old. I guess my preferences tend to be for either much older stuff or the most recent stuff (and no Fantasy, please).
I also tend to latch onto an author and read a lot by the same person. So, growing up I had my Heinlein phase, Bradbury phase, LeGuin phase, etc. More recently, I had a Greg Bear…
clock | March 10, 2007The 9th edition of the International Carnival of Pozitivities is now up on Creampuff Revolution
clock | March 10, 2007Social Tolerance Allows Bonobos To Outperform Chimpanzees On A Cooperative Task:
In experiments designed to deepen our understanding of how cooperative behavior evolves, researchers have found that bonobos, a particularly sociable relative of the chimpanzee, are more successful than chimpanzees at cooperating to retrieve food, even though chimpanzees exhibit strong cooperative hunting behavior in the wild.
Researchers Discover Breakthrough In Malaria Treatment:
An article published in 'The Lancet' by researchers from the Menzies School of Health Research (MSHR) in Darwin has revealed a…
clock | March 9, 2007Too busy these days to blog much or even read blogs much, so I missed the news on Balkan blogs and only today, several days later, I got the news from PZ. A guy, just to be sure no resurrection ever happens, drove a three-foot stake through the heart of the dead and burried body of Slobodan Milosevic.
Keep in mind that Milosevic was born and was buried in Pozarevac, in Eastern Serbia, the part of the world which invented the myth of vampires (the old Vlad is in the neighborhood, just over the Danube). The word "vampire" is, as far as I know, the only English word of Serbian origin.
clock | March 9, 2007March 9, 1991 was the first, and the most violent day, of the five-day protest in Belgrade (then Yugoslavia, now Serbia). This was the first anti-Milosevic protest in Serbia, just a couple of months after the first multi-party elections that he stole.
About 100,000 people gathered in the center of Belgrade. Soon, the police moved in and the fight started and spread around town to several different venues, especially in front of the state TV. One teenage boy and one policeman were killed (the former was shot by a moving cordon of police, the latter was thrown over the fence onto the street…
clock | March 9, 2007Following the Edwards lead, Bill Richardson also pulled out of the FoxNews Nevada debate effectively killing it. The current frame in the media and online is that Fox News is not a legitimate news source.
clock | March 9, 2007Lizards May Help Unlock Secrets of Evolution:
Hundreds of species of anoles roam the Caribbean Islands and parts of North and South America, a highly diverse and colorful small lizard that scientists have studied in hopes of unlocking the secrets of evolution. Kirsten E. Nicholson, a Central Michigan University assistant biology professor, has just published a paper in PLoS ONE on her four-year study of Caribbean anoles that may provide a building block for future evolutionary studies.
Researchers Learn What Sparks Plant Growth:
A secret long held by plants has been revealed by Howard Hughes…