My scientific specialty is chronobiology (circadian rhythms and photoperiodism), with additional interests in comparative physiology, animal behavior and evolution. I am not an MD so I cannot diagnose and treat your sleep problems. As well as writing this blog, I am also the Online Discussion Expert for PLoS. This is a personal blog and opinions within it in no way reflect the policies of PLoS. You can contact me at: Coturnix@gmail.com
Jeff Jarvis systematically lays down the possible future of journalism (read carefully the entire thing):
It's fair to expect me to put forward scenarios for the future of news. In a sense, that's all I ever do here, but there's no one permalink summarizing my apparently endless prognostication. So…
Plants Grow Bigger And More Vigorously Through Changes In Their Internal Clocks:
Hybrid plants, like corn, grow bigger and better than their parents because many of their genes for photosynthesis and starch metabolism are more active during the day, report researchers from The University of Texas…
Carnival of Space #80 is up on Starts With A Bang!
Carnivalesque 45 - a blog carnival of Ancient and Medieval findings - is up on The Cranky Professor
Friday Ark #218 is up on Modulator
I had been practicing for the Depression a long time. I wasn't involved with loss. I didn't have money to lose, but in common with millions I did dislike hunger and cold.
- John Steinbeck
As you all know, I was not an Obamamaniac. I never thought that he was a super-Progressive. But I am liking what I am seeing right now.
A lot of Progressive bloggers are screaming bloody murder how Obama has abandoned them by not appointing the Progressives to various cabinet posts. Hello? He's…
Daniel Drezner: Public Intellectual 2.0:
".....The pessimism about public intellectuals is reflected in attitudes about how the rise of the Internet in general, and blogs in particular, affects intellectual output. Alan Wolfe claims that "the way we argue now has been shaped by cable news and…
Crafting Your Image For Your 1,000 Friends On Facebook Or MySpace:
Students are creating idealized versions of themselves on social networking websites -- Facebook and MySpace are the most popular -- and using these sites to explore their emerging identities, UCLA psychologists report. Parents…
I wish every single laboratory web-page contained a disclaimer like this one:
We currently have room in the lab for more graduate students. Before you apply to this lab or any other, there are a few things to keep in mind. First, be realistic about graduate school. Graduate school in biology is not…
Macedonians plant six million trees in single day:
Thousands of Macedonians took to the hills and forests on Wednesday to plant six million trees in a single day as part of a mass reforestation drive in the Balkan country.
The main aim of the campaign was to replant Macedonia's forests after…
This article made me think about this - it showcases two local examples, and it contains this statement:
Mary Gratch, the academic counselor for the junior and senior classes at CHS [Carrboro High School], was a counselor at Chapel Hill High School for 16 years before CHS opened. She said that…
This is in March and close enough - Wilmington, NC - for me to go:
UNCW's Evolution Learning Community will be hosting "Darwin's Legacy: Evolution's Impact on Science and Culture," a multidisciplinary student conference on March 19-21, 2009.
The conference will be a unique opportunity for…
From here:
Platinum is a Brazilian image manipulation studio which uses combination of photography, illustration, 3D and CGI to "make the impossible become reality".
Simple Eyes Of Only Two Cells Guide Marine Zooplankton To The Light:
Researchers unravel how the very first eyes in evolution might have worked and how they guide the swimming of marine plankton towards light. Larvae of marine invertebrates - worms, sponges, jellyfish - have the simplest eyes that…
Only within the moment of time represented by the present century has one species - man - acquired significant power to alter the nature of his world.
- Rachel Carson
NYTimes:
Eliminating daylight time would thus accord with President-elect Barack Obama's stated goals of conserving resources, saving money, promoting energy security and reducing climate change.
Eugene Sandhu:
In order to conserve energy, President-elect Barak Obama should eliminate daylight…
Last week, Terry Gross interviewed William Ayers on Fresh Air on NPR - you can listen to the podcast here.
James Fallows and Dave Winer have completely opposite reactions to the interview. What do you think?
We are in the final strecth! The submissions have been trickling in all year, and a little bit more frequently recently, and many more over the past couple of weeks, so, if you have not done it yet, it is high time now to dig through your Archives for your best posts since December 20th 2007 and…
There is nothing you can say in answer to a compliment. I have been complimented myself a great many times, and they always embarrass me - I always feel that they have not said enough.
- Mark Twain
Darwin Was Right About How Evolution Can Affect Whole Group:
Worker ants of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your fertility. The highly specialized worker castes in ants represent the pinnacle of social organization in the insect world. As in any society, however, ant colonies are…
While theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially I consider it an impossibility, a development of which we need waste little time dreaming.
- Lee De Forest
So, let's see what's new in PLoS Genetics, PLoS Computational Biology, PLoS Pathogens, PLoS ONE and PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases this week. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. Here are my own picks for the week -…
The last of the old Yugo cars rolled off the production line today.
Here is some history of it. Yugo cars, known abroad, never came even close to Zastava 750 for its emotional meaning for Yugoslavs. Hey, I learned to drive in one of those:
This image came from the website of Eshel Ben-Jacob a Professor of Physics and artist. You can see more fascinating science-related images on the Seed Portfolio page - there are bacterial colonies growing into strange shapes, amazing flight patterns of birds, close-ups of hairy insects, etc, well…