clock | May 26, 2007Back in the late 1990s, when people first started using various differential screens, etc. looking for elusive "genes for sleep", I wrote in my written prelims (and reprinted it on my blog several years later):
Now the sleep researchers are jumping on the bandwagon of molecular techniques. They are screening for differences in gene expression between sleeping and awake humans (or rats or mice), searching quite openly for the "genes for sleep". Every time they "fish out" a gene, it turns out to be Protein kinase A, a dopamine receptor, or something similar with a general function in the brain…
clock | May 26, 2007
Rare Footprints Of Infant Dinosaur Discovered:
Researchers at the Morrison Natural History Museum have discovered two rare hatchling dinosaur footprints in the foothills west of Denver, near the town of Morrison.
Bacteria Show Promise In Fending Off Global Amphibian Killer:
First in a petri dish and now on live salamanders, probiotic bacteria seem to repel a deadly fungus being blamed for worldwide amphibian deaths and even extinctions. Though the research is in its early stages, scientists are encouraged by results that could lead the way to helping threatened species like mountain yellow-…
clock | May 25, 2007In a world where the time it takes to travel (supersonic) or to bake a potato (microwave) or to process a million calculations (microchip) shrinks inexorably, only three things have remained constant and unrushed: the nine months it takes to have a baby, the nine months it takes to untangle a credit card dispute and the nine months it takes to publish a hardcover book.
- Andrew Tobias
clock | May 25, 2007It's simple. Just write a post on June 4th that has something to do with sex education. Add this logo on top of your post and leave your permalink in the comments of the logo post.
Spread the word....
clock | May 25, 2007Hey, is he intruding on my territory? ;-)
An excellent article about many aspects of time, how we perceive it and what it means to us.
clock | May 25, 2007Philosophia Naturalis #10 is up on Daily Irreverence.
Friday Ark #140 is up on Modulator.
clock | May 25, 2007Definitive Evidence Found Of A Swimming Dinosaur:
An extraordinary underwater trackway with 12 consecutive prints provides the most compelling evidence to-date that some dinosaurs were swimmers. The 15-meter-long trackway, located in La Virgen del Campo track site in Spain's Cameros Basin, contains the first long and continuous record of swimming by a non-avian therapod dinosaur.
Teen Sex And Depression Study Finds Most Teens' Mental Health Unaffected By Nonmarital Sex:
For a decade, the legislative push for "abstinence only" sex education has suggested that nonmarital sex negatively affects…
clock | May 24, 2007I wasted time, and now doth time waste me;
For now hath time made me his numbering clock;
My thoughts are minutes.
- William Shakespeare
clock | May 24, 2007The Atavism
Biology, life, and...what else is there?
Secret Sex Lives of Animals
Everest 2007
Providentia
Alexandra van der Geer
The Argo
Scientoskop
Feminist Philosophers
clock | May 24, 2007Good news for two local schools:
Two Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools have received grants to fund school projects.
Carrboro High School received a $5,950 grant from the North Carolina Biotechnology Center. Science teacher Robin Bulleri applied for the grant to fund a biotechnology project at Carrboro High.
Smith Middle School received a $5,000 Lowe's Toolbox for Education Grant from the Lowe's Charitable and Educational Foundation. Teachers Kelly Sears and Melinda Fitzgerald received the grant to fund a proposal entitled, "Sediment Rangers: 8th Grade Stewardship and Outdoor Classroom Project."…
clock | May 24, 2007Fortunately, Janet Reno is still OK.
The police brought Bill Clinton to the Orange County Animal Shelter, where he later died.
With perfect quote-mining, I made you look, didn't I?
clock | May 24, 2007Skeptic's Circle #61 is up on Skepchick.
Carnival of Space #4 is up on Universe Today.
Carnivalesque #27 is up on Aardvarchaeology.
clock | May 24, 2007Yes. I said I wanted this job. And, in a very new and interesting way, after a fun interview, I got it. Signed and faxed the contract yesterday. Will be in San Francisco for a little while in July, then telecommute afterwards. Can pajamas be deducted as tools one needs for the job? Exciting!
clock | May 24, 2007New Genetic Data Overturn Long-held Theory Of Limb Development:
Long before animals with limbs (tetrapods) came onto the scene about 365 million years ago, fish already possessed the genes associated with helping to grow hands and feet (autopods) report University of Chicago researchers in the May 24, 2007, issue of Nature. This finding overturns a long-held, but much-debated, theory that limb acquisition was a novel evolutionary event, requiring the descendents of lobed-fin fish to dramatically alter their genes to adapt their bodies to their new environments of streams and swamps.
New…
clock | May 23, 2007Eighteen year old Samantha Larson did it. Here is the story. Here is her blog.
(hat-tip: Ruchira Paul)
clock | May 23, 2007The latest Four Stone Hearth is up on Greg Laden's blog.
4th Postdoc Carnival is up on Minor Revisions.
Carnival of Depression, Bipolar Disorder, and Mental Health Journeys is up on Mental Health Source Page.
clock | May 23, 2007When it's someone's birthday it is nice to give presents, or a flower. Perhaps a whole boquet of roses. But if the birthday is a really big round number, like 300, and the birthday boy is the one who actually gave names to many of those flowers, it gets a little tougher. Perhaps you may try to do something really difficult and build, actually plant, a Flower Clock. After all, it was Carl von Linne, aka Carolus Linnaeus, today's birthday celebrator, who invented the flower clock. He drew it like this, but he never actully built one:
The first one to make (and write down) an observation…
clock | May 23, 2007In three easy steps, hopefully made obsolete by a completely Open Science a few years down the road....but surely useful for now.
clock | May 23, 2007In small, easily-digestible chunks:
Re-Framing Science While Chris Mooney's Away..
Framing II: Weapons in the Form of Words
Framing III: Happy Feet
Framing IV: The Lorax Phenomenon
Please go, read and try to comment (politely if you can)...