neurotopia

Life has an interesting symmetry to it. No I'm not talking about bilateral symmetry or any Endless Forms Most Beautiful. I've just completed my orientation for a 1 year position at my undergraduate alma mater, where I'll be replacing the person who got me into lab work. In fact this is being…

There's a slick new online Sci Fi rag called Lightspeed. I like this one because they also publish nonfiction pieces that are relevant to their fiction stories. Ok I'm a bit biased because they asked me to write a nonfiction piece for them. In the same issue there was a story called Manumission…

I'm putting this post under "education" because I define a new term at the end of it. Which, of course, qualifies it to be educational. By now you've probably picked up on the Sexiest Female Scientist list being passed around by some atheist guy, so I won't bother to link to it and drive up the…

Even kids in jr high can figure out that we've been spoon-fed some misconceptions of how scientists look and act. I wonder where they get these ideas from. Certainly not the media. They would never create caricatures of real people.

You may not think of our flesh-eating diseased brethren as being the thoughtful types. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't. As Sci mentioned, I'm gonna be holed up in the Costco for a while so I got time to think about it. They're the slow-moving-undead zombies, not those ultra-quick "infected…

Chris Mooney- a man with his heart in the right place and absolutely no idea what do do after that. Don't get me wrong, I like the guy. He's a force for good when dissecting a scientific issue for the public. But Mooney has been trucking out this same "communication" bullshit for a few years now…

I was thinking about the difficulties that women have defending their reproductive rights, and the constant intrusion from a predominantly white-male-run government has slowly eroded women's ability to control what happens to their own bodies. Ok, ok, maybe birth control and abortion are all too…

Then quit jerking around with Harry Reid and force him to pass meaningful health care reform with a public option included. The House would back it. Make the Senate get off their asses. It isn't rocket surgery. /rant

You attended 5 classes of your Brain and Behavior course out of an 8 week summer session that meets daily, and stop going after the first exam. Which you failed. Repeating the exact same pattern from the previous semester when you were in my class. And then.... your MOM shows up at my class to…

Looks like I got cornered by Ava over at Paw Talk for an interview. Go check it out. We talked about animal intelligence, modeling diseases using animals, and my stupid cat's antics. Good times! //-->

One of my close colleagues got on eRA Commons and downloaded the challenge grants she was to review before eRA Commons went down for major upgrades in a majorly untimely fashion. This was a prudent move on her part since by the time eRA Commons would be accessible again, she would be traveling for…

Challenge grant review assignments went out today. You know, the ones so essential to revitalizing the economy? Not surprisingly the reviews are due back soon- June 5th. To access the challenge grants you use eRA Commons. However, eRA commons is going to be offline for the next five days for a…

Every year the folks at the Alliance for Science have themselves an essay contest. The topic is evolution-themed, and since 2009 is so relevant to Charles Darwin-- being his 200th birthday and 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species-- we asked students to identify a modern…

I think I hit the wrong thing when trying to install a rotating blogroll, so Neurotopia may look like base model Movable Type template for a while. My apologies...

My illustrious coblogger points out that by taking part in research studies, a graduate student can actually afford to do things like, well, eat. Normally relegated to scraping the crumbs off the post-seminar cookie tray, or sneaking into a urology luncheon and being forced to sit through an hour…

My illustrious coblogger already put up a New Year's wish from both of us, but I simply had to add this one. There's a big fake-o tree made of lights on the highway by my digs. It's supposed to spell out "Joy Hope Peace Love Faith" or something to that effect. Some of the lights burnt out,…

The semester is finally winding down. Kudos to Scicurious for holding down the fort. After teaching 3 courses on top of my 40+ hour-a-week lab job, I'm rather grateful. No wait, I'm frakkin' ecstatic. Possibly rapturous. Don't get me wrong, I had a blast being an instructor. Most notably my…

make Evil a dull monkey. All work and no play make Evil a dull monkey. All work and no play make Evil a dull monkey. All work and no play make Evil a dull monkey. All work and no play make Evil a dull monkey. All work and no play make Evil a dull monkey. All work and no play make Evil a dull…

Some people have been noticing erratic behavior from republican nominee John McCain lately. His most recent seems to be slight, but rather odd. Specifically, he appears to have developed ptosis--- a drooping eyelid--- which could of course be related to any number of causes, from an autoimmune…

The downside of this semester is that I am dog tired. Having 3 classes with exams all at once wasn't a good idea when I still have to work 40+ a week. I haven't had a day off in weeks. On the upside, I can afford to get the room reshingled. If the damn roofers will ever show up. I may also…

This is one of those things I simply can't fathom. How does a woman pretend to be pro-women and then charge other women for basic forensic services following a rape? She justifies it as necessary to cut taxes. Which begs the question: how much of a tax burden did sex crimes place on the town of…

In a bit of a shift, I've decided to take a co-blogger. I'm up to my ears in work and whatnot so I think it would be worthwhile to have another voice here. Look for the official introduction in the next couple days!!!!

McCain is bitching about supposed sexism from Democrats when this is what is being worn by Indiana delegates at the RNC? What a bunch of bullshit. By the way, ignore my previous post. That was IRONY, dammit :)

This is so many degrees of wrong. Start your "so this is how Palin got the job" jokes if you want, but please remember that HER DAUGHTER IS IN THE FREAKIN' PICTURE TOO YOU SICK BASTARDS.

....by releasing them from a mink farm. This is what happens when you set animals free without regard to the consequences. Now whether you think raising and killing animals for their fur is immoral or not, it takes a special kind of mind to cogitate that an appropriate solution is to spontaneously…

I signed up to teach 3 courses at the community college this fall; Human Biology and 2 sections of a Basic Concepts in Biology course. The latter is "remedial" biology, designed to catch up people with little or no biology experience so that when they take Intro biology, they're all on the same…

Lots of attention has been paid to the capacity of great apes to use objects as tools. Well, here we have an example of a chimpanzee at the Honolulu Zoo using a toad as a "marital aide". I feel bad for the poor toad, it certainly doesn't deserve to be treated like an object. There's not more I…

So when does trying to advance one's career become a Bad Idea? How about when you're trying to recover from a nightmare postdoc so you take a part-time lab job while you regroup, then apply to a few teaching spots only to find out that you're only missing one qualification-- more teaching…

We've all had that R21 or R03 come back with completely useless comments. Months and months of work, hours or weeks spent in the lab collecting that preliminary data (which is supposedly unnecessary for those R21s). More time spent waiting and waiting. Revisions. Resubmissions. The same…

Normally I don't run for any sort of competitive purpose. Ok, so I've never run for any sort of competitive purpose. I took the opportunity this time, though, so that I'd have other runners to help me push my pace. I'm pretty out of shape right now but I can still do a 7:30 minute mile pretty…