grrlscientist | February 9, 2006Unholy satire awaits you, dear readers, in this, the 20th edition of the Carnival of Satire, hosted by Mark Rayner, author of The Skwib. Despite the touchy nature of certain religious groups, Mark really went out on a limb by designing the horny dog graphic (pictured) for this edition.
My favorite satirical piece included in this edition is the hilarious Metabolism of Evolution Information in the Blogosphere (does it remind you of late nights with your biochemistry textbook?). Oh, and Mark was kind enough to include one of my pieces, too. So if you'd like to get your morning off to a good…
grrlscientist | February 8, 2006
Well, I know that all three of you, dear readers, have been eagerly waiting to hear the latest news about (1) the ant farm that I bought as a birdday gift for myself and (2) the ongoing power bill drama with the unreasonable coneheads at ConEdison.
Good news first; the ant farm arrived today (yippee), sans ants (boo). The farm itself is smaller than I imagined it would be, which makes me wonder if this size discrepancy is directly related to the size of my eagerness to be an ant aunt?
I know this sounds silly but I am really disappointed by the lack of ants: I wanted to spend the evening…
grrlscientist | February 8, 2006Note: Inspired by the Terri Schiavo situation, I rewrote the basic template for a living will from one that was emailed to me by a reader, R (thanks!). This was then nominated for a 2005 Koufax Award for "Most Humorous Individual Post".
This essay was first published on 2 April 2005 on my original site under the same title.
Date: 2 April 2005
Living Will of GrrlScientist, (also known as Hedwig the Owl in some parts of the blogosphere), [address elided], NY, NY, 10024.
I, GrrlScientist (also known as Hedwig the Owl), being of sound mind and body, unequivocally and publically declare that in…
grrlscientist | February 7, 2006Why does it not surprise me to learn that the mouthy 24 year old punk, George Deutsch, appears to have never graduated from Texas A&M at all, despite claims to the contrary? According to Scientific Activist, who made this little discovery;
Although Deutsch did attend Texas A&M University, where he majored in journalism and was scheduled to graduate in 2003, he left in 2004 without a degree, a revelation that I was tipped off to by one of his former coworkers at A&M's student newspaper The Battalion. I later confirmed this discovery through the records department of the Texas A…
grrlscientist | February 7, 2006
Male Berlepsch's Six-wired Bird of Paradise, Parotia berlepschi.
Photo by Bruce Beehler.
Click image for larger version in its own window.
I would give anything -- in fact, I'd give absolutely everything I ever had, currently have and could ever hope to have -- to be part of the recent Conservation International (CI) expedition to Indonesia. This month-long expedition was the brain child of scientist and CI vice president, Bruce Beehler. His goal? To explore the mysterious Foja Mountains in western New Guinea, formerly known as Irian Jaya.
Beehler gathered a team of 25 international…
grrlscientist | February 6, 2006When Pittsburgh paleontologist Matt Lamanna jokingly promised his fellow scientists that he would eat a duck foot if they unearthed a rare bird fossil, he never expected that they would discover a large group of them in northwest China. This discovery, the most significant in the past 25 years, was made in the Changma Basin, a desert located more than 1,000 miles away from the famed Liaoning fossil quarries.
"The dinosaur-bird transition is the hottest topic in dinosaur paleontology," says Lamanna.
Some evolutionary biologists think that birds and dinosaurs are too different to be directly…
grrlscientist | February 6, 2006After my essay, What is LabLit? was linked by the new literature blog carnival, Bookworm linked to it and graciously added a book to the growing LabLit list. This book, Quite a Year for Plums, Amazon by Bailey White, has mixed reviews. Like most titles in the LabLit genre, this book is unfortunately out of print although it can be purchased through Amazon. In short, Quite a Year for Plums is about "a plant pathologist [who] learns how science should be used to understand nature rather than to conquer and master it."
This is another book I'd like to review here!
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tags: LabLit, literature,…
grrlscientist | February 5, 2006The Literature Carnival, issue #6, is now available. This is a new carnival that celebrates the best recent blog essays about books and writing. Even though they very kindly included one of my pieces, they also linked some interesting essays; I was especially interested to read an essay about intellectual snobbery that appeared in this carnival.
If you would like to participate in the next Literature Carnival, please send your essay links to Dana, author of Much Madness is Divinest Sense. The next deadline is Friday, 18 February.
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tags: blog carnival, literature
grrlscientist | February 2, 2006
Male Purple Martin, Progne subis.
Photo by my friend, Kevin Li.
A friend of mine who works at JetBlue (my favorite air carrier) has given me a round trip flight to Seattle so I can attend a memorial service tomorrow for yet another friend of mine, Kevin Li [interview; mp3], who died suddenly this week (this has been one of the worst weeks of my life!). This means that Birds in the News will be postponed because I am flying across the country as you read this. Please accept my apologies, those three of you, dear readers, who actually read it.
Update (Friday morning, 3 February): Kevin's…
grrlscientist | February 2, 2006
Hey everyone, I and the Bird, issue #16, is hosted by my good friends, Dharma Bums. In honor of their issue of this bird carnival, the Bums present Birdstock, a online virtual concert and celebration of wild birds.
BirdStock 2006 features a fantastic group of performers from around the world (including me), all here to sing songs of birds. Some write poems or present photographs, some count birds and some hold them in their hands and heal them, others paint pictures of their inspiring beauty. But each of us in our own way sings a song of praise and delight, love and appreciation for these…
grrlscientist | February 1, 2006Today, Chris Landau sent me a link to his Master's Thesis entitled The Flocking Party. Chris is in the MFA department at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. This a fascinating online production that describes one week in the life of two fictional young scientists, Frank, and his brother, Calvin, as presented in Frank's online journal. This very basic science fiction story takes place in the near future in the lab of the shadowy Doctor Harp: in the year 2035, Frank is studying invasive bird species that have been infected by the mysterious Hebbets virus. Hebbets virus is an innovative…
grrlscientist | February 1, 2006In honor of my birdday, I decided to do something that was absolutely, completely inexplicable, especially considering my current state of er, employment: I spent money on a frivolous item. As if I don't already have enough pets already, with one click of my mouse, I added more 25 animals to my growing menagerie.
Yes, my peeps, I bought an ant farm!
But wait, this isn't just any ant farm, it's a NASA-inspired ant farm! The prototype for this ant farm actually orbited the earth in one of the shuttles in 2003 and was used to study how ants adapt to microgravity. As you can see in the picture…
grrlscientist | February 1, 2006Did anyone play this game last night while listening to Bush's State of the Union Address? If so, have you recovered from your hangover yet? The rules are so complicated that it can easily qualify as a sobriety test.
Several favorites of mine include; you are supposed to drink a double shot of something green every time he says the word "environment"; locate the nearest Texan and mess with him/her, then drink for every time he says "Don't mess with Texas!"; and you are supposed to drink until your liver cries every time he mentions "Ted Kennedy".
Don't forget to check out the Democratic…
grrlscientist | February 1, 2006It's here, everyone; the newest edition of Tangled Bank (TB) has been published at my sibling blog, Adventures in Ethics and Science, and I am proud to say that one of my pieces was included in this issue of TB.
For those of you who are new to the blogosphere and especially to science blog writing, this is the first edition of TB that has been published on our new ScienceBlogs site. Tangled Bank is a blog carnival that celebrates the best science, nature and medical writing that has been published recently on a blog. As such, these written pieces can include essays, opinion pieces, stories,…
grrlscientist | February 1, 2006tags: Environment, tsunami, earthquake, Indonesia, Mangrove, Shrimp Farming
Note: Originally published on 2 January 2005. Nominated for the 2005 Koufax Award for "Best Individual Post".
Indonesian Mangrove.
All the survivors agreed that 26 December 2004 was an idyllic morning, indeed, it was a perfect morning, in spite of the earthquake. This earthquake was triggered within an interval of a few seconds when the Indian tectonic plate suddenly plunged 20 meters (60 feet) under the Burmese tectonic plate along the Sunda Trench. This submarine jolt caused the Burmese plate and the lands…
grrlscientist | January 31, 2006I was nominated for a 2005 Koufax award for the "Best Post" category. Nominees are listed in alphabetical order so you'll find a link to my essay somewhere close the top of the (incredibly long) list. (I was nominated as "GrrlScientist" for this category). There are 222 or more nominees, including some of my fellow ScienceBloggers so get ready for a lot of great reading as you work your way through this list.
Add this nomination to another for Scientific Life, "Most Deserving of Wider Recognition."
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tags: blog awards
grrlscientist | January 31, 2006Your Birthdate: January 31
You're a pretty traditional person. If it's lasted, it's probably good.
You seek stability - both in your career and your romantic relationship.
In return, you're very loyal and predictable. Which is usually a good thing.
Without a partner, you feel lost. Being with someone is very important to you.
Your strength: Your dependability
Your weakness: You hate being alone
Your power color: Midnight blue
Your power symbol: Shell
Your power month: April
What Does Your Birth Date Mean?
Another stupid internet quiz. It's good for a laugh, but it is absolutely completely…
grrlscientist | January 31, 2006
Magnolia Warbler, Dendroica magnolia (Wilson)
(Detail) By Tony Henneberg.
This birdday card was sent to me last year by my friend, Tony, who is a very talented artist (click on the image to be magically transported to his beautiful webpage). This card is a detail from a larger painting of his. Tony is currently wandering through the jungles of Suriname, where he will be for approximately six weeks, "looking at birds, big trees and giant otters" as he told me before he left. He promises to share any interesting photographs of birds with me upon his return in February, which of course means…
grrlscientist | January 30, 2006Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.
-- Isaac Asimov (1920-1992)
You can't identify an atheist simply by looking at them and in fact, your group of friends probably includes at least one atheist in their number. Even though belief in some sort of supernatural being is the dominant philosophy in the Western World, atheism still persists. Why? This book specifically addresses these questions, and many more;
What, precisely, is atheism, and why is it misunderstood so thoroughly?
Do atheists believe that human beings evolved through blind accident from…
grrlscientist | January 29, 2006
Mt. Rainier, Washington State.
Photograph by Pastoret.
Do not stand at my grave and forever weep.
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn's rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and forever cry.
I am not there. I did not die.
-- Anonymous
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tags: poetry