personal
pharyngula | November 16, 2008Everyone wants to know what I'm doing in Philly this week. Me, too! Here's everything I know so far.
I'm flying in on Wednesday morning, 19 November. At 5pm, I'm giving a talk on science blogging at the Kelly Writers house on the U Penn campus.
Thursday, 20 November, is the big event: Janet Browne will be lecturing at 6pm. I'll be there in the audience, enjoying myself. You should be there, too. You've all read her magnificent two-volume biography of Darwin, right?
Sometime after that, the evening of the 20th, I'm going to aim to attend Drinking Skeptically, at Tattooed Mom's, 530 South…
terrasig | November 16, 2008As if I don't already have enough to do, Comrade PhysioProf tagged me with this meme last night. I was also fortunate to be tagged by Isis the Scientist in her new digs at On Becoming a Domestic and Laboratory Goddess. So, since these folks seem interested, here goes:
5 Things I was Doing 10 years Ago:
(1) Gleefully watching my first PhD student complete and defend her dissertation.
(2) Liberating myself from a demonic, parasitic spouse.
(3) Starting a long-distance relationship with PharmGirl.
(4) Releasing my first co-authored book.
(5) Preparing my tenure dossier.
5 Things On My To-Do…
pharyngula | November 14, 2008It has come to this. I can't get to my files on my laptop, my usual posting habits are disrupted, and site traffic is way down. I have to resort to a desperate ploy to regain your eyeballs. I know, it's shameless, but this kind of thing sells, so until I can get my gadgets fully restored, I'm going to have to use my collection of nude action photos to keep your interest.
(Say…if I coupled this to donations for a new laptop, I could get rich, although the constant demands that I please stop might hurt my ego.)
Look! No computer! No video projector! No PowerPoint or Keynote! Just me and a…
pharyngula | November 14, 2008I'm in the pleasant town of Kearney, Nebraska to give a couple of talks at the University of Nebraska at Kearney, and something tragic and horrible has happened.
My laptop has died. The video card, she no longer generates the video. It makes it rather difficult to illustrate my talks with projected images. It also makes it difficult to get on the web and engage in the blogging (I'm using a hotel business office computer to post this).
I'm planning to stop at an Apple Store at the Mall of America when I get back to Minneapolis tomorrow and beg them to FIX IT RIGHT NOW, but until then, I'm…
terrasig | November 13, 2008For whatever reason, I woke up really depressed and exhausted today - pretty much for no reason, I think.
I checked my schedule on my Treo - today marks 19 years since my dissertation defense.
I remember being really depressed throughout writing my dissertation thinking, "is this all I have to show for this many years of public support for my training?"
My defense was on a Monday so I spent most of Sunday practicing my seminar in the room where I'd give it - it sucked so badly that I couldn't even get through it once.
When the time came, it was the most incoherent performance I had ever…
edyong | November 11, 2008Folks, I have big news...
I've just published a book based on this little blog. Some of you may remember me doing a quick poll about this a while back. Well since then, I've collected about 80 or so of my favourite posts from the last year and converted them from pixels to paper.
The book is now available through online publisher Lulu and you can order one for the tiny sum of £9.99 by clicking on these magic blue words.
It covers a wide range of biological areas - Mexican-waving bees, snow-making bacteria, viruses of viruses, the psychology of voting, the neuroscience of jazz, binge-…
drorzel | November 10, 2008SteelyKid has recently begun to figure out her hands. As I noted last week, within the last couple of weeks, she's started to be able to reliably grab things near her. Just within the last few days, she's discovered that she has two hands, and they can interact with each other:
She's started grabbing one hand with the other, and exploring them. I've also seen her start to use both hands in concert, holding a hanging toy steady with one hand, while manipulating bits of it with the other, like a good little scientist.
Hands are, of course, critical to science. You can't be a good scientist…
edyong | November 9, 2008I'm an immensely big fan of cephalopods (octopus, squid and cuttlefish) and Sydney Aquarium gave me a really good ceph-fix.
This squid was a highlight of the trip. It was hauntingly beautiful, exuding both grace and intelligence. Anyone care to take a stab at the species?
Common octopus
pharyngula | November 8, 2008Alright, I'm juggling way too many things here, but I've got to make a promise about where I'll be tonight. After the talk at GMU, I'm going to try and get into the AU event at the Hyatt Regency on Capitol Hill and spend some time with the good people there, and then I'm going to tear myself away to go to…The Dubliner. I'll try to get there by 10 or 10:30 — if I'm late, start the party without me.
When I was in Toronto, both Ken Ham and Jesus showed up. Could somebody give a call to invite Bush (I hear that people like to drink beer with him) and Obama? I think both of them need to spend more…
sheril | November 8, 2008Some of my favorite friends are in the habit of naming puppies after places in Australia. Readers already met Chris' Boston Terrier Sydney, and this weekend I'm watching Tasmania. Don't let those calm eyes deceive you, this fellow has at least as much energy as his talented, adventuresome mom:
pharyngula | November 7, 2008I'm here at the Hyatt Regency in Washington DC, and I've received a lot of questions about my plans and availability. Here's the deal: I'm here for an AU meeting, and that's my first priority; then I'm giving a talk at GMU Saturday evening. I may have to depart from the traditional post-seminar beer pilgrimage this time, though: my talk is overlapping a bit with an AU event in the evening, and I should scurry back early to catch part of it.
Now there is the possibility of a late night (like, 10:00) get-together here at the Hyatt or nearby, and if there is any interest, I could probably gather…
jstemwedel | November 7, 2008This is not an exhaustive account of my experiences at the PSA so far, but rather what's at the top of my Day-Quil-addled head:
I am not the only academic whose tastes run to hand-drawn slides.
However, it is possible that I am the youngest academic whose tastes run to hand-drawn slides.
Apparently, using Powerpoint marks me as nearly as tremendous a Luddite as using actual overheads. Keynote is where it's at. (But I may be unwilling to actually invest the time necessary to make the transition, especially seeing as how I like hand-drawn slides.)
A "coffee breaks" in the conference schedule…
pharyngula | November 5, 2008Some people are getting a bit cranky about the fact that I pissed in their cornflakes this morning, so here's a little more exposition.
A charismatic new face appeared on the political scene, somebody who was honest and sympathetic and intelligent. So he was a little more religious than I liked; he's still a good man who promises to repair the damage of the former presidency. He's running against a relic of that previous corrupt administration, his campaign slogan is all about change, and I am so relieved to have a promising choice. I campaigned for him, I stayed up all night with my friends…
jstemwedel | November 5, 2008Holy smokes, an airport where the WiFi is actually free! (If only San Jose International were more mass-transit friendly...)
I'm going to be offline for much of the day since I'll be in transit on my way to PSA 2008. I'm hoping Pittsburgh's weather will not destroy me. (The temperature ranges predicted as of yesterday don't seem too frightening, but California can do things to a person.)
My symposium session is in the first time slot on Thursday. Between now and then, I need to condense my talk to 15 minutes (eep!) and construct a correspondingly concise Powerpoint presentation, since…
sa smith | November 4, 2008This is going to be the best day ever.
I have my first committee meeting this morning (the group of people who tell you when/if you can ever graduate).
I have an Advanced Micro test this afternoon (I am a complete moron when it comes to bacteria, this is going to be fun).
And then the goddamned election.
Best. Day. Ever.
*twitch*
terrasig | November 3, 2008Now THIS is frightening. A multitude of thanks to BrotherDrug for the gift certificate to their CafePress store, the DrugMonkey Blog SchwagShop. Seems that the good doctor has been rather generous of late toward his commenters as evidenced by other schwag showing up at JuniorProf and Dr Isis.
Isis claims that her sweatshirt runs larger than advertised by I'd have to say that my XL tagless(!) Hanes tee is perfect - I didn't show the back but it also has the large DrugMonkey logo over the grey monkey featured on JuniorProf's mug, similar to the back of Isis' hoodie but with DrugMonkey written…
edyong | October 31, 2008So as I said, I will be posting wildlife pictures from my recent Australian adventure on a weekly basis. We begin with that most obvious of Australian critters - the koala. Unfortunately, we never managed to see one of these in the wild so these photos come from the Healesville Sanctuary and the Featherdale Wildlife Park, both superb collections of native species in generous enclosures.
Sleepy koala
Bearded koala
They may seen cuddly, but you don't climb trees without claws like these
Surprising things that koalas apparently do...
jstemwedel | October 31, 2008BikeMonkey tagged me ten days ago, but Casa Free-Ride has adopted the just-in-time model of jack-o-lantern production.
Here are the rules:
Carve a pumpkin.
Light'er up.
Snap a foto.
Post it.
Tag some bloggers.
Here are the photos:
Owing to the fact that this is Hallowe'en already, I'm tagging you if you want to be tagged. Otherwise, you're off the hook.
jstemwedel | October 31, 2008I don't know why I never thought of making Hallowe'en cookies like this:
They look like gingerbread, but actually the cookies are made of chocolate cookie dough. Any cookie dough you can roll out and cut with cookie cutters would work. A dark cookie makes the white icing jump out, but you could use dark icing on a light cookie, too.
But let's talk about the anatomical details. I'm pretty sure most humanoids don't have coiled ribcages like this. Sure, the icing flows efficiently that way ... but I can't help but wondering if these guys bounce more than other skeletons. Maybe this kind of…
jstemwedel | October 28, 2008The other day, my better half and I were discussing scratching. Predictably, in the course of the discussion, I became aware of every itchy square millimeter of skin I might possibly possess.
I wondered whether scratching actually works -- that is, whether scratching ever acts to make an itch go away, or even to reduce it.
"Of course it does," my better half opined. "Why else would we do it?"
"Because we're poorly adapted?" I ventured.
So, here's the question*:
Is there any good research to demonstrate whether scratching alleviates itching? Is there any evidence (beyond your mom's say-so…