clock | April 3, 2009
The 2008 anthology was noted in the American Scientist's Bookshelf yesterday!
Here are the 2009 submissions to date and, below them, codes for Submission buttons. Please use the submission form to add more of your and other people's posts:
A Blog Around The Clock: Circadian Rhythm of Aggression in Crayfish
A Blog Around The Clock: Co-Researching spaces for Freelance Scientists?
A Blog Around The Clock: The Shock Value of Science Blogs
A Blog Around The Clock: Defining the Journalism vs. Blogging Debate, with a Science Reporting angle
a k8, a cat, a mission: Moms asking for help
a k8, a cat,…
clock | April 3, 2009
Sleep May Help Clear Brain For New Learning:
A new theory about sleep's benefits for the brain gets a boost from fruit flies in the journal Science. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis found evidence that sleep, already recognized as a promoter of long-term memories, also helps clear room in the brain for new learning.
Mollusks Taste Memories To Build Shells:
University of California, Berkeley, graduate student Alistair Boettiger has amassed a beautiful collection of seashells, but not by combing the beach. He created them in his computer. He and George Oster…
clock | April 2, 2009Do not say, 'It is morning,' and dismiss it with a name of yesterday. See it for the first time as a newborn child that has no name.
- Rabindranath Tagore
clock | April 2, 2009
Look what came in the mail yesterday! The Art and Politics of Science by Harold Varmus and, since he is in some way my boss, with a very nice personal inscription inside the cover. I am excited and already started reading it.
And speaking o Varmus, he seems to be everywhere. See this article in TimesOnline:
A major investment in fighting tropical infections and chronic conditions like heart disease and diabetes in poor countries would transform international perceptions of the US, according to Harold Varmus, who co-chairs the President's Council of Advisers on Science and Technology.
In an…
clock | April 2, 2009I posted 239 posts in March.
The best post of the month, IMHO, is Defining the Journalism vs. Blogging Debate, with a Science Reporting angle which is now slowly accumulating comments as well as links from various places online.
My second-best post was the in-depth review of Fiddler On The Roof with Topol.
The Open Laboratory 2008 is now up for sale. The guest editor for the Open Laboratory 2009 was announced with great fanfare.
Lots this month about 'citizen scientists, e.g., Science crowdsourcing - ecology. And Twitter for Birders. I also discovered an Innovative Use of Twitter: monitoring…
clock | April 2, 2009Chris Mooney knows what he's talking about: The Push for Restarting the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment:
I'm starting to detect some buzz on this very important front, which I wrote about in detail in 2005's The Republican War on Science and elsewhere. Basically, the story is this: In 1995 the Gingrich Republicans, looking to slash budgets-and looking askance at science in general in many areas-got rid of their scientific advisory office, which had been in existence since 1972 and had become world renowned not only for accurate studies, but for far-ranging analyses that forecast…
clock | April 2, 2009Nicholas Kristof from the New York Times has written a blog entry about pneumonia being under recognized on the global health agenda, in the media and by people in industrialized countries. Many people don't know that pneumonia kills more children than malaria, measles and AIDS combined:
It's been remarkable to watch how malaria has become, over the last five years, a "cool" disease. After decades in which it received little funding or attention (that's partly our fault in the media), malaria is now a major cause, with funding pouring into everything from bednets to vaccines to research into…
clock | April 2, 2009Peter Suber: A field guide to misunderstandings about open access:
The woods are full of misunderstandings about OA. They thrive in almost every habitat, and the population soars whenever a major institution adopts an OA policy. Contact between new developments and new observers who haven't followed the annual migrations always results in a colorful boomlet of young misunderstandings.
Some of these misunderstandings are mistaken for one another, especially in the flurry of activity, because of their similar markings and habitat. Some are mistaken for understanding by novices unfamiliar…
clock | April 2, 2009Nice four articles:
The Gears of the Sleep Clock By Allan Pack:
When people have trouble sleeping--such as, in extreme cases, shift workers--those problems are not always rooted in disturbances in circadian rhythm, argues the University of Pennsylvania's ALLAN PACK. Instead, his studies of sleep have shown that the master clock is only one player in the molecular control of sleep.
Sleep adjusts fly synapses by Bob Grant:
New findings support a controversial hypothesis about the biological role of sleep: Snoozing may be a way for the brain to clear clutter accumulated after a hard day of…
clock | April 2, 2009Carnival of the Arid #3 is up on
Coyote Crossing
I and the Bird #97 is up on Great Auk - or Greatest Auk?
Festival of the Trees #34 is up on The Marvelous in Nature
Berry Go Round #15 is up on A Neotropical Savanna
clock | April 2, 2009
Mother's Criticism Causes Distinctive Neural Activity Among Formerly Depressed:
Formerly depressed women show patterns of brain activity when they are criticized by their mothers that are distinctly different from the patterns shown by never depressed controls, according to a new study from Harvard University. The participants reported being completely well and fully recovered, yet their neural activity resembled that which has been observed in depressed individuals in other studies.
Police With Higher Multitasking Abilities Less Likely To Shoot Unarmed Persons:
In the midst of life-…
clock | April 1, 2009But even in wartime, the Constitution doesn't protect just freedom of popular speech, or the right to support the government, or the expression of political views that don't make anyone mad.
- Steve Chapman
clock | April 1, 2009Carnival of Evolution #10 is up on Oyster's Garter
Change of Shift: Volume Three, No. 20 is up on Emergiblog
clock | April 1, 2009Genetic Basis For Migration In Monarch Butterflies Uncovered:
Scientists studying Eastern North American monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) have uncovered a suite of genes that may be involved in driving the butterflies to migrate towards Mexico for the winter. Their research describes 40 genes that are linked to the butterflies' compulsion to orientate themselves by an internal 'sun compass' and begin the 4000km journey southwards.
Steven Reppert led a team of researchers from the University of Massachusetts Medical School who performed behavioral and genetic analyses on summer and…
clock | March 31, 2009Tobacco, coffee, alcohol, hashish, prussic acid, strychnine, are weak dilutions; the surest poison is time.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
clock | March 31, 2009You really need to go to a PLoS ONE paper and take a look - we have done some nifty home remodeling ;-)
What is really new and important is that there are all sorts of article-level metrics on each paper. The same goes for all the other TOPAZ-based PLoS journals (i.e., all but PLoS Biology - you may have noticed that PLoS Medicine has migrated onto TOPAZ as well).
Mark Patterson explains what and why. Pete Binfield gives you a new house tour. And Richard Cave gives the information for those interested in the technical side of the changes.
Please take a look and give us feedback at any of…
clock | March 31, 2009Encephalon #67 is up on Neuroskeptic
Podcast Of The Blue #1 is up on Malaria, Bedbugs, Sea Lice, and Sunsets
Grand Rounds Vol. 5 No. 28 are up on Running a hospital
Carnival of the Green #173 is up on Eco Joe's
Friday Ark #236 is up on Modulator
clock | March 31, 2009Month Of Conception Linked To Birth Defects In United States:
A study published in the April 2009 issue of the medical journal Acta Pædiatrica is the first to report that birth defect rates in the United States were highest for women conceiving in the spring and summer.
Action Video Games Improve Vision, New Research Shows:
Video games that involve high levels of action, such as first-person-shooter games, increase a player's real-world vision, according to research in Nature Neuroscience March 29.
In The Age Of Facebook, Researcher Plumbs Shifting Online Relationships:
A University of…
clock | March 30, 2009When half the world is still plagued by terror and distress, you stop guiltily sometimes in the midst of your house-laughter and wonder if you've a right to it. Ought any of us to laugh, until all of us can again, you ask yourself, sometimes.
- Margaret Lee Runbeck