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
Sleep-Wake Controls Identified: Implications For Coma Patients And Those Under Anesthesia:
How do we wake up? How do we shift from restful sleep to dreaming? Researchers at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) have discovered a new brain mechanism that just might explain how we…
His house was perfect, whether you liked food, or sleep, or work, or story-telling, or singing, or just sitting and thinking, best, or a pleasant mixture of them all.
- John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
Electronic Eggs Used To Help Save Threatened African Bird:
This is an important summer for kori bustards at the Smithsonian's National Zoo. Four chicks of this threatened African bird have hatched in June and July. Along with the bumper crop of baby birds is a bumper crop of new information for…
Otpisani ('Written Off') is probably the most popular Yugoslav TV series of all times. It is surprising to me that there were only thirteen episodes - this was a cult production. We played them as kids (instead of cowboys and Indians). Two major movies were made. The cast reads like "who is who…
Why do conferences all tend to happen at the same time, hogging a couple of weekends per year, with vast chasms of free time in-between?
So, next weekend, there is going to be a lot of science content, including a science blogging session at YearlyKos. You'll be able to meet Tara, Chris, Sean, Ed…
Being out of the lab, out of science, and out of funding for a while also means that I have not been at a scientific conference for a few years now, not even my favourite meeting of the Society for Research on Biological Rhythms. I have missed the last two meetings (and I really miss them - they…
Last night I went all the way to Alameda to meet my SciBling Chris Hoofnagle at a place called Lucky Juju. That was great fun!
Lucky Juju is a warehouse full of pinball machines. In addition to Chris' interns at Berkeley, there were also interns from Stanford's Center for Internets and Society…
It depends on your definition of asleep. They were not stretched out. They had their eyes closed. They were seated at their desks with their heads in a nodding position.
- John Hogan
You can now register for the third ConvergeSouth conference in Greensboro, NC, October 19-20, 2007. Among many others, you will be able to meet me there. Keep and eye on the blog for new developments.
Last night, Professor Steve Steve took off work a little earlier and went to Oakland to see the offices of the National Center for Science Education, then went to Berkeley for dinner with the NCSE staff and fans at Eugenie Scott's house. Lots of pictures under the fold:
The logo at the back…
The Science Idol: The Scientific Integrity Editorial Cartoon Contest by the Union of Concerned Scientists is over and the winner has been announced. Read the interview with the winner, Jesse Springer.
There are 31 new papers published on PLoS ONE this week, and here are some of my first, quick picks of titles that got my attention, but you should go and see them all, then rate, annotate and comment on them:
Stable Isotope Ratios in Hair and Teeth Reflect Biologic Rhythms by Otto Appenzeller,…
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…
Hypotheses leading to more hypotheses (from March 19, 2006 - the Malaria Day):
I have written a little bit about malaria before, e.g, here and here, but this is my special Malaria Action Day post, inspired by a paper [1] that Tara sent me some weeks ago and I never got to write about it till now…
Bjoern Brembs is at the ICN meeting and is blogging about the talks he saw. If I went, I would have probably attended a completely different set of talks, e.g., on birdsong, memory in food-caching birds, aggression in crustaceans, strange sensory systems, spatial orientation and animal cognition,…
Tara of Aetiology, after reviewing Danica McKellar's book "Math Doesn't Suck", posted an exclusive blog interview with Danica, which you can (and should) read here.
Yup, there is a Wikipedia page about Scienceblogs.com, but it has practically nothing on it. If you go to the Discussions page, you will see some more. Be a Wikipedian - edit, add, remove and write stuff there. It is 'bad etiquette' for us to edit a page about ourselves, so our readers need to…
Michael Hopkin interviewed Al Jean, the executive producer of The Simpsons show, about math and science, sometimes central, sometimes hidden, in the episodes of everyone's favourite show...
It is certainly possible. Compared to some people I know, I am definitely not. I have read each of the books once (more than halfway through the 7th - so do not give me spoilers yet!) and I have seen each of the movies once. I enjoy them, but do nothing on top of it: no speculations, no…
Harry Potter Carnival #51 is up on The Pensieve.
I and the Bird #54 is up on The Egret's Nest
Change of Shift: Volume Two, Number Three is up on Musings of a Highly Trained Monkey
Grand Rounds, Vol. 3, No 44 are up on A Chronic Dose
Carnival of the Green #87 is up on Hippyshopper
The 129th Edition…
Mo is really spoiling us with exciting, well-researched posts from the history of science and medicine (remember the trepination post from a month ago?). And here he does it again: The rise & fall of the prefrontal lobotomy, the most gripping post on science blogs this week. And a Wicked…
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…
SPARC just announced the Mind Mashup: A Video Contest:
SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) today announced the launch of the first annual SPARC Discovery Awards, a contest to promote the open exchange of information. Mind Mashup, the theme of the 2007 contest, calls on…
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…
This post (written on August 13, 2005) describes the basic theory behind photoperiodism and some experimental protocols developed to test the theory.
Timely prediction of seasonal periods of weather conditions, food availability or predator activity is crucial for survival of many species. Although…
