clock | December 29, 2008
Let's highlight some more of the participants of this year's ScienceOnline09 conference:
Kevin Emamy is coming to do a demo of his CiteULike reference management platform.
Kay Endriss teaches statistics in Career Center High School in Winston-Salem (see the Wikipedia page).
Martin Fenner is the Clinical Fellow in Oncology at Hannover Medical School in Germany. He blogs on Gobbledygook and will lead a session on Providing public health and medical information to all.
Matt Ford is a writer for Nobel Intent and will co-moderate a session Science blogging without the blog?
Suzanne Franks is my…
clock | December 29, 2008College Students Find Comfort In Their Pets During Hard Times:
A new study suggests that college students may handle stressful situations better if they have a pet. Research has already shown that pets can improve the quality of life for people who are aging or those who are chronically ill. But researchers at Ohio State University recently found that many college students may also benefit from owning a cat or a dog.
We Are Better Able To Detect Racial Tension In Members Of Our Racial Group:
In March of 2008, in a speech addressing contemporary racial tensions in America, then-Senator…
clock | December 28, 2008Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas.
- John Calvin Coolidge
clock | December 28, 2008
Let's highlight some more of the participants of this year's ScienceOnline09 conference:
Russ Campbell is the Communications Officer at Burroughs Wellcome Fund.
Patricia Campbell is the powerhouse behind the Campbell-Kibler Associates, the FairerScience and the FairerScience blog.
Roy Campbell is the Director of Exhibits at North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.
Paul Cancellieri is a science teacher at Durant Road Middle School and he also writes a blog - Scripted Spontaneity.
Bill Cannon runs the new Science in the Triangle site.
Yang Cao is a Pediatric Epidemiology researcher at NIEHS…
clock | December 28, 2008New Evidence That Humans Make Aspirin's Active Principle -- Salicylic Acid:
Scientists in the United Kingdom are reporting new evidence that humans can make their own salicylic acid (SA) -- the material formed when aspirin breaks down in the body. SA, which is responsible for aspirin's renowned effects in relieving pain and inflammation, may be the first in a new class of bioregulators, according to a new study.
Warmer Temperatures Could Lead To A Boom In Corn Pests:
Climate change could provide the warmer weather pests prefer, leading to an increase in populations that feed on corn and other…
clock | December 27, 2008Christmas is a bridge. We need bridges as the river of time flows past. Today's Christmas should mean creating happy hours for tomorrow and reliving those of yesterday.
- Gladys Taber
clock | December 27, 2008There are 20 new articles in PLoS ONE last 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, 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:
The Effects of Aging on Researchers' Publication and Citation Patterns:
The average age at which U.S. researchers receive their first grant from NIH has increased from 34.3 in 1970, to 41.7 in 2004. These data…
clock | December 27, 2008Slate has this good article with the same title (yes, read it if you are interested in becoming or becoming a better blogger). I agree with everything in it, except for one piece of advice that I often see bandied about but think is totally wrong:
Don't be too wordy. HuffPo says that 800 words is the outer-length limit for a blog post; anything longer will turn people off.
No. No. No.
This feeds nicely in what Ezra Klein wrote about it:
The specialized posts mix with the generalized posts -- in my case, health wonkery rubs elbows with garden variety political punditry -- and the two cross-…
clock | December 27, 2008Researchers Hope Obama Team Will Reinvigorate Role of Science Adviser:
In recent years, though, some critics have charged that the science adviser's influence has reached another low under President George W. Bush....
"Some critics"? Like, the entire scientific community? The entire science blogosphere? All the science journalists? Because of the obvious fact that the Bush Presidency is the pinnacle of the Republican disdain for reality, empiricism and science. Governing from the gut instead of from the brain. Governing by listening to direct messages from the Lord.
Because the…
clock | December 27, 2008The Touch That Doesn't Heal :
Is there anecdotal evidence that unconventional therapies sometimes yield positive outcomes? Yes. There's also anecdotal evidence that athletes who refuse to shave during winning streaks sometimes bring home championships. It was George D. Lundberg, a former editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association, who said: "There's no alternative medicine. There is only scientifically proven, evidence-based medicine supported by solid data." We'd do well to keep that in mind as we plot the future of American health care. It's not like we've got billions to…
clock | December 27, 2008
So, let's highlight some of the participants of this year's ScienceOnline09 conference:
Eva Amsen is a newly-minted PhD in Biochemistry at the University of Toronto, and she blogs on Easternblot, Expression Patterns and Musicians and Scientists.
Melissa Anley-Mills is the News Director in the Office of Research and Development at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Samia Ansari is a Biochemistry Undergraduate student at the University of Georgia, and she blogs on 49 percent. She will co-moderate the session on Race in science - online and offline.
Apryl Bailey is the Creative Director…
clock | December 27, 2008Visual Areas Of Brain Respond More To Valuable Objects, Brain-imaging Shows:
Dollar signs for eyes - cartoonists have been drawing them for years, and the artists, while whimsical, may have been onto something. According to new research from UC San Diego, areas of the brain responsible for vision respond more strongly to objects of value.
Medical Myths For The Holiday Season: True, False Or Unproven?:
In a study published in the Christmas 2008 issue of the British Medical Journal, Aaron Carroll, M.D., M.S., and Rachel Vreeman, M.D., M.S., of the Indiana University School of Medicine, explore…
clock | December 26, 2008Christmas is a time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell the government what they want - and their kids pay for it.
- Richard Lamm
clock | December 26, 2008So, 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:
I Am Not a Scientist, I Am a Number:
Imagine a time when you and your complete scholarly output--papers, grant applications, blog posts, etc.--could be identified online and in perpetuity and returned in a variety of easy-to-digest ways. While ego comes into it as a driver to make this happen,…
clock | December 26, 2008New Year's Day, a time to reminisce about the past year, perhaps to analyze its ups and downs, and in the blogosphere: to link to one's "Best of" posts for all of those who missed them.
I posted 2960 posts so far this year - with six days to go I may reach 3000. It is not easy sifting through all of those, so I picked the highlights for you here. Some are milestones, some are examples from multi-post series, some are posts that provoked a lot of comments, some are posts that took a lot of time and effort to write, and some are, well, just very long. There were other posts that elicited a…
clock | December 26, 2008Premature Babies Have Altered Sensory Responses In Later Life:
Premature infants who need intensive care or surgery are less sensitive to thermal (hot and cold) sensations later in life, according to research conducted at UCL (University College London). The study, published in the journal Pain, suggests that pain and injury related to major medical interventions in early development may alter how children respond to painful stimuli much later in life.
Blind Man Walking: With No Visual Awareness, Man Navigates Obstacle Course Flawlessly:
Researchers have demonstrated for the first time that…
clock | December 25, 2008She played Bach. I do not know the names of the pieces, but I recognized the stiff ceremonial of the frenchified little German courts and the sober, thrifty comfort of the burghers, and the dancing on the village green, the green trees that looked like Christmas trees, and the sunlight on the wide German country, and a tender cosiness; and in my nostrils there was a warm scent of the soil and I was conscious of a sturdy strength that seemed to have its roots deep in mother earth, and of an elemental power that was timeless and had no home in space.
- W. Somerset Maugham