north carolina
clock | May 14, 2007From Paul I learned about the DRIADE Workshop on Digital data preservation, sharing, and discovery: Challenges for Small Science Communities in the Digital Era, organized by NESCent (National Evolutionary Synthesis Center) and the UNC Metadata Research Center. I am not sure if the participation is by invitation only, or if it is free, but I'll try to sneak in somehow. We'll see if that works and will let you know if it does.
clock | May 12, 2007Shackleford ponies are often in the media around here. Some love them, some hate them, some want to preserve them, some to exterminate them, and it is not easy to get all the surplus horses adopted each year. Perhaps the new findings of their Spanish origin (DNA will tell the tale of wild horses) will tilt the scales towards their preservation, especially on the island of Corolla.
Thanks to Bill for the heads-up.
clock | May 6, 2007Tatjana Jovanovic is a fellow escapee from Serbia and a fellow biologist. She got her MS in Biology at the University of Belgrade and has collected enough data before emigrating to be able to immediately get a PhD if someone would sponsor her here. She is currently in Arizona, but she is moving to North Carolina later this year. She will send you her impressive CV on demand - her publications range from immunology to pest control, but most of it is focused on small rodents, their avian predators and the dynamics of predator-prey relationships. She has combined lab and field work, from…
clock | May 4, 2007Making the second Science Blogging Conference even bigger and better, we are happy to announce that the January 19th, 2008 meeting will be hosted by Sigma Xi (publishers of American Scientist) in their gorgeous new building in the Research Triangle Park. Their conference facilities can house more people (225 as opposed to 170 we had last time) and provide more space for shmoozing between and after the sessions.
For those who arrive early, there will be Friday afternoon events, sessions and meals on or close to the UNC campus. We have tentatively secured two excellent session leaders so…
clock | April 28, 2007Just came back from the first Durham blogging teach-in of the year. Pam, Brian and Anton were there and we introduced some new interesting people to the wonderful world of blogging (and they started their own new wordpress blogs).
If you are in the Triangle NC area, we are doing the same thing next week - same place and time: Durham public library 10am-12noon.
clock | April 24, 2007Barry Saunders is a local columnist for Raleigh News & Observer who I never thought was very funny (there is a mysoginist streak in his writing) so I rarely read him these days. But the other day I could not help but notice that he started his column with the old "no atheists in foxholes" stupidity - in context of the VT massacre, of course.
I was far too busy these last couple of days to do anything about it myself, feeling confident that he was gonna hear about it from many others. And, sure he did. Just like Katie Couric, Tom Brokaw, Bob Schieffer and John Burnett (the latter two…
clock | April 21, 2007A must-read by Peter Eichenberger:
How does it feel that North Carolina is becoming a center for profits amid the blatant and egregious blurring of law enforcement and corrections?
With the great sucking sound, that of the vacuuming of personal information of law-abiding Americans emanating from DeeCee, I would enjoin all of you out there to study more carefully what your legislators are turning this place into--just another arm of the entity, the U.S. government, which has gotten us into more huge messes than I have time or interest in recounting.
With regards to corporations like GEO and…
clock | April 21, 2007Never again: Brad Miller on Darfur by Bob Geary:
......I decided one other thing. I could no more imagine Liddy Dole performing in public the way Brad Miller did at Pullen than I could see her admitting that the Bush administration has been a disaster in every conceivable way. Dole doesn't see any mistakes, or at least she doesn't admit them. She's put her energies, since getting elected to the Senate, into Republican politics and nothing else, including fronting the National Republican Senatorial Committee. If she has ever gotten up in front of a small interfaith group and openly agonized…
clock | April 18, 2007Its' early in the process, and many are reluctant so far....but, one person said he'd consider it (you can still recommend that Diary if you wish) - Rep.Brad Miller (D - NC13). I hope he does. If he does, I'll knock doors for him. Why?
He's a blogger. And he chairs the new House Committee on Science and Technology, with subpoena power.
He came to the Science Blogging Conference in January and is the person that every Democrat, every North Carolinian, every blogger and every scientist should want to see move from the House to the Senate and, in the process, oust Sen.Dole from politics.…
clock | April 16, 2007Chapel Hill/Carrboro blogger meetup will be on Wednesday, April 18 at 6:30pm at Milltown Restaurant and Bar in Carrboro.
clock | April 11, 2007How did I miss this!?
Knut Schmidt-Nielsen, one of my personal scientific idols, died on January 25th, 2007at the age of 92.
He has re-invented, or perhaps better to say invented, the field of comparative physiology (now often refered to as 'evolutionary physiology'). He wrote the standard textbook in the field - Animal Physiology: Adaptation and Environment, that he updated through several editions, from which generations of biologists (including myself) learned to think of physiological mechanisms as adaptations.
He wrote a definitive book on Scaling, as well as a wonderful autobiography…
clock | April 7, 2007The Bodies Exhibition is coming to The Streets at Southpoint in Durham.
My wife saw it last year in NYC. My daughter will probably be too squeamish for it, but I'll try to get my son to come with me.
Once I go....well, it is certainly a bloggable event.
clock | April 7, 2007Earlier this afternoon, my wife and I went to the Weaver Street Market in Southern Village (which also has a blog) for some wine tasting. You can see the wine list here (pdf).
As the first rule of blogging is never to blog drunk, I had a to wait a couple of hours afterwards before I started to write this post. I wasn't really drunk, but I was happy enough to seriously consider singing on our walk home. I guess I am quite a lightweight...
Our strategy was for Mrs.Coturnix to taste the whites (and occasional red I recommend) and for me to taste the reds (and occasional white she recommends…
clock | March 30, 2007In today's issue of Science, there is a study showing that hunting of sharks, by eliminating the main predator of rays, leads to a decline in the ray's - and ours - food: the scallops:
A team of Canadian and American ecologists, led by world-renowned fisheries biologist Ransom Myers at Dalhousie University, has found that overfishing the largest predatory sharks, such as the bull, great white, dusky, and hammerhead sharks, along the Atlantic Coast of the United States has led to an explosion of their ray, skate, and small shark prey species.
"With fewer sharks around, the species they prey…
clock | March 26, 2007If you are in the Triangle area on these two dates (Saturday, April 28 from 10am to noon and Saturday, May 5 from 10am to noon) and want to get some help starting your own blog, or at least starting a Wordpress blog, come to the Durham Library and we'll help you.
clock | March 23, 2007Treehugger interviews Tim Toben who is building the NC's first LEED Gold Mixed Use Project in Chapel Hill, NC.
clock | March 23, 2007The first issue of Carrboro Citizen is now available both in hardcopy and online. [Background here]
Update: Brian is gushing over it....
clock | March 21, 2007Yes, we are on the ball, getting the second conference organized already! The date has been set - so mark your calendars now: January 19th, 2008. You all come to Chapel Hill that day, OK?
We'll use the wiki again so help us make the event as good as possible by posting suggestions and editing the wiki.
We also need a new logo - so stir up your creative juices and send your suggestions (not to be confused with the logo contest for BlogTogether for which we offer a prize!).
To go with the conference, we'll be assembling another Science Blogging Anthology, so send your nominations here.
clock | March 18, 2007There used to be two big independent papers in the Triangle: Spectator and Independent.
The former was full of information about local events, movies, restaurants. The latter had some of the best political and social writing anywhere.
Then, several years ago, the two papers fused into one and Independent Weekly was born, putting together the best of both worlds. It is an indispensable weekly read for the Triangle folks.
Chapel Hill has its own local indy paper - the Daily Tar Heel (which I should get into the habit of getting regularly).
Now, Carrboro is getting its own - the Carrboro…