clock | December 6, 2006This is an appropriate time of year for this post (February 05, 2006)...
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So, why do I say that it is not surprising the exposure to bright light alleviates both seasonal depression and other kinds of depression, and that different mechanisms may be involved?
In mammals, apart from visual photoreception (that is, image formation), there is also non-visual photoreception. The receptors of the former are the rods and cones that you all learned about in middle school. The receptors for the latter are a couple of thousand Retinal Ganglion…
clock | December 6, 2006The Word of the Day for December 06, 2006 is:
cybrarian \sye-BRAIR-ee-un\ noun
: a person whose job is to find, collect, and manage information that is available on the World Wide Web
Example sentence:
The library provided an e-mail address to submit inquiries to the cybrarian.
Did you know?
We've been using "librarian" for the people who manage libraries since at least the beginning of the 18th century, and the word was used for scribes and copyists even earlier than that. "Cybrarian," on the other hand, is much newer; its earliest documented use is from 1992. "Librarian" combines "library…
clock | December 6, 2006Gendered Division Of Labor Gave Modern Humans Advantage Over Neanderthals:
Diversified social roles for men, women, and children may have given Homo sapiens an advantage over Neanderthals, says a new study in the December 2006 issue of Current Anthropology. The study argues that division of economic labor by sex and age emerged relatively recently in human evolutionary history and facilitated the spread of modern humans throughout Eurasia.
Peering Into The Shadow World Of RNA: Crosstalk May Control The Genome:
The popular view is that DNA and genes control everything of importance in biology…
clock | December 6, 2006Carnival of the Liberals is back home for the 1st Anniversary Edition at Neural Gourmet. Happy Anniversary!
clock | December 6, 2006
Barrie Hayes is coming to the 2007 North Carolina Science Blogging Conference. Are you?
Technorati Tag: sciencebloggingconference
clock | December 5, 2006The finalists have been announced ina number of categories. Of special interest, of course, are these two categories:
Best Science Blog
Pharyngula
John Hawks Anthropology Weblog
RealClimate
Deltoid
Good Math, Bad Math
Mixing Memory
The Panda's Thumb
In the Pipeline
Bad Astronomy Blog
SciGuy
Best Medical/Health Issues Blog
Brainhell
Flea
Stayin' Alive
Short Gut News
Respectful Insolence
The Cheerful Oncologist
A Life Less Convenient
Doc In the Machine
The Cancer Blog
The Amazing Adventures of Diet Girl
Hey, six of my SciBlings are there! Voting will open in a couple of days. See the entire…
clock | December 5, 2006Grand Rounds, Volume 3, Number 11 is up on The Antidote.
Carnival of the Green #56 is up on Urban Eco.
Carnival of Homeschooling from the Land of Lincoln is up on Corn and Oil.
clock | December 5, 2006
No other aspect of behavioral biology is as well understood at the molecular level as the mechanism that generates and sustains circadian rhythms. If you are following science in general, or this blog in particular, you are probably familiar with the names of circadian clock genes like per, tim, clk, frq, wc, cry, Bmal, kai, toc, doubletime, rev-erb etc.
The deep and detailed knowledge of the genes involved in circadian clock function has one unintended side-effect, especially for people outside the field. If one does not stop and think for a second, it is easy to fall under the impression…
clock | December 5, 2006After a night and half a day of the server being down, the homepage wiki of the Science Blogging Conference is up and running again, so you can sign up if you chose to do it today. And why not today?
clock | December 5, 2006Bonior Would Lead Edwards Campaign :
Former Rep. David Bonior, a one-time leader in Congress who has close ties to labor unions, has signed on to manage a future John Edwards presidential campaign.
Edwards hasn't announced a repeat of his 2004 presidential bid yet, but an Edwards adviser said Thursday that Bonior will run the effort if Edwards decides to run. In the meantime, Bonior has signed on as a senior adviser to Edwards' leadership PAC, the One America Committee.
Bonior represented Detroit's northern suburbs for 26 years in the House, rising to be the No. 2 Democrat before stepping…
clock | December 5, 2006David has some great ideas:
I suggested that the best thing we might do with video games is to figure out what it is about video games that makes them such a compelling learning engine, and try to integrate those elements into the classroom, rather than trying to integrate the games into the classroom. One of the elements that I suggested was identity building -- that players typically develop an identity in their games. They choose and sometimes make their own clothing, their house, select the powers they value, and become a recognizable identity in the game. It's how the games are designed…
clock | December 5, 2006This post (from May 10, 2005) was deliberately written to provoke, by asserting that the "victors write history" rule gets into trouble when there are too many victors writing too many histories. Thus, it was written deliberately as an opposite extreme to what kids learn in school in the USA, as well as a report on what many Europeans think and say over beer in a bar (I have heard it many times), not a report of yet another "Truth" that I actually believe in. So, I also re-posted the comments and hope that some real WWII experts chime in this time around (Orac? Archy?) and straighten-up the…
clock | December 5, 2006Cities Change The Songs Of Birds:
By studying the songs of a bird species that has succeeded in adapting to urban life, researchers have gained insight into the kinds of environmental pressures that influence where particular songbirds thrive, and the specific attributes of city birds that allow them to adjust to noisy urban environments.
New Clues To How Sex Evolves:
Sex is a boon to evolution; it allows genetic material from parents to recombine, giving rise to a unique new genome. But how did sex itself evolve" Researchers at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory…
clock | December 5, 2006
Mike Dickison is coming to the 2007 North Carolina Science Blogging Conference. Are you?
Technorati Tag: sciencebloggingconference
clock | December 4, 2006Let me know what's missing - in the past installments I missed some of the obvious biggies (and you did not tell me!) like MyDD, Juan Cole, Crooks & Liars...!!!!
Obscure and Confused Ideas
Obsidian Wings
Ocellated
Oekologie
Olduvai George
Omics! Omics!
Omnidictum: Essays in Science
Omni Brain (old)
Omni Brain (new)
On being a scientist and a woman
One Stop Thought Shop
On Pharma
Once Upon a Time...
One America Committee
One Long Argument
Online Zoologists - Zoology as a way of life
Ontogeny
Ooblog
Open Access Anthropology
Open Reading Frame
The OpenScience Project
Opinionistas
Orange…
clock | December 4, 2006Former Sen. John Edwards Set For Pasadena Appearance
The site of Edwards' appearance, All Saints Church, has received a summons from the Internal Revenue Service for all documents and e-mails it produced during the 2004 election year with references to political candidates in an investigation of whether it violated federal laws prohibiting churches and other tax-exempt institutions from endorsing or opposing political candidates.
The IRS probe was triggered by an antiwar sermon delivered by the church's rector emeritus, the Rev. George F. Regas, two days before the 2004 presidential election…
clock | December 4, 2006Brookings Hamilton Project Issues New Papers on Science and Technological Innovation:
Experts Address how Education, Patent Reform, and Inducement Prizes in Science and Technology can aid Competitiveness and Growth.
Focusing attention on the importance of science and technology innovation to U.S. growth and competitiveness, The Hamilton Project, an initiative at the Brookings Institution, today released policy proposals to spur investments in innovation, research and the education of a highly skilled American workforce. The proposals were released on The Hamilton Project website ( www.…