clock | April 27, 2009There comes a time in each life like a point of fulcrum. At that time you must accept yourself. It is not any more what you will become. It is what you are and always will be.
- John Fowles
clock | April 27, 2009Biological Basis For The Eight-hour Workday?:
The circadian clock coordinates physiological and behavioral processes on a 24-hour rhythm, allowing animals to anticipate changes in their environment and prepare accordingly. Scientists already know that some genes are controlled by the clock and are turned on only one time during each 24-hour cycle.
Now, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies found that some genes are switched on once every 12 or 8 hours, indicating that shorter cycles of the circadian rhythm are also…
clock | April 27, 2009When I woke up this morning and went online while kids were getting up and ready for school, the first this I saw was this tweet by abelpharmboy:
Two articles on @BoraZ in today's Durham Herald-Sun. Will post links later. Herald-Sun has pain in the ass registration to access site.
So, I went out and got a hardcopy of the paper, and also looked at it online (feel free to use login: coturnixfan and password: boraborabora to see the articles, thanks Bill). The first article starts on the front page of Chapel Hill Herald (I think that if you buy the paper in Durham, Chapel Hill Herald is inside,…
clock | April 27, 2009Two interesting new papers in PLoS Biology today:
A Role for the PERIOD:PERIOD Homodimer in the Drosophila Circadian Clock:
The current models of circadian clocks in flies and mammals involve the formation of complexes between clock proteins in the cytoplasm. These complexes are usually heterodimers (that is, made up of two different clock proteins) and appear to enter the nucleus at certain times of the circadian day in order to shut down their own gene expression by deactivating specific transcription factors. After progressive phosphorylation the repressor proteins eventually are degraded…
clock | April 27, 2009
Here are the submissions for OpenLab 2009 to date. As we have surpassed 100 entries, all of them, as well as the "submit" buttons and codes, are under the fold. You can buy the 2006, 2007 and 2008 editions at Lulu.com. Please use the submission form to add more of your and other people's posts (remember that we are looking for original poems, art, cartoons and comics, as well as essays):
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…
clock | April 27, 2009Identifying Hyenas By Their Giggle:
To human ears, the laughs of individual hyenas in a pack all sound the same: high-pitched and staccato, eerie and maniacal. But every hyena makes a different call that encodes information about its age and status in the pack, according to behavioral neurologists from the University of California, Berkeley and the Université de Saint-Etienne, France. They have developed a way to identify a hyena by picking out specific features of its giggle.
How House-hunting Ants Choose The Best Home:
Dr Elva Robinson and colleagues in the University's School of…
clock | April 26, 2009Sometimes ... when you stand face to face with someone, you cannot see his face. (Following summit meeting with Ronald Reagan)
- Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (b. 1931)
clock | April 26, 2009
If you missed it before, I have written about this kind of research before - this is interesting stuff, as much as the video is just plain funny (video, hat-tip: Psique).
clock | April 25, 2009If you think that political or religious debates can get nasty, you haven't seen anything until you go online as see how much hate exists between people who love cilantro and those who hate cilantro. What horrible words they use to describe each other!!!!
Last weekend, I asked why is this and searched Twitter and FriendFeed for discussions, as well
Wikipedia and Google Scholar for information about it.
First - cilantro is the US name for the plant that is called coriander in the rest of the world. In the USA, only the seed is called coriander, and the rest of the plant is cilantro.
Second -…
clock | April 24, 2009
Plants Absorb More Carbon Dioxide Under Polluted Hazy Skies:
Plants absorbed carbon dioxide more efficiently under the polluted skies of recent decades than they would have done in a cleaner atmosphere, according to new findings published this week in Nature.
Why You May Lose That Loving Feeling After Tying The Knot:
Dating couples whose dreams include marriage would do well to step back and reflect upon the type of support they'll need from their partners when they cross the threshold, a new Northwestern University study suggests.
A Warm TV Can Drive Away Feelings Of Loneliness And…
clock | April 23, 2009I have studied many philosophers and many cats. The wisdom of cats is infinitely superior.
- Hippolyte Taine
clock | April 23, 2009So they say.
I guess even the government is not interested in saving the newspaper business....eh!
Q1: why did they subscribe every employee? Couldn't they buy one copy and put it in the waiting room at the reception desk, or at the water cooler, or in the dining hall? Or, well, they could have come up with some kind of a video-rental store, but for books/newspapers/magazines. Oh, wait!
Q2: why don't they introduce this brand new technology to all their employees? It is called a computer and it can be used to get into a set of tubes called the Internet, where one can go on something called…
clock | April 23, 2009Just a collection of links to my and other people's posts/articles I need to have collected all in one place (I will explain later):
1.a.Breaking News
Scientific American Editor, President to Step Down; 5 Percent of Staff Cut
'Scientific American' Editor Out in Reorg
1. b.Death of print: how are newspapers and magazines different?
Defining the Journalism vs. Blogging Debate, with a Science Reporting angle
Rosen's Flying Seminar In The Future of News
Thinking the Unthinkable
2020 vision: What's next for news
Newspapers on the brink-where to next?
Could beautiful design save newspapers…
clock | April 23, 2009There are 23 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:
Innervation of Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone Neurons by Peptidergic Neurons Conveying Circadian or Energy Balance Information in the Mouse:
Secretion of gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) produced in neurons in…
clock | April 23, 2009I hope you got educated before the UCLA Pro-Test yesterday. It went great - see the coverage by DrugMonkey, Nick Anthis, DrugMonkey again and Scicurious.
Show Your Support for Medical Progress by signing the Petition for responsible animal research.
Then go and crash this poll, despite it being flawed.
And to continue our education on the matter, Janet has posted the 6th post and the 7th post in her series.
clock | April 23, 2009I regularly get Google News alerts for articles that contain the word "circadian" in them. Most of them are not too exciting, but when a really good one comes along, I like to point it out to you. Today, you should go and read Larks, Owls and Hummingbirds, a guest post by Leon Kreitzman over on Olivia Judson's blog. Highly recommended - about human circadian rhythms, chronotypes (i.e., owls and larks), etc., both from a scientific and a societal point of view.
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Related:Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sleep (But Were Too Afraid To Ask)
Books: Snooze...Or Lose! - 10…
clock | April 23, 2009I loved Mary Roach's 'Stiff' when it first came out, so I was excited to see that Sheril started a book club reading the third book, Bonk, by the same author. My copy just arrived, so I will be participating as much as I can find the time.
Some of my SciBlings have already read and reviewed the book, e.g., SciCurious, or have the book and intend to read it, like Brian and Dr.Joan.
Sheril introduces the book here and begins the club, strangely with Chapter 5, here. Join in.
clock | April 23, 2009Four Stone Hearth Anthropology Blog Carnival #65 is up on A Primate of Modern Aspect
Carnival of the Liberals #89 is up on Johnny Pez