purepedantry
Posts by this author
August 23, 2006
Did you know that ants snap their mandibles together so fast that they can throw themselves in the air? Check out this (click on the video link to watch it):
When trap-jaw ants need to get out quick, they use their heads, not their legs to escape. This large species of Costa Rican ant smashes its…
August 22, 2006
OmniBrain has a funny post on the secret of antigravity.
The Neurophilosopher has a interesting post on how neuropathic pain could be treated with menthol, which activates cold receptors.
The American Scientist Online publishes an interview with Marc Hauser on his model of an inborn moral system.…
August 22, 2006
Before, I talk about a mouse model that is resistant to depression, I think I had better talk about mouse models of depression so that everyone is on the same page. If you ask a nonscientist whether they think there can be a mouse model of depression, you would probably get a raised eyebrow if the…
August 22, 2006
Right:
An Irish company has thrown down the gauntlet to the worldwide scientific community to test a technology it has developed that it claims produces free energy.
The company, Steorn, says its discovery is based on the interaction of magnetic fields and allows the production of clean, free and…
August 21, 2006
Dark matter definitely exists:
New observations of a great big cosmic collision provide the best evidence yet that invisible and mysterious dark matter really does exist.
The collision, between two huge clusters of galaxies, is the "most energetic cosmic event, besides the Big Bang, that we know…
August 21, 2006
BMI or Body Mass Index is a measure of obesity that is used to approximate the health problems associated with being overweight. It is really easy to calculate. The formula for it is weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared. Here are some calculators for those of your reluctant to…
August 21, 2006
OK, so I am not actually on this paper, but my boss is. It is also what I am doing my thesis on, so I thought I might mention it.
The article is entitled "Convergent evidence that oligodendrocyte lineage transcription factor 2 (OLIG2) and interacting genes influence susceptibility to schizophrenia…
August 20, 2006
Babies smarter than average high school student:
In a discovery that could shed light on the development of the human brain, University of Oregon researchers determined that infants as young as six months old can recognize simple arithmetic errors.
The researchers used puppets to portray simple…
August 20, 2006
I run down the Hudson a lot, and I am utterly amazed by people who fish there. It just seems like a unpleasant place to fish. But I had no idea that people were actually eating what they caught:
For years, state health officials have warned that because of mercury and PCB contamination, women of…
August 20, 2006
The Clocky Alarm Clock is an alarm clock designed to flee the scene when it wakes you up so that you have to go search for it to turn it off:
Clocky (patent pending) is an alarm clock that runs away and hides if you don't get out of bed on time. The alarm sounds, you press the snooze, and Clocky…
August 20, 2006
Synapse #5 is up at Retrospectacle. The next Synapse is going to be hosted at The Mouse Trap on September 3rd. Submission info here.
August 20, 2006
I found this article interesting, if for no other reason than people seem to be misunderstanding what it says and what it does not say.
The article by Leigh and Jencks for the Kennedy School of Government is entitled "Inequality and Mortality: Long-Run Evidence from a Panel of Countries." It…
August 18, 2006
Quotes of the Day from Mostly Harmless by Douglas Adams:
"I know that astrology isn't a science,' said Gail. "Of course it isn't. It's just an arbitrary set of rules like chess or tennis or, what's that strange thing you British play?'
"Er, cricket? Self-loathing?"
"Parliamentary democracy. The…
August 18, 2006
Is Arabic language instruction biased? Frank Salameh, writing in RCP, says yes (but not in the way that you would think):
At Middlebury College's Arabic Summer School, where I taught Arabic in 2004, students were exposed to more than intensive language instruction. Inside the classroom and across…
August 17, 2006
Interesting reading for today:
The Neurocritic has a very good article on cognitive effects of socio-economic status. There are three important points: 1) the effects are not genetic, 2) there are a variety of different cognitive consequences, and 3) the reality is more complicated than…
August 17, 2006
Lawrence Krauss has this essay in the NYT where he argues against irrational exuberance about the recent school board elections in Kansas and the ouster of some Creationist school board members. Money quote:
I have recently been criticized by some for strenuously objecting in print to what I…
August 17, 2006
LTP activated genes are clustered on chromosomes -- or so says some work by Park et al in JBC.
LTP -- or long-term potentiation -- is a process by which synaptic strength -- the ability of one neuron to talk to the next neuron -- is increased by activity. It involves the combination of several…
August 17, 2006
This is rather clever. Houle et al at Case Western show in the Journal of Neuroscience that you can use a bacterial enzyme called chondroitinase to degrade scars in spinal cord lesions and enable regeneration of axons.
Just for background, there is some interesting neurobiology when it comes to…
August 17, 2006
I haven't been posting much because I am defending my Quals today.
81 slides...I am so the Power Point God.
UPDATE: Triumph! I have passed. One more hurdle between me and occupational recognition overcome. And, yes, 81 slides was a bit long. It was supposed to go 2 hous with questions, but I…
August 16, 2006
How fantastic is this:
A 25-million-year-old whale fossil from southeastern Australia has revealed a bizarre early type of 'baleen' whale. The creature was an ancient cousin of our modern blue whales and humpbacks, but it was hardly a gentle giant of the sea. Instead it was small and predatory,…
August 14, 2006
Every time I think the human species has fully exploited all the ways one species can suck donkey balls -- found just every reason for all the other species be like "Yeah, we're not with them." -- we find newer, better ways. Such as, for instance, bark poaching:
Slippery elm trees here are falling…
August 14, 2006
Scientists meet in Prague to discuss whether Pluto is a planet:
Nearly 2,500 astronomers from 75 countries gathered in Prague Monday to come up with a universal definition of what qualifies as a planet and possibly decide whether Pluto should keep its planet status.
For decades, the solar system…
August 10, 2006
Keeping to my week long theme of gender differences in cognition (here and here), here is an article by Diane Halpern in eSkeptic. It not only summarizes a lot of what is known about gender differences (even though it is reprinted from 1993) but also goes into confounding factors like prenatal…
August 10, 2006
Watching the news coverage today, I found myself wondering what type of explosive the terrorists were trying to use on the UK planes. I did a web search, and many news services are speculating that the chemical in question could be one called Triacetone Triperoxide.
Shown above triacetone…
August 10, 2006
...it is one of my favorites.
Snow
The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was
Spawning snow and pink roses against it
Soundlessly collateral and incompatible:
World is suddener than we fancy it.
World is crazier and more of it than we think,
Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion
A…
August 10, 2006
Hi all,
Blogging is going to be sporadic til Monday. I am in transit to see the Fam until then.
(Don't even get me started on the pooch screw that was security at JFK this morning. Have you ever seen a woman throw a tantrum because she had to throw out her lotion? I have.)
Have a good weekend…
August 9, 2006
Apparently the sexual drive is insufficient at motivating many people to leave their apartments:
Having treated all types of addictions for more than 15 years, Orzack says there's little difference between drug use, excessive gambling and heavy game playing. And with millions of gamers hooked on…
August 9, 2006
Why do we lose all the good ones?
Physicist James A. Van Allen, a leader in space exploration who discovered the radiation belts surrounding the Earth that now bear his name, died Wednesday. He was 91.
The University of Iowa, where he taught for years, announced the death in a statement on its Web…
August 9, 2006
Earlier this week I argued that the gender differences in cognition, while real, are not substantial enough to explain gender disparities in science. We talked about the work of Janet Hyde; it shows that -- contrary to the popular conception of women and men as psychologically disparate -- men and…