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
When I was a kid I swallowed science-fiction by the crates. And I was too young to be very discerning of quality - I liked everything. Good taste developed later, with age. But even at that tender age, there was one book that was so bad that not only did I realized it was bad, it really, really…
Bjoern Brembs is attending and liveblogging from the Gastropod Neuroscience meeting at Friday Harbor Laboratories and has posted about several talks already and will likely post more over the next couple of days.
Something struck me in his coverage of Dennis Willows' talk about magnetoreception in…
Tangled Bank #81 is up on Behavioral Biology Blog (darn, I forgot to send my entry this time).
Grand Rounds Vol 3., No. 37 are up on Inside Surgery.
Pediatric Grand Rounds 2:4 are up on Adventures of An Awesome (Sometimes) Mother.
Bio::Blogs #11 is up on Nodalpoint.
The Festival of the Trees 12 -…
Yesterday, PLoS-ONE celebrated the publication of the 500th paper (and additional 13). Here are some quick stats:
1,411 submissions
513 published paper
360 member editorial board and growing
19 day average acceptance to publication
600+ post publication comments posted
I am assuming that the…
Jason aka Argonaut saw how I got the job and decided to try the same tactic. And, lo and behold, check the first comment on this post! I hope it works out for Jason as it did for me.
What Did Dinosaurs Hear?:
What did dinosaurs hear? Probably a lot of low frequency sounds, like the heavy footsteps of another dinosaur, if University of Maryland professor Robert Dooling and his colleagues are right. What they likely couldn't hear were the high pitched sounds that birds make.…
Dr. Snedley, the Mr.Hyde to Dr.Biobrain's Dr.Jeckyll (confused yet?) has taken over the blog and compiled the latest Carnival of the Liberals accompanied by his right-wing snark!
As explained by Jean-Claude Bradley in this excellent interview: The Pursuit of Automation: Open Notebook Science:
The difference between Bradley's idea and traditional open source projects is the clutter, i.e., all of the data collected from research. In a journal article, what the reader…
And they also make themselves look silly in the process. This time, it is the dinosaurs of journalism, putting out all the old anti-Web canards. Perhaps we should compile an Index of Old-Journalist Claims similar to the Index of Creationist Claims (on TalkOrigins.org). Two examples this week:…
Social Science and Humanities bloggers have been doing it for quite a while, but natural scientists have largely been very reluctant to do this. Now, with approval of his PI, Attila Csordas will start posting parts of his Dissertation on his blog. Stem cell research - mmmm, nice! Sure, the…
Duetting Birds With Rhythm Present A Greater Threat:
Birds that sing duets with incredible rhythmic precision present a greater threat to other members of their species than those that whistle a sloppier tune, according to a study of Australian magpie-larks reported in the June 5th issue of Current…
I could not resist this one, first seen here:
What Science are You?
You are Entymology. You are a conneseiur of the crawly. Bugs fascinate you. Let's face it, they are cool. Most people will think you're weird icky, but those of sophisticated taste will realize just how exquisit a roach…
Under all speech that is good for anything there lies a silence that is better. Silence is deep as Eternity; speech is shallow as Time.
- Thomas Carlyle
Tanja was lucky last night. She and her husband were filming bats out in Arizona. At one moment she picked up her cheap camera and aimed it at the sky at just the right moment to catch this picture of a kestrel (Falco sparverius) catching a Mexican Free-tailed Bat (Tadarida brasiliensis) - due to…
Graduate of the University of Belgrade (Serbia), City University (UK) and UNC-Chapel Hill (USA), with a Masters from University of Belgrade, Danica Radovanovic is currently in Belgrade without a job and she is looking for one either in Serbia, in Western/Northern Europe or in the USA.
Danica is…
The great omission in American life is solitude. . . that zone of time and space, free from the outside pressures, which is the incinerator of the spirit.
- Marya Mannes
Just to show how seriously FoxNews is taken as a 'mainstream' media channel, only three Democratic candidates will appear in their 'debate': Biden, Kucinich and Gravel for 90 minutes of comedy certain to be funnier than anything Saturday Night Live produced in the past five years.
But there is a…
