clock | March 12, 2009So, let's see what's new in PLoS Genetics, PLoS Computational Biology and PLoS Pathogens this week. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. Here are my own picks for the week - you go and look for your own favourites:
Abnormal Brain Iron Homeostasis in Human and Animal Prion Disorders:
Prion disorders are neurodegenerative conditions of humans and animals that are invariably fatal. The main agent responsible for neurotoxicity in all prion disorders is PrP-scrapie (PrPSc), a β-sheet rich isoform of a normal cell-…
clock | March 12, 2009Isn't it?
I know John would love one, but a hundred bucks is a lot. They seem to be a dynamic and responsive company - perhaps if a bunch of us ask they will start making a miniature version as well, one that can fit in one's traveling bag and is not as costly?
clock | March 12, 2009From SCONC:
Tuesday, March 17
7 p.m.
"Hope, Hype and Communicating Climate Change" The Asheville SCONCs welcome nationally prominent science writer Rick Borchelt to speak on making climate change information intelligible to the lay public. This is the first in a series of three public education lectures on climate change to be held in April and June. Diana Wortham Theatre, Asheville.
Details Here (PDF) More Info: Pamela McCown, Education & Research Services, Inc. pamela@education-research-services.org
clock | March 12, 2009The Two Cultures in the 21st Century:
A full-day symposium sponsored by: Science & the City, ScienceDebate2008, Science Communication Consortium
At the 50th anniversary of C.P. Snow's famous Rede Lecture on the importance to society of building a bridge between the sciences and humanities, this day-long symposium brings together leading scholars, scientists, politicians, authors, and representatives of the media to explore the persistence of the Two Cultures gap and how it can be overcome. More than 20 speakers will cover topics including science in politics, education, film and media,…
clock | March 12, 2009Sorry, Nina, but I think I need to copy and paste the entire thing here:
Spring is here and it's time to talk to strangers. On Sunday April 5, I'll be conducting a collaborative experiment with 15 intrepid University of Washington graduate students, and I'd like to invite you to join in from your own hometown. April 5 is the first day of a class I'm teaching called Social Technology, in which we are focusing on designing an exhibition that features social objects, that is, exhibits or artifacts that inspire interpersonal dialogue.
To kick off the course, we're doing a simple exercise at the…
clock | March 12, 2009...but Creationists cannot:
Anyone who knows me at all knows that I break down creationist biology into four main components: design, natural evil, systematics, speciation, and biogeography.
Hat-tip: Pharyngula, where you will find the relevant link to the rest of this ingenious "college course". Glad it's not a math course...
I am also interested to see the mathematical models of 'natural evil'....
clock | March 12, 2009Wow! This is massive!
From Anesthesiology News:
Scott S. Reuben, MD, of Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Mass., a pioneer in the area of multimodal analgesia, is said to have fabricated his results in at least 21, and perhaps many more, articles dating back to 1996. The confirmed articles were published in Anesthesiology, Anesthesia and Analgesia, the Journal of Clinical Anesthesia and other titles, which have retracted the papers or will soon do so, according to people familiar with the scandal (see list). The journals stressed that Dr. Reuben's co-authors on those papers have not…
clock | March 12, 2009Joshua Davis wrote an amazing article for Wired - The Untold Story of the World's Biggest Diamond Heist - about the biggest successful bank robbery in history: how was it accomplished, why the perpetrators got caught in the end, and how come nobody still knows all the details (including the Big Question: where on Earth is all that loot today?). He interviews some of the key people in the story as well, with proper caveats about their trustworthiness. A masterful example of good journalism and a riveting read. The Obligatory Reading Of The Day.
clock | March 12, 2009There are 10 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, Connotea, Stumbleupon, Facebook and Digg) with just one click. Here are my own picks for the week - you go and look for your own favourites:
Cage Matching: Head to Head Competition Experiments of an Invasive Plant Species from Different Regions as a Means to Test for Differentiation:
Many hypotheses are prevalent in the literature predicting why some…
clock | March 12, 2009Circadian rhythms: Of owls, larks and alarm clocks in Nature News (download PDF while the article is still freely available), written by Melissa Lee Phillips is an excellent overview of the current state of knowledge about human circadian rhythms, underlying genetics, and circadian disorders.
I get several Google Alerts every day for media articles about clocks and most of them are too 'meh' for me to bother linking here, but this one is good and worth your time. J'approve.
Related....
clock | March 12, 2009On Twitter, mindcasting is the new lifecasting:
Even a few years ago the word "blog" inspired that peculiar mix of derision and dismissal that seems to haunt new media innovations long after they're proven. A blogger was a lonely, pajama-clad person in a dark room, typing out banal musings he mistook for interesting ones, to be read by a handful of friends or strangers if they were read at all.
That blogs have now become a fixture of media and culture might, you'd think, give critics pause before indulging in another round of new media ridicule. But it ain't so.
Twitter, the micro-messaging…
clock | March 12, 2009Carnival of the Liberals #86 is up on The Greenbelt
Carnival of the Green # 170 is up on The Natural Patriot
Grand Rounds Vol. 5 No. 25 are now up on Doc Gurley
The 107th edition of The Skeptics' Circle is up on The Skeptic's Field Guide
clock | March 12, 2009First Right Whale Sedation Enables Disentanglement Effort:
For the first time ever, rescuers used a new sedation delivery system to help free an entangled North Atlantic right whale. The new system was developed at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in collaboration with NOAA and the Univ. of Florida and the Univ. of Wisconsin veterinary schools to make the animals more approachable by rescue boats.
Biologists Find World-record Colony Of Amoeba Clones In Texas Cow Pasture:
A Rice University study of microbes from a Houston-area cow pasture has confirmed once again that everything is bigger…
clock | March 11, 2009Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
-Oscar Wilde, writer (1854-1900)
clock | March 11, 2009Check out the SEEDMAGAZINE.COM. W00t! Looks nifty!
What they say:
Our online magazine team has been hard at work creating a new look for SEEDMAGAZINE.COM, the magazine's homepage. As you'll see, it has a ton of new features and pretty new colors.
The content of the site is now divided into four departments with subcategories in each, which makes for a total of 11 areas of coverage. The departments are: World (politics, development and environment), Ideas (findings and theory), Innovation (technology, design and business) and Culture (books, art and events). You can go straight to one…
clock | March 11, 2009Last week, I conducted an e-mail interview with one of the PLoS ONE most frequent authors, Professor Seyed Ehtesham Hasnain . The interview is now live on the PLoS Blog
clock | March 11, 2009There are 13 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, Connotea, Stumbleupon, Facebook and Digg) with just one click. Here are my own picks for the week - you go and look for your own favourites:
Buying Years to Extinction: Is Compensatory Mitigation for Marine Bycatch a Sufficient Conservation Measure for Long-Lived Seabirds?:
Along the lines of the 'polluter pays principle', it has recently been proposed…
clock | March 11, 2009It appears that the Beagle Project crew will have a trial run on the Brazilian ship Tocorime - not a replacement for building the Beagle, but getting the feet wet, seeing what is involved, learning from the experience, before the Real Deal.
Funded by the British Council, they will circumnavigate around South America following that portion of the original Darwin's trip. From the proposal:
The year 2009 marks the bicentenary of Charles Darwin's birth. Without a doubt the greatest influence on Darwin and the development of his theory of evolution came during his travels in and around South…