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
A January 20, 2006 post placing a cool physiological/behavioral study into an evolutionary context.
There are two main hypotheses - not mutually exclusive - for the adaptive value of having a circadian clock. One is the Internal Synchronization hypothesis, stating that the circadian clock serves…
As traveling is not conducive to vigorous blogging (apart from posting travelogue pictures), I have asked a couple of friends to write guest posts here. The first to step up to the plate is Anne Marie who put together her passion for bats and my passion for biological clocks and wrote this…
Professor Steve Steve went to FEST with me today and saw some impostors that came all the way from China, some nice FEST employees (good - I realized I did not do enough teasing of Mrs.Coturnix by posting pictures of beautiful people of the XY karyotype lately), cool Italian science journalists and…
Peter Suber wrote the most clear, brief and to-the-point explanation of the new law (PDF). Worth reading and bookmarking. Along with the explanation of how it works, Peter also provided this handy table of myths about the new law that some of the dinosaur publishers are trying to push - save it,…
This post was originally written on February 11, 2005. Moving from relatively simple mammalian model to more complex systems.
I have previously described the basic properties of the circadian organization in mammals. Non-mammalian vertebrates (fish, amphibians, reptiles and birds) have more…
The entire thing is happening in a large building on a pier (Molo IV). I was impressed by the crowds on the first day. I also got vouchers for four nice restaurants in town for meals. Last night I went to a nice pizza place and had spaghetti with tomato&eggplant sauce and veal in wine sauce…
Today is the second day of the Science FEST in Trieste. Yesterday, I went around, looked at everything and took a lot of pictures (under the fold). Later today, I will see some more specific sessions and will let you know more about the whole thing. The main focus are science books - thousands…
Education would be much more effective if its purpose was to ensure that by the time they leave school every boy and girl should know how much they do not know, and be imbued with a lifelong desire to know it.
- Sir William Haley
In this post from April 06, 2006, I present some unpublished data that you may find interesting.
Understanding the role of serotonin in depression has led to development of anti-depressant drugs, like Prozac. Much of the research in this area has been performed in Crustaceans: lobsters and…
We were too busy to notice, but apparently, PLoS ONE reached a new milestone this week - the 2000th article! Wow! That's a lot!
This week we have a new Journal Club, already getting lively so you should all picth in and add your comments to the discussion. It is on the article on human evolution…
Antioxidant Users Don't Live Longer, Analysis Of Studies Concludes:
The vitamin industry has long touted antioxidants as a way to improve health by filling in gaps in diet, but a new review of studies found no evidence that the nutrition supplements extend life. Worse, the review authors said that…
The 103rd edition of the Tangled Bank is up on rENNISance woman (I think this is the first time TB has been hosted on the Nature Network - lovely!).
Encephalon #43 is up on GNIF Brain Blogger
Grand Rounds Volume 4, Number 30 is now up on Women's Health News
The 167th edition of The Carnival of…
This February 06, 2005 post describes the basic elements of the circadian system in mammals.
The principal mammalian circadian pacemaker is located in the suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN) of the hypothalamus. The general area was first discovered in 1948 by Curt Richter who systematically lesioned a…
Yesterday was my last day in Cambridge, so here are some pictures from the PLoS office - Chief Editor Mark Patterson and the new Managing Editor of PLoS ONE Peter Binfield (and the beer pictures are under the fold):
And I am glad that Andrew Walkinshaw could come and join us as well - we…
Just arrived in Trieste. It's 1am here so I am about to go to sleep. The hotel is nice, but it charges exorbitant amounts of money for Internet access (50 euro for 5.5 hours)!!!! I complained at the desk - the guy smugly replied "Free market". I said that in the USA free market is driving…
This post from February 03, 2005 covers the basic concepts and terms on entrainment. This is also the only blog post to date that I am aware of that was cited in a scientific paper.
Let's now continue our series of Clock Tutorials with an introduction to some phenomena (and related terms and…
This post, from January 25, 2006, describes part of the Doctoral work of my lab-buddy Chris.
Mammals have only one circadian pacemaker - the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN). Apparently all the other cells in the body contain circadian clocks, too, but only the SCN drives all the overt rhythms.…
I wrote this post back on February 02, 2005 in order to drive home the point that the circadian clock is not a single organ, but an organ system comprised of all cells in the body linked in a hierarchical manner:
In the earliest days of chronobiology, the notion of circadian organization was…
The weekend at La Maison de Girrafes was absolutely brilliant. Henry and I could not stop talking for two straight days. We tried to elicit the End Of The Universe by starting a cycle of infinite regress by repeatedly linking to each other's blog posts, but something went wrong with our plan and…
Insects Evolved Radically Different Strategy To Smell:
Darwin's tree of life represents the path and estimates the time evolution took to get to the current diversity of life. Now, new findings suggest that this tree, an icon of evolution, may need to be redrawn. In research to be published in the…
Since I am not an ecologist, when I teach the ecology lecture I 'go by the book' and trust that the textbook will be reasonably accurate. But now, perhaps I should rethink the way I teach about ecological succession...What do my ecological readers think?
Molecular and Cell Biology Carnival #1 is up on the skeptical alchemist (they need a catchy name, a homepage, an icon/button, etc....).
Carnival of the Liberals #62 is up on A Revolution Of One
Since everyone is posting about spiders this week, I though I'd republish a sweet old post of mine, which ran on April 19, 2006 under the title "Happy Bicycle Day!" I hope you like this little post as much as I enjoyed writing it:
This week's theme for the Tar Heel Tavern is bicycle. I was…
These two entire days chez Gee, surrounded by many strange animals, I kept looking for the girrafes and they were nowhere to be seen. But now I know why - they are not allowed in here any more, at least not beyond this point:
