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
Grand Rounds 3.20 are now up on Tales from the Emergency Room and Beyond...
Change of Shift, Volume 1, Number 17, a Valentine's Day edition, is up on Nurse Ratched's Place
Two years (January 28, 2005) have passed, but I am still not sure what the correct answer to this question is:
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( Image: Sexism and Creationism , thanks All-Knowing Orac)
Previously, I have made a comparison between the challenges facing the reality-based…
Darwin Day - his 198th birthday - is coming up soon, on February 12th. Are you planning on writing a post on that day?
Last year I put together a linkfest of all the notable blogospheric contributions for the Darwin Day. Although the number of science blogs has increased greatly since then, I…
Revere, PZ, Larry and Ed all agree with each other, which means they must all be correct on this story as this does not happen so often. But the extraordinarily stupid and hateful anti-atheist show CNN had the other day is so obviously wrong at every level and from every angle. CNN should suffer…
Just got this exciting news by e-mail:
Data on Equine Genome Freely Available to Researchers Worldwide
BETHESDA, Md., Wed., Feb. 7, 2007 - The first draft of the horse genome sequence has been deposited in public databases and is freely available for use by biomedical and veterinary researchers…
Human Proteins Evolving Slowly Thanks To Multitasking Genes:
Many human proteins are not as good as they might be because the gene sequences that code for them have a double role which slows down the rate at which they evolve, according to new research published in PLoS Biology. By tweaking these…
From today's Quotes Of The Day
Sinclair Lewis was born at Sauk Centre, Minnesota on this day in 1885. He was an avid and somewhat romantic reader as a boy, he attempted to run away from home at age thirteen to be a drummer boy in the Spanish-American War. He graduated from Yale in 1908 and set to…
105th edition of the Carnival of Education is up on This Week In Education.
The 58th edition of the Carnival of Homeschooling is up on About:Homeschooling
Do You Mind?
Introspection of a Struggling Mad Scientist
Forensic Science Blog
Seeds Aside
Nature Woman
Mon@rch's Nature Blog
Coffee & Conservation
75 degrees South
Dogwood Alliance
North Carolina Sierra Club
I Love Colonoscopies
Yes, there is a Blogger MeetUp tomorrow (Wednesday) night. New place and time: 6:30 p.m. @ Milltown Bar & Restaurant (map). No particular topic this week (still preparing for all the topical meetings later on this season). See you all there.
Matt found a conference paper that shows that the risk of pre-term birth is the lowest in spring, rising through summer and fall and the greatest in winter.
The paper, IMHO erroneously, focuses on the time of conception (because it is an easy marker used to calculate the supposed birth-date).…
I was just about to write about this story, but Grrrrl scoooped me and summarized it so well, I'll just ask you to go there.
Oh, btw, it is about an incredible discovery of about one hundred dinosaur eggs and some tracks around them.
My daughter, as part of her school assignment on Vasco Da Gama, bought a bunch of stuff that Vasco brought to Europe from Asia. Now I have all those foodstuffs and do not know what to do with them.
Cucumber and melon were easy.
But, what would I do with a coconut, a jar of cinnamon sticks and…
There are two new additions to the Basic Concepts and Terms in Science list that appeared today:
Voltage Gate: What Is Ecology?
The World Fair: Epistemology (what is a flower?)
Any others?
Lance wrote a brilliant post - An alien anthropologist discusses marriage with the Pope - which reminded me of an old (April 24, 2005) post of mine, which, perhaps, stood the test of time after all...
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I have not mentioned the Pope on this blog yet. What will the election…
Slight changes in the hosting line-up for the Tar Heel Tavern:
Next Host: Scrutiny Hooligans
TTHT #104 (18 February 2007) Host: Writing for Nonprofits
TTHT #105 (25 February 2007) Host: Science and Politics
TTHT #106 (4 March 2007) Host: Slowly She Turned
TTHT #107 (11 March 2007) Host: Scrutiny…
If they think that something like this will endear them to anyone not certifiably insane (via PZ), or to think that WorldNutDaily is not satire... It's like when you catch your kid in a lie and he starts spinnikng and digging himself depeer and deeper. Exept that thse guys, like wounded beasts,…
Slow-wave Activity During Sleep Affected By Quality, Intensity Of Wakefulness:
A study published in the February 1st issue of the journal SLEEP provides a first direct demonstration that the "quality" and "intensity" of wakefulness can affect slow-wave activity (SWA) during subsequent sleep.…
Wow - what a little tempest! The first response to the local NBC affilate's invitation to the "Blogger Ascertainmnent" by me, Paul Jones and Brian Russell provoked David Kirk to respond in NBC's defense. To that, Paul Jones, Brian Russell and Paul Jones again responded, and the NBC guy trying to…
Lots of cool stuff today:
Nature Could Have Used Different Protein Building Blocks, Chemists Show:
Chemists at Yale have done what Mother Nature chose not to -- make a protein-like molecule out of non-natural building blocks, according to a report featured early online in the Journal of the…
For Some Species, An Upside To Inbreeding:
Although breeding between close kin is thought to be generally unfavorable from an evolutionary standpoint, in part because harmful mutations are more easily propagated through populations in this way, theory predicts that under some circumstances, the…
Two interesting papers came out last week, both using transgenic mice to ask important questions about circadian organization in mammals. Interestingly, in both cases the gene inserted into the mouse was a human gene, though the method was different and the question was different:
Turning a Mouse…
Jeffrey Feldman write in Frameshop: Dem Who Reframes "War on Terror," Wins in '08:
The Democratic candidate who wins the 2008 nomination for President will not be the candidate who simply puts forward the best policy proposal on Iraq or Iran or Afghanistan or any other individual military issue.…
Just quickly for now without commentary:
Totally cool paper in the last Science:
S. Libert, J. Zwiener, X. Chu, W. VanVoorhies, G. Roman, and S.D.Pletcher
Regulation of Drosophila lifespan by olfaction and food-derived odors:
Smell is an ancient sensory system present in organisms from bacteria to…
