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
Scientists Map Penguins From Space By Locating Their Feces:
Penguin poo (guano) stains, visible from space, have helped British scientists locate emperor penguin breeding colonies in Antarctica. Knowing their location provides a baseline for monitoring their response to environmental change.
New…
Do not think of your faults, still less of others' faults; look for what is good and strong, and try to imitate it. Your faults will drop off, like dead leaves, when their time comes.
- John Ruskin
There are 23 new articles in PLoS ONE today. 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 services (CiteULike, Mendeley, Connotea, Stumbleupon, Facebook and Digg) with…
Caryn Shechtman, one of the two bloggers at the New York blog and manager of the New York City Hub at Nature Network, called me up last week and interviewed me for the blog. The interview - on a range of topics, but mostly about blogging - is now published and you can read it here.
Light-treatment Device To Improve Sleep Quality In The Elderly:
Sleep disturbances increase as we age. Some studies report more than half of seniors 65 years of age or older suffer from chronic sleep disturbances. Researchers have long believed that the sleep disturbances common among the elderly…
Carnival of Evolution #12 is up on Deep Sea News
Carnival of the Green #182 is up on Green Building Elements
Grand Rounds Vol. 5 No. 37 are up on Health Blawg
The entries are listed and linked here. Go and vote here.
If you are interested in voting for me (but there are many other good choices, of course), know that to date the Archaea post got 0 votes, the Shock-Value got 2 and the others got 1 vote each. Perhaps we can do better (it appears impossible…
There are 13 new articles in PLoS ONE today, as well as 12 articles published Friday night. 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 services (CiteULike, Mendeley,…
First June Scientia Pro Publica is up on Pro-science
Circus of the Spineless #39 is up on Bug Girl's Blog
Berry Go Round #17 is up on Gravity's Rainbow
Festival of the Trees - Edition 36 is up on Roundrock Journal
The 105th Carnival of Space is up on Space Disco
Friday Ark #245 is up on Modulator
Here are the submissions for OpenLab 2009 to date. As we have surpassed 150 entries, all of them, as well as the "submit" buttons and codes, are under the fold. You can buy the 2006, 2007 and 2008 editions at Lulu.com. Please use the submission form to add more of your and other people's posts (…
If you read this blog even superficially, you are probably aware of everyONE, the community blog of PLoS ONE. The blog has been so successful, that our colleagues at PLoS Medicine have decided to follow our example and start their own community blog.
And, today they are ready to reveal - Speaking…
About a week ago, Nicholas Kristof wrote an eye-opening op-ed in NYTimes - After Wars, Mass Rapes Persist. In Liberia, and probably in some other places, the end of war does not automatically mean the end of rape:
Of course, children are raped everywhere, but what is happening in Liberia is…
The World is a radio show co-produced by WGBH Boston, Public Radio International and BBC. You can probably hear it on your local NPR station - if not, you can find all the shows recorded on the website.
You may remember that I went to Boston a couple of months ago, as part of a team of people…
Later this month, I'll be attending the 59th Meeting of Nobel Laureates in Lindau, Germany. The list of Nobel Laureates (about 20 of them) and the list of about 600 young researchers from 66 countries are very impressive. Of course, not being a chemist, I'll have to do some homework before I go,…
I posted only 128 posts in May - the reason for this reduction in numbers I explained here. Traffic has suffered only a little bit so far, I'll keep an eye. Looking back at the month, I noticed how many videos I have posted: about half are very informative and thought-provoking, the other half are…
In the beginning, blogs were mainly collections of links. With the development of blogging platforms, many bloggers moved on to long-form writing. But blogs were still places for a lot of linkfests, or link-plus-one-liner posts as well. My blog has always been a mix of both styles. Thus, my average…
Today is the 130th anniversary of the birth of Milutin Milankovic, a Serbian geophysicist best known for Milankovitch cycles that describe periodicities in Earth's climate.
Vedran Vucic is in Dalj (near Vukovar, Croatia), Milankovic's birthplace, today for the birthday celebrations. He says that…
Virtual Reconstruction Of A Neanderthal Woman's Birth Canal Reveals Insights Into Evolution Of Human Child Birth:
Researchers from the University of California at Davis (USA) and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig (Germany) present a virtual reconstruction of a…
I'll be going to IASP next week, one of several people reporting from it for Science In The Triangle. We have organized our coverage strategically - I will be there for a couple of events on Tuesday and all day Wednesday. I'll be posting here and on Twitter and Science In The Triangle will…
