clock | October 25, 2006...and no means to get back! See how that happened on the latest Skeptics' Circle - On a Mission from God, up on Left Brain/Right Brain. Then use the Quackometer (the last link at the bottom of the carnival) to rate the quackiness of the claim debunked in each post.
clock | October 25, 2006Vegetables, Not Fruit, Help Fight Memory Problems In Old Age:
Eating vegetables, not fruit, helps slow down the rate of cognitive change in older adults, according to a study published in the Oct. 24, 2006, issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology
Honey Bee Genome Holds Clues To Social Behavior:
By studying the humble honey bee, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have come a step closer to understanding the molecular basis of social behavior in humans.
More links a couple of posts below.
Sunflower Speciation Highlights Roles…
clock | October 25, 2006The honeybee genome project has been finished and a bunch of papers are coming out tomorrow. As soon as they become available online I will comment, at least on the one paper that shows that the molecular machinery of the bee circadian clock is much more similar to the mammalian clock than the fruitfly clock - something that makes me very excited.
In the meantime, you can read more about the bees and their genome on The Loom, The Scientist, Scientific American and EurekAlert.
clock | October 25, 2006A couple of years ago I could beat my son at chess every time.
Not any more.
He's been studying from books, playing online and beating his sister relentlessly over the last few weeks. Then he challenged me. He won. Then he won again. Then he won again. In the fourth game I finally realized I had to play really carefully and managed to win, but it was not easy.
Then he challenged my wife, who is a much better chess player than I am. And he beat her. A number of times, though they are more evenly matched.
Then he joined his school's chess club. Today was their first meeting. He beat…
clock | October 25, 2006The very first edition of the Four Stone Hearth, the anthropology carnival, is up on Anthropology Net.
Carnival of the Liberals #24 is up on Perspectives of a Nomad
Carnival of Education #90 is up on The Current Events in Education
Next Circus of the Spineless will be on Neurophilosopher's Blog. Send your entries to: mmnc1974 AT googlemail DOT com
Next Tar Heel Tavern will be on Evolving Education. Send your entries to: evoledu (at) gmail (dot) com
clock | October 25, 2006It's been a year since this first appeared (September 21, 2005). I wonder if the "academy" is still open or what are they studying there....
This I learned from Eric:
How to become an astrologer
For those few remaining stubborn hold-outs who still cannot read Serbo-Croatian, here's a quick translation:
Institute for Astrological Research and Education "Johannes Kepler" recently opened in Belgrade. The goals of the Institute are to support the research in astrology, academic approach to astrology, and to aid astrologers and astrology in gaining social status.
The Institute is not a part of…
clock | October 25, 2006Publius is on the roll again with two posts, each putting a novel angle to a well-known story:
DISTASTEFULLY CORRECT
GIMME FICTION
clock | October 25, 2006
Ndesanjo Macha of Digital Africa is coming to the 2007 North Carolina Science Blogging Conference. Are you?
Technorati Tag: sciencebloggingconference
clock | October 24, 2006Grand Rounds 3.5: A Visual Tour is up on Health Care Law Blog.
Carnival of the Green #50 is up on How To Save The World.
Carnival of Homeschooling #43 is up on About Homeschool.
Four Stone Hearth will kick off its first edition on Anthropology Net on October 25th.
Next I And The Bird will be on Thursday on Migrations.
clock | October 24, 2006There has been an exciting new addition fo the Conference Program - a new break-out session:
Illustrating your posts: Rosalind Reid, editor of American Scientist Magazine, leads a discussion about using photographs, illustrations, video clips and other multimedia to offer blog readers other ways to learn about science.
See what's new at the conference homepage. See how you can help spread the word about it here.
And speaking of illustrations and multimedia as science educational tools, you should check out THE FILTER, a BoingBoing of science. Learn more about it here.
clock | October 24, 2006While we are discussing femiphobia, mysoginy and the "new male anger", you may want to take a break from hundreds and hundreds of comments on all the threads on all the posts (see the links within links on the last link!), and instead read an old, old science fiction story on the topic (is there any ethical dilemma that SF has not covered decades ago?). Gmoke, in a comment on this post on Orcinus links to The Screwfly Solution by Raccoona Sheldon (aka Jane Sheldon aka James Tiptree Jr). The whole story is online.
Gmoke also cites Wikipedia on the story:
"The story begins with an exchange of…
clock | October 24, 2006Here's a fun old one...(December 04, 2005):
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When Milkriverblog asked for obscure-but-good movies the other day, I was busy and distracted, so I did not give it enough thought. If you ask nicely, he will send you MSWord file of the list (more than 150 titles) so you can print it out and take with you when you go movie-shopping.
I seconded other people's suggestions (Milkriverblog has links to them), specifically "Fast, Cheap and Out Of Control" (a movie I adore), "My Dinner With Andre" and "Zatoichi". My own suggestion…
clock | October 24, 2006As the paper linked to in the previous post explains, everything is connected - clocks, sleep, hunger, obesity and diabetes.
An important part of understanding all these interconnections between clocks and food is to understand the food-entrainable clocks, i.e., how timing of meals affects the performance of the circadian clock.
A new paper provides a molecular link between scheduled meals and circadian timing, implicating our old friend PERIOD2 as part of the mechanisms by which timing of the meal entrains the brain clock (but not the mutual entrainment of peripheral clocks):
Circadian gene…
clock | October 24, 2006Sleep: it's required:
"....short sleep can hasten the arrival of the inevitable long sleep"
clock | October 24, 2006
Eva of Easternblot is coming to the 2007 North Carolina Science Blogging Conference. Are you?
Technorati Tag: sciencebloggingconference
clock | October 23, 20062000 comments on this blog (2002 actually). Unfortunately, I did not pay attention, so I made the round-number comment myself. So I get the prize (whatever it was).
clock | October 23, 2006I had a delightful lunch today with my blog-sparring-partner Mike Munger of Mungovitz End (see how my blog is labeled on his blogroll: "Coturnix's nonsense"). We had great time discussing politics, academia, Horowitz, blogging and the life in the Triangle. Oh, Mike is also running for North Carolina governor in 2008 as a Libertarian candidate. Check his positions - how liberal!!!
clock | October 23, 2006Hmmm, didn't it occur to him for a moment that "survival of the fittest" may be true back when Bruce Lee beat him up?