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
Two interesting papers came out last week [from the Archives - click on the clock logo to see the original post], 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…
Thursday morning was the Biofluorescence morning, with lectures by the three most recent Nobelists who received their prize for the discovery and first uses of the Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) and its derivatives that glow in other colors. It's hard to think of an animal that is as non-model in…
Just trying to catch up with the publicartions in various PLoS Journals this past week. Here are some interesting titles.
As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. You can now also easily place articles on various social…
A brief interview with one of the young researchers attending the Lindau Nobel conference - Matthew Siebert of the University of California, Davis, USA:
This post is a modification from two papers written for two different classes in History of Science, back in 1995 and 1998. It is a part of a four-post series on Darwin and clocks. I first posted it here on December 02, 2004 and then again here on January 06, 2005:
II. Darwin on Time
There is a…
This is going to be a challenging post to write for several reasons. How do I explain that a paper that does not show too much new stuff is actually a seminal paper? How do I condense a 12-page Cell paper describing a gazillion experiments without spending too much time on details of each…
The series of interviews with some of the participants of the 2008 Science Blogging Conference was quite popular, so I decided to do the same thing again this year, posting interviews with some of the people who attended ScienceOnline'09 back in January.
Today, I asked my SciBling GrrrlScientist…
This post about the origin, evolution and adaptive fucntion of biological clocks originated as a paper for a class, in 1999 I believe. I reprinted it here in December 2004, as a third part of a four-part post. Later, I reposted it here.
III. Whence Clocks?
Origin, Evolution, and Adaptive Function…
How simple it is to see that all the worry in the world cannot control the future. How simple it is to see that we can only be happy now. And that there will never be a time when it is not now.
- Gerald Jampolsky
I am running to the Lindau Harbor for the last day's trip and will be offline for the next 12 or so hours. So I don't have time for a long post right now about this cool new dinosaur paper we just published in PLoS ONE.
So please check it out - see what it is all about and read the paper itself.
Microarrays have been used in the study of circadian expression of mammalian genes since 2002 and the consensus was built from those studies that approximately 15% of all the genes expressed in a cell are expressed in a circadian manner. I always felt it was more, much more.
I am no molecular…
The series of interviews with some of the participants of the 2008 Science Blogging Conference was quite popular, so I decided to do the same thing again this year, posting interviews with some of the people who attended ScienceOnline'09 back in January.
Today, I asked Eva Amsen, a participant at…
This post, originally published on January 16, 2005, was modified from one of my written prelims questions from early 2000.
EVOLUTIONARY PHYSIOLOGY OF BIOLOGICAL CLOCKS
"Circadian clocks allow organisms to predict, instead of merely react to, cyclic (predictable) changes in the environment". A…
There are a bunch of bloggers here at Lindau, wearing Press badges, going to Press meetings and generally behaving like Press. Apart from PZ and myself, most of them are German sciencebloggers who are posting their interviews and dispatches on the Lindaunobel blog on Scienceblogs.de (you can filter…
Carnival of Evolution #13 is up on FYI: Science!
Festival of the Trees #37 is up on TGAW
Four Stone Hearth #70 is up on Afarensis
114th Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle is up on Homologous Legs
Grand Rounds Vol. 5 No. 41 are up at Edwin Leap
Carnival of the Green #186 is up on Conserve Plastic Bags…
This is a repost of a May 29, 2008 post:
I was wondering what to do about the Classic Papers Chellenge. The deadline is May 31st, and I am so busy (not to mention visiting my dentist twice week which incapacitates me for the day, pretty much), so I decided to go back to the very beginning because…
The series of interviews with some of the participants of the 2008 Science Blogging Conference was quite popular, so I decided to do the same thing again this year, posting interviews with some of the people who attended ScienceOnline'09 back in January.
Today, I asked Betul Kacar of the Counter…
PZ was sleepy this morning, but he was a diligent blogger - he sat through each and every talk this morning and wrote about them all in two posts. Knowing myself (and my ADHD) I did some cherry-picking. I skipped the heavy-duty chemistry lectures that I was bound not to understand, and went to only…
This is the third in the series of posts designed to provide the basics of the field of Chronobiology. This post is interesting due to its analysis of history and sociology of the discipline, as well as a look at the changing nature of science. You can check out the rest of Clock Tutorials here…
The liberality of sentiment toward each other, which marks every political and religious denomination of men in this country, stands unparalleled in the history of nations.
- George Washington
Chad wrote a neat history of (or should we say 'evolution of') clocks, as in "timekeeping instruments". He points out the biological clocks are "...sort of messy application, from the standpoint of physics..." and he is right - for us biologists, messier the better. We wallow in mess, cherish…
Today was a busy day. I was somewhat surprised at how shy people are of the little Flip camera - so much worry about the future career prospects if one does something seemingly 'unprofessional' like say a couple of words about one's research for the Lindau YouTube channel and my blog. But see the…
Just because I am galivanting in Lindau does not mean I could not take a look at the brand new papers published in PLoS ONE, PLoS Biology, PLoS Medicine and PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases last night. A few titles caught my eye - take a look. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and…
The series of interviews with some of the participants of the 2008 Science Blogging Conference was quite popular, so I decided to do the same thing again this year, posting interviews with some of the people who attended ScienceOnline'09 back in January.
Today, I asked Dr. SkySkull of the Skulls…
A brief interview with one of the young researchers attending the Lindau Nobel conference - Corinna Reisinger from Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung
This is the second in the series of posts designed to provide the basics of the field of Chronobiology. See the first part: ClockTutorial #1 - What Is Chronobiology and check out the rest of them here - they will all, over time, get moved to this blog.
Here is a brief overview of the concepts and…
