Mis-clock-ceptions
clock | September 10, 2006This kind of ignorant bleating makes me froth at the mouth every time - I guess it is because this is my own blogging "turf".
One of the recurring themes of my blog is the disdain I have for people who equate sleep with laziness out of their Puritan core of understanding of the world, their "work ethic" which is a smokescreen for power-play, their vicious disrespect for everyone who is not like them, and the nasty feeling of superiority they have towards the teenagers just because they are older, bigger, stronger and more powerful than the kids. Not to forget the idiotic notions that kids…
clock | July 19, 2006Sometimes a metaphor used in science is useful for research but not so useful when it comes to popular perceptions. And sometimes even scientists come under the spell of the metaphor. One of those unfortunate two-faced metaphors is the metaphor of the Biological Clock.
First of all, there are at least three common meanings of the term - it is used to describe circadian rhythms, to describe the rate of sequence change in the DNA over geological time, and to describe the reaching of a certain age at which human fertility drops off ("my clock is ticking").
I prefer the Rube-Goldberg Machine…
clock | July 3, 2006Believe me, I love the word "circadian". It is a really cool word, invented by Franz Halberg in the late 1950s, out of 'circa' (Latin - "about") and diem ("a day"), to denote daily rhythms in biochemistry, physiology and behavior generated by the internal, endogenous biological clocks within living organisms.
It's been a while since the last time I found someone mistaking the word for 'cicada' which is a really cool insect. 'Circadian' has become quite common term in the media and, these days increasingly, in popular culture. Names of some bands contain the word. A few blogs' names…
clock | June 29, 2006This week, it took me quite a while to figure out how to answer the Ask a ScienceBlogger question: "What are some unsung successes that have occurred as a result of using science to guide policy?"
As a relative newcomer to the United States, and even more a newcomer to American politics, I was not around long enough to pay attention to various science-driven policies of the past. Most of what I know are far from "unsung" successes - from Manhattan Project, through Clean Air and Clean Water acts, to the EWndangered Species Act, to the international Kyoto Protocol. Dealing with DDT, DES,…
clock | June 16, 2006Interesting:
Melatonin may be found in grapes
MILAN, Italy, June 16 (UPI) -- Scientists in Italy say they have discovered that the grapes used in popular red wines may contain high levels of the sleep hormone melatonin.
Melatonin is naturally secreted by the pineal gland in the brain, especially at night, and it tells the body when it is time to sleep, according to researcher Iriti Marcello at the University of Milan.
Hey, hey, what do you say:
Until recently, melatonin was thought to be exclusively produced by mammals, but has recently been discovered in plants.
Excuse me, but we've known…
clock | June 13, 2006When a news release states that a brain region is crucial for something, one is led to believe that this is the MAIN center controlling that function. If it is crucial for thermoregulation than it is the center for thermoregulation and without it the animal does not thermoregulate. Or am I misunderstanding English (it is a second language for me, after all)?
So, when the article starts with: "Researchers at Northwestern University have pinpointed a brain area in flies that is crucial to sleep, raising interesting speculation over the purpose of sleep and its possible link with learning and…
clock | June 12, 2006So, Wellbutrin is now officially a drug for treating Seasonal Affective Disorder. And chocolate is so unofficially. But, those may only take the edge off of the symptoms - they cannot affect the underlying causes.
clock | June 12, 2006
This post is perhaps not my best post, but is, by far, my most popular ever. Sick and tired of politics after the 2004 election I decided to start a science-only blog - Circadiana. After a couple of days of fiddling with the templae, on January 8, 2005, I posted the very first post, this one, at 2:53 AM and went to bed. When I woke up I was astonished as the Sitemeter was going wild! This post was linked by BoingBoing and later that day, by Andrew Sullivan. It has been linked by people ever since, as recently as a couple of days ago, although the post is a year and a half old.…