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gregladen | March 13, 2008You've probably heard that this is the year of the frog. But with all the hype about the election, the war, the economy, robots, and so on, it is easy to forget. The Wildlife Conservation Society has a nice frog slide show on this site, and a list of things you can do to save "the frog" and the ironically named "amphibian ark" (a joint effort of three major conservation organizations) has more.
(I say ironic because it is a biblical reference, and creationists don't believe in extinction ... I assume, or how could there be any species left since they don't believe in specialization ...…
cmcclain | March 12, 2008Experiments in the deep sea are a novelty, like a healthy Southern breakfast. Mmm...biscuits...but I digress. If you want to run a experiment in the intertidal it usually requires $100 of pvc and $100 of a graduate students time (about three weeks). In the deep sea that same experiment will run you that $200 plus another $400,000 for ship and rov/submersible time. This may be one of the reasons why NSF hasn't gone for my last two grant submissions. Don't hesitate to contact me if you would like to fund my research...but I digress.
A recent study by Gallucci et al. manages to pull this off…
cmcclain | March 12, 2008Obviously, U-Haul has chosen a business model that will center on my future rentals.
Then I stared the great beast in the eye
You can see all the Super Graphics here. My favorites, excluding tiny above, include Limulus and the Tully Monster. Interestingly, the U-Haul site is chock-o-block full of information on these creatures, desktops you can download, and coloring pages (there goes my Thursday).
Giant squid are deep-sea creatures. Since the waters around Newfoundland are not deep, why or how do they end up there? One theory is that the Gulf Stream, a powerful current that flows northward…
cortex | March 12, 2008Evolutionary psychologist David Barash excuses the behavior of Eliot Spitzer on the grounds that monogamy is unnatural, an artificial construct of bourgeois civilization:
One of the most important insights of modern evolutionary biology has been an enhanced understanding of male-female differences, deriving especially from the production of sperm versus eggs. Because sperm are produced in vast numbers, with little if any required parental follow-through, males of most species are aggressive sexual adventurers, inclined to engage in sex with multiple partners when they can. Males who succeed…
cortex | March 12, 2008Words of wisdom from Dario Checcini, the famous Tuscan butcher:
"The most important thing is what the animal eats and that it has a good life . . . just like us," Cecchini says. "My philosophy is that the cow has to have had a really good life with the least suffering possible," he says. "And every cut has to be cooked using the best cooking method. It's a matter of respect. If I come back as a cow, I want to have the best butcher.
On a related note, I've been really enjoying The River Cottage Meat Book, bu Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. It's so much more than a cookbook: Fearnley-Whittingstall…
gregladen | March 11, 2008This was at the SXSW Interactive Festival in Austin Texas. And it wasn't really him being heckled, exactly.
Business Week journalist Sarah Lacy was interviewing Zuckerberg on the stage, and apparently chose topics to ask him about that were of little interest to the audience. In other words, the show they were putting on was something of a disaster.
Eventually, Lacy backed off and allowed the audience to ask the questions instead, and things went much better after that.
"The audience is asking Zuckerburg better questions than Lacy did," said former Microsoft blogger, Robert Scoble, via…
grrlscientist | March 11, 2008tags: blog carnivals, Carnival of Environmental Issues
The most recent edition of A Carnival of Environmental Issues is now available for you to enjoy. This is a new blog carnival for me. As its name suggests, it focuses on environmental issues. It is quite large, too, so go there and be prepared to learn more about how to live lightly on our planet.
petnoyer | March 11, 2008The March 2008 copy of Marine Technology magazine features the "ROV-AUV-UUV" annual report. You can read it online or sign up at Seadiscovery.com for a free subscription. It's probably the best deal in marine science next to student membership in the American Geophysical Union.
Beside the ROV review, this month's issue also features the undersea art of Barry Pearson and a story called "Private Idaho" about US Navy submarine testing in the relatively silent water of the lakes in Idaho.
Perhaps most exciting is the Saba Bank project highlighted in the feature article! I've been reporting from…
mixingmemory | March 11, 2008At least I got the number of passes right. See it here, via Mind Hacks.
gregladen | March 11, 2008This Thursday, at Stratton Hall, at the Cumberland Christian School.
The fair will feature roughly 80 projects created by sixth-, seventh-, and eighth- grade students. Students started working on the experiments and projects in early December. ... Stratton Hall will be open from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday to view the projects.
[source]
cortex | March 11, 2008I've always been morbidly fascinated by examples of choking. It doesn't matter if it's Jean Van de Velde in the 1999 British Open, or Shaq at the free-throw line, there's something unbelievably poignant and nightmarish about watching a world-class performer get sabotaged by their own brain. I can't bear to watch, and yet I can't look away.
Sian Beilock, a professor of psychology at the University of Chicago, has helped illuminate the anatomy of choking. She uses putting on the golf green as her experimental paradigm. When people are first learning how to putt, the activity can seem daunting…
cortex | March 11, 2008This whole Spitzer affair got me thinking about the psychology of power. When you look around the world, it's clear that so many of our problems are due, at least in part, to abuses of power. From Mugabe to Putin, Chavez to Cheney, there's obviously something deeply intoxicating and dangerous about positions of power. (Especially when that power feels absolute.) Being in complete control - or having the illusion of complete control - can seriously warp our sense of morality, fairness and ethics. (Of course, the case of Eliot Spitzer, and perhaps Bill Clinton, would argue that a sense of power…
omnibrain | March 11, 2008
Brain Network Linked To Contemplation In Adults Is Less Complex In Children
A brain network linked to introspective tasks -- such as forming the self-image or understanding the motivations of others -- is less intricate and well-connected in children, scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have lear
(tags: brain neuroscience adult child introspection fMRI connection contemplation)
"Mechanical Brain" Works Out Mathematical Engineering Problems
A DIFFERENTIAL analyzer, or "mechanical brain," has been designed by Dr. Vannevar Bush, Dean of the School of…
petnoyer | March 11, 2008Guest post by Dr. Christina Kellogg, USGS
Corals don't usually know what country they are living in, and those that do assure me that it does not affect their biology, just their politics. So, imagine the enthusiasm greeting the announcement of an Atlantic Ocean-wide research program to study coldwater coral ecosystems. That's right, we're talking about big picture science from the ground (or seafloor) up!
The Trans-Atlantic Coral Ecosystem Study (TRACES) program was unveiled at the February 14-18 AAAS meeting and will be the first project to trace the flow of genes and animals across the…
cmcclain | March 10, 2008On how to use cool technology and a neat ROV to create a unbelievably large path of destruction...
cmcclain | March 10, 2008Is there anybody out there?
Is there anybody out there?
Is there anybody out there?
Is there anybody out there?
Do you miss Peter and Kevin? So do I? Tell them so in the comments!
cmcclain | March 10, 2008All the rage this week on the big bad web is the big bad albino orca. It swims around the big dark ocean intimidating other sea creatures with its big white...The...ummm...big glowing specimen was spotted aboard the NOAA RV Oscar Dyson with its pod about two miles off Kanaga Volcano, part of Alaska's Aleutian Islands, on February 23. At the time, Kodiak-based Oscar Dyson was on a research expedition for NOAA's Alaska Fisheries Science Center, assessing pollock fish stocks near Steller sea lion haulout sites.
So how many other cracker creatures are there?
An Albino Grey Nurse Shark…