clock | January 31, 2007You may have heard that Joe Biden announced today (or was it yesterday, who pays attention any more) that he is running for President. Just like he announced last week. And the week before. And several consecutive weeks before that. Still hoping someone - anyone - would notice.
But also, Joe Biden announced today that his Presidential campaign is over:
Biden
Biden?
Biden!
clock | January 31, 2007
If you really read this blog "for the articles", especially the chronobiology articles, you are aware that the light-dark cycle is the most powerful environmental cue entraining circadian clocks. But it is not the only one. Clocks can also be entrained by a host of other ("non-photic") cues, e.g., scheduled meals, scheduled exercise, daily dose of melatonin, etc.
Clocks in heterothermic ("cold-blooded") animals can also entrain to temperature cycles. Lizards can entrain to temperature cycles (pdf) in which the difference between nightime low and daytime high temperatures is as small as…
clock | January 31, 2007(August 10, 2005)
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Since "The Connection" was abruptly cancelled by the Boston affiliate of NPR, the local station is scrambling to fix the schedule. We got Diane Rehm show instead and also something called "The World".
I was listening to the World this afternoon - interesting stuff about the Harvard Zoology Museum collection, about a Slovenian alpinist rescued from the Himalayan mountain called "The Killer" (9th highest peak in the world), etc. At the very end, they had a segment, just a few minutes, about an interesting German band and their new CD. It…
clock | January 31, 2007Tangled Bank 72: What's in a name? Read the best of last two weeks' science blogging on Ouroboros.
clock | January 31, 2007Graduate school is expensive, even with grants and loans. Perhaps if a lot of A-listers linked to this, it could be possible to collect enough. (via Chickpea Science)
clock | January 31, 2007Student's Research With Disney Giraffes May Help Conserve Several Species:
University of Central Florida doctoral student Jennifer Fewster is studying giraffe excrement at Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge in Lake Buena Vista in an effort to figure out what the animals eat in the wild and to improve the nutrition of those in captivity.
Fewster's research, conducted in January and February, could potentially help conserve a wide array of herbivores, including endangered ones.
"I find it fascinating, but I forget people find it odd," Fewster said. "It's not the most glamorous work. In fact, it can…
clock | January 30, 2007Regret for wasted time is more wasted time.
Mason Cooley, O Magazine, April 2004
clock | January 30, 2007I am so glad to see that conversations started face-to-face at the Science Blogging Conference are now continuing online (see the bottom of the ever-growing linkfests here and here). While some are between science bloggers, as expected, others are between people who have never heard of each other before and who came from very different angles and with different interests. The cross-fertilization we hoped for is happening (and if you had such an experience, let us know)!
See, for instance, what a casual chat over lunch at the Conference did to David Warlick - made him think about education…
clock | January 30, 2007Teaching Carnival #19 is up on Scribblingwoman
The 104th Carnival of Education is up on The Median Sib
57th Carnival of Homeschooling is up on PalmTree Pundit
clock | January 30, 2007Ha! We broke the ice and now others are following our example. The Best of Technology Writing 2007 is being planned (hat-tip: Pimm).
I think this is great! Biotech articles are welcome as well, so send in your faves for consideration. Of course, they are a little timid - non-blog articles can also be included, and they intend to work on it for something like nine months! I guess they are not nuts like me....
What is next? Medical Blogging Anthology? Who is going to spearhead that project?
clock | January 30, 2007Scientia Natura: Evolution And Rationality
Blogfish
Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
1Third
Live-awake
Weblog
Eco-Chick
A History of Histrionics
Scaryduck
The Beagle Project Blog
Slow Down Now
Blackprof
Eyeteeth
The Southern Fried Skeptic
Spewing Truth in the face of lies
Insufficiently advanced
CUTE THINGS FALLING ASLEEP
Snoozester
clock | January 30, 2007Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon, the quickest draw of the Internets, the master of witty blog titles, and the scourge of mysoginists worldwide (like my regulars could avoid my almost-daily links to Pandagon and don't know who she is...), has just become the Blogmaster of the John Edwards campaign blog. Some of the bestest, snarkiest bloggers are joining Pandagon at the same time. And Amanda is moving to Chapel Hill so we finally get to meet! Waaaaay tooooo cooool!
clock | January 30, 2007[Pushed to the top of the page due to interesting updates...]
Ah, the perils of growing traffic! I get e-mail. Usually those are nice questions about sleep disorders, or requests for link exchanges. But today I got a christianist. Oy vey!
I hope I never get PZ's traffic - I guess he gets dozens of those a day! And I don't even bash religion on my blog every day like he does.
Below the fold is the exchange so far:
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to me:
Sir, you say that you are atheist? Meaning you KNOW God doesn't exist. This would imply that you have absolute knowledge right? You…
clock | January 30, 2007Parenting is hard. Are you ready (re-posted from October 20, 2005)
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Earlier today Mrs.Coturnix and I took Coturnix Jr. and Coturnietta to the pediatrician (and the dentist - they are in the same building). While sitting in the waiting room we saw a strange scene. A father and a son (about 14-years old, I'd say) walked out of the office, the boy vigorously rocking a little baby, the father saying "It's great we have a car. Cars are good things".
I guess I made such a face that the receptionist started laughing: "It's a doll". A girl waiting in…
clock | January 30, 2007As always, see how well the press release matches the actual paper:
Distinct Bison Herds Roam Yellowstone:
So what's the scoop on bison poop? First, Gardipee has found a gentle, noninvasive way to study the DNA of the animals in the park. Secondly, the genetic material she and her team extracted suggests the roughly 4,000 bison in Yellowstone are divided into at least two distinct breeding groups, which could have implications for how they are managed.
Genes May Tell A Lot About The Secret Lives Of Bees:
Despite the fact that bees are one of the most beneficial insects in the world, much of…
clock | January 29, 2007If you can't sleep, then get up and do something instead of lying there and worrying. It's the worry that gets you, not the loss of sleep.
Dale Carnegie
clock | January 29, 2007The 'Basic Concepts in Science" list is getting longer and longer every couple of hours or so, it seems. Try to keep up with it. You may even want to Google-bomb (by linking using the same words as Wilkins does) some or all of the posts if you think they should come up on top in Google searches for these terms. Dan adds his own contribution on Cell Migration and Jennifer makes a wish-list for the Top Ten Physics Concepts that need to be included. To those, I'd add the series on statistics by ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES: Part 1: Samples, Part 2: Probability, Part 3: Sample Statistics, Part 4:…
clock | January 29, 2007All the new information is here - four meetings over the next month: one in cyberspace, two in the Real World (sitting and sipping coffee) and one in the Real World (moving about and doing fun stuff).