clock | June 1, 2009Later this month, I'll be attending the 59th Meeting of Nobel Laureates in Lindau, Germany. The list of Nobel Laureates (about 20 of them) and the list of about 600 young researchers from 66 countries are very impressive. Of course, not being a chemist, I'll have to do some homework before I go, learning what these people did to get the prizes.
The program certainly looks interesting - there is a lot of "meta" stuff beyond pure chemistry, so I will always find interesting sessions to attend and blog from. Yes, I am going to be there as a blog-reporter. I understand that PZ will also be there…
clock | June 1, 2009I posted only 128 posts in May - the reason for this reduction in numbers I explained here. Traffic has suffered only a little bit so far, I'll keep an eye. Looking back at the month, I noticed how many videos I have posted: about half are very informative and thought-provoking, the other half are hilariously funny. Take a look. So, what did I actually blog about last month?
There was some serious science on this blog last month, e.g., Why social insects do not suffer from ill effects of rotating and night shift work? and Yes, Archaea also have circadian clocks!
I celebrated my birthday and…
clock | May 31, 2009The events of our lives happen in a sequence of time, but in their significance to ourselves, they find their own order.
- Eudora Welty
clock | May 31, 2009In the beginning, blogs were mainly collections of links. With the development of blogging platforms, many bloggers moved on to long-form writing. But blogs were still places for a lot of linkfests, or link-plus-one-liner posts as well. My blog has always been a mix of both styles. Thus, my average of 8.2 posts per day.
But recently, you may have noticed the most definite reduction in the number of posts per day. Why?
First, because I heard some complaints about my blog being a firehose of stuff that is "boring, just links" (although others said that my role as a trusted filter was…
clock | May 30, 2009
Today is the 130th anniversary of the birth of Milutin Milankovic, a Serbian geophysicist best known for Milankovitch cycles that describe periodicities in Earth's climate.
Vedran Vucic is in Dalj (near Vukovar, Croatia), Milankovic's birthplace, today for the birthday celebrations. He says that the house in which Milankovic grew up has been renovated for the occasion. I am assuming it has been turned into a museum. As I will go to Serbia again this summer, perhaps Vedran and I can take a trip to Dalj, where a group of science popularizers are interested in hearing about Open Access…
clock | May 30, 2009
Virtual Reconstruction Of A Neanderthal Woman's Birth Canal Reveals Insights Into Evolution Of Human Child Birth:
Researchers from the University of California at Davis (USA) and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig (Germany) present a virtual reconstruction of a female Neanderthal pelvis from Tabun (Israel).
Why Coral Reefs Around The World Are Collapsing:
An explosion of knowledge has been made in the last few years about the basic biology of corals, researchers say in a new report, helping to explain why coral reefs around the world are collapsing and what it…
clock | May 29, 2009Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.
- Theodor Seuss Geisel
clock | May 29, 2009From Arikia (The Millikan Daily) comes this LOL/LMAO/ROFL video of the day - Total Eclipse of the Heart: Literal Video Version:
clock | May 29, 2009I'll be going to IASP next week, one of several people reporting from it for Science In The Triangle. We have organized our coverage strategically - I will be there for a couple of events on Tuesday and all day Wednesday. I'll be posting here and on Twitter and Science In The Triangle will aggregate everyone's posts in one place.
What is IASP?:
The International Association of Science Parks (IASP) is a worldwide network of science and technology parks. IASP connects science park professionals from across the globe and provides services that drive growth and effectiveness for members.
IASP…
clock | May 29, 2009Male Or Female? Coloring Provides Gender Cues:
Our brain is wired to identify gender based on facial cues and coloring, according to a new study published in the Journal of Vision. Psychology Professor Frédéric Gosselin and his Université de Montréal team found the luminescence of the eyebrow and mouth region is vital in rapid gender discrimination.
'Glowing' Transgenic Monkeys Carrying Green Fluorescent Protein Gene Pave Way For New Disease Models:
A transgenic line of monkeys carrying a gene encoding green fluorescent protein fully integrated into their DNA has been created for the…
clock | May 28, 2009The finest workers in stone are not copper or steel tools, but the gentle touches of air and water working at their leisure with a liberal allowance of time.
- Henry David Thoreau
clock | May 28, 2009You have proven your fitness, evolutionarily speaking, not when you have babies, but when your babies have babies. So I am very excited that my babies - the three science blogging conferences here in the Triangle so far - have spawned their own offspring. Not once, but twice. The London franchise will happen again this year. And just like we changed the name from Science Blogging Conference into ScienceOnline, so did they.
Science Online London 2009 will take place on Saturday August 22, 2009 at the Royal Institution of Great Britain in London, co-hosted by Nature Network, Mendeley and the…
clock | May 28, 2009It appears that Jorge Cham has been reading some of these posts or associated FriendFeed threads, because today's PhDcomics strip is this one:
I am wondering how many of 'weissberg's' comments have been removed by the moderators over the years.
Also, if duplicate comments are posted 14 years apart, is it because MoveableType stalled that long? Do they even count as duplicates any more?
And why did the reviewer take so long to post the review? And how does one get scooped by a 14-year old paper? Just the lack of habit of reading historical literature?
Task: identify the paper this is…
clock | May 28, 2009Usually on Thursday nights I take a look at all seven PLoS journals to see what strikes my fancy. 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:
Africa's 32 Cents Solution for HIV/AIDS:
By preventing urogenital schistosomiasis in sexually active females through simple and low-cost methods, we have…
clock | May 28, 2009If you ever glanced at the circadian literature, you have probably encountered the statement that "circadian rhythms are ubiquitous in living systems". In all of my formal and informal writing I qualified that statement somewhat, stating something along the lines of "most organisms living on or near the Earth's surface have circadian rhythms". Why?
In the earliest days of chronobiology, it made sense to do most of the work on readily available organisms: plants, insects, mammals and birds. During the 20th century, thousands of species of animals, fungi, protists and plants - all living on…
clock | May 28, 2009
Giant Dinosaur Posture Is All Wrong: Sauropods Held Their Heads High, Research Finds:
Famous depictions of the largest of all known dinosaurs, from film and television to museum skeletons, have almost certainly got it wrong, according to new research.
Oldest Evidence Of Leprosy Found In India:
A biological anthropologist from Appalachian State University working with an undergraduate student from Appalachian, an evolutionary biologist from UNC Greensboro, and a team of archaeologists from Deccan College (Pune, India) recently reported analysis of a 4000-year-old skeleton from India bearing…
clock | May 28, 2009I and the Bird #101 is up on Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted)
The 104th edition of the Carnival of Space is up on Mang's Bat Page
Change of Shift Vol 3 Number 24 is up on CodeBlog
clock | May 27, 2009None of us suddenly becomes something overnight. The preparations have been in the making for a lifetime.
- Gail Kathleen Godwin
clock | May 27, 2009Last week also demonstrated another benefit of Open Access. Not just that everyone could re-use the images from the Ida paper without wondering "is this too much for Fair Use principles?" (yes, I have seen people re-post every single image from the paper into their articles/posts, plus lengthy excerpts of text), but people could do fun stuff to them as well, and even use it for commercial endeavors.
And I am not talking just about the Google logo last Wednesday!
First to make a creative reuse of an article image was Ed Yong in his brilliant and hilariously funny post Darwinius changes…