clock | August 25, 2009In the first anthology, Open Laboratory 2006, we included a poem by MissPrism, Waterbear Down. In 2007 collection, Much Ado About...The Brain? by Digital Cuttlefish made the cut. In the 2008 edition, the winning poem was The Evolutionary Biology Valentine's Day Poem, also by Digital Cuttlefish.
So far this year, we have only these four entries in the poetry category:
Horatio Algeranon's: Jabberbloggy
Neurotopia: Poem of the Day: #4
It's A Micro World After All: Ode To My Peer Reviews
Suppertime Sonnets: In Which I Celebrate A Certain Member of the Lycaenidae Family
Tom Paine's Ghost: Beyond…
clock | August 25, 2009Grand Rounds Vol. 5 No. 49, Old School Style, are up on The Examining Room of Dr. Charles
Carnival of Space #117 is up on Simostronomy
Carnival of the Green #194 is up on Recycle Your Day
clock | August 24, 2009There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make is so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies.
- C. A. R. Hoare
clock | August 24, 2009There are many interesting articles published in PLoS ONE, PLoS Medicine, PLoS Biology and PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases today. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. You can now also easily place articles on various social services (CiteULike, Mendeley, Connotea, Stumbleupon, Facebook and Digg) with just one click. Here are my own picks for the week - you go and look for your own favourites:
Estimating Impact Forces of Tail Club Strikes by Ankylosaurid Dinosaurs:
It has been assumed that the unusual tail club…
clock | August 23, 2009There is only one way in the world to be distinguished. Follow your instinct! Be yourself, and you'll be somebody. Be one more blind follower of the blind, and you will have the oblivion you desire.
- Bliss Carman, 1861 - 1929
clock | August 23, 2009
Does your iPhone have a tape measure? Eh? How can you beat that?
Hat-tip: Science Lush
clock | August 23, 2009L. David Mech is a famous wolf researcher (and a blogger about his research). If you have heard of a concept of "alpha-male" it is because of ideas from an old book of his, about social structure of wolf societies.
However, most of the early research on wolves was done on artificially built groups, e.g., wolves caught in various places all put together in a single wolf pen at a zoo. In such rare and unnatural situations, these stranger-wolves do indeed form social hierarchies (or "pecking order" - a term that arose from studies of chickens). But such situations rarely if ever happen out in…
clock | August 23, 2009I am proud to live in Chapel Hill, the home of UNC and it's campus newspaper The Daily Tar Heel. As soon as they got elected to their new editorial and managerial positions a couple of months ago, Sara Gregory, Emily Stephenson, Andrew Dunn and the rest of the crew opened up new channels of communication, including a Twitter account and a Facebook page. Did they use those to broadcast how brilliant they are and what great ideas they have in their heads? No, they used them to ask, ask, ask and to listen, listen, listen. Within days they organized an open-door meeting, inviting people from UNC…
clock | August 23, 2009
We are off to a good start.
We now have a Twitter account I started last night (yes, that is a Saturday night) and already at 35 followers (also follow the #scio10 hashtag).
Our FriendFeed room has 30 subscribers.
On our Facebook Event page, 96 people indicated they are 'Attending' and 174 are 'Maybe Attending', with majority of both groups (unusual for Facebook) quite serious about trying to really get here.
And the activity on the wiki is already lively - the Program Suggestions page is already full of great ideas - go there and discuss them and add more.
clock | August 22, 2009What did it matter where you lay once you were dead? In a dirty sump or in a marble tower on top of a high hill? You were dead, you were sleeping the big sleep, you were not bothered by things like that. Oil and water were the same as wind and air to you.
- Raymond Chandler
clock | August 22, 2009In 2006 we did not include any comic strips in the anthology. In 2007, the Evolgen cartoon, The Lab Fridge was included in the book. In 2008, the winner was an XKCD comic, Purity, while original art by Glendon Mellow was featured on the cover.
Many bloggers make original visual stuff on their blogs - they draw, scan in their kids' drawings, play with photoshop, do photography or make art. Let's see some more of that submitted for the next edition. So far, the only submissions in this category are:
Articulate Matter: Proper Lab Technique
The Flying Trilobite: 'Science-Chess Accommodating…
clock | August 22, 2009
Here are the submissions for OpenLab 2009 to date. As we have surpassed 300 entries, all of them, as well as the "submit" buttons and codes and the bookmarklet, are under the fold. You can buy the 2006, 2007 and 2008 editions at Lulu.com. Please use the submission form to add more of your and other people's posts (remember that we are looking for original poems, art, cartoons and comics, as well as essays):
A Blog Around The Clock: On Being a Nurse- a guest post
A Blog Around The Clock: Why social insects do not suffer from ill effects of rotating and night shift work?
A Blog Around The…
clock | August 22, 2009'How to get strangers to talk to you' instead of 'How to talk to strangers'? I find this blog post and slide-show quite interesting. I see how it may apply to introverts - and I sure am not one of them - but I can also see how much of it applies equally well to extroverts like me, almost as a reminder to keep one's over-extroverted mannerisms under control:
The Shy Connector
View more documents from Sacha Chua.
clock | August 21, 2009At one time my only wish was to be a police official. It seemed to me to be an occupation for my sleepless intriguing mind. I had the idea that there, among criminals, were people to fight: clever, vigorous, crafty fellows. Later I realized that it was good that I did not become one, for most police cases involve misery and wretchedness - not crimes and scandals.
- Soren Aabye Kierkegaard
clock | August 21, 2009Yesterday PLoS and Google unveiled PLoS Currents: Influenza, a Google Knol hosted collection of rapid communications about the swine flu.
In his blog post A new website for the rapid sharing of influenza research (also posted on the official Google blog), Dr.Harold Varmus explains:
The key goal of PLoS Currents is to accelerate scientific discovery by allowing researchers to share their latest findings and ideas immediately with the world's scientific and medical communities. Google Knol's features for community interaction, comment and discussion will enable commentary and conversations to…
clock | August 21, 2009The series of interviews with some of the participants of the 2008 Science Blogging Conference was quite popular, so I decided to do the same thing again this year, posting interviews with some of the people who attended ScienceOnline'09 back in January.
Today, I asked Carlos Hotta from the Brontossauros em meu Jardim blog to answer a few questions.
Welcome to A Blog Around The Clock. Would you, please, tell my readers a little bit more about yourself? Who are you? What is your (scientific) background?
I am the community manager of ScienceBlogs Brasil, the former blog network called…
clock | August 20, 2009The sure way of judging whether our first thoughts are judicious, is to sleep on them. If they appear of the same force the next morning as they did over night, and if good nature ratifies what good sense approves, we may be pretty sure we are in the right.
- Horace Walpole
clock | August 20, 2009This is exciting! From Young Australian Skeptics: Skeptical Blog Anthology 2009:
Inspired by the annual The Open Laboratory, the Skeptical Blog Anthology is a printed anthology of blog posts voted the very best of 2009, managed by the Young Australian Skeptics in conjunction with the Critical Teaching Education Group (CTEG). The anthology is an attempt to bring a greater awareness of the skeptical content on blog sites and showcase some of the range and diversity in the blogosphere.
With an aim to provide text-based resources to classes and readers who may be interested or intrigued by what…