Uncategorized
cortex | January 16, 2008I've got a big man-crush on Jamie Oliver. And I really appreciate his latest stunt:
Last Friday, in front of 4 million television viewers and a studio audience, the chef Jamie Oliver killed a chicken. Having recently obtained a United Kingdom slaughterman's license, Mr. Oliver staged a "gala dinner," in fact a kind of avian snuff film, to awaken British consumers to the high costs of cheap chicken.
"A chicken is a living thing, an animal with a life cycle, and we shouldn't expect it will cost less than a pint of beer in a pub," he said Monday in an interview.
"It only costs a bit more to give…
cortex | January 15, 2008So I'm reading about the latest cosmological absurdity and feeling pretty smug. It turns out that, according to the equations, your existence is simply "some momentary fluctuation in a field of matter and energy out in space...Your memories and the world you think you see around you are illusions."
Aren't those physicists funny? Once upon a time, we thought quantum mechanics was weird. Then came string theory and all those extra unfolded dimensions. And now comes the latest hypothesis, which is so surreal it's almost nihilistic. Apparently, I'm just an elaborate illusion, a fictional figment…
cortex | January 15, 2008I've written about our wine biases before, but now we have anatomical evidence of why, exactly, expensive wine seems to taste better.
The experiment, led by researchers at Cal-Tech and Stanford, was simple. [A free version of the study is here.] Twenty subjects tasted five wine samples which were distinguished solely by their retail price, with bottles ranging from $5 to $90. Although the subjects were told that all five wines were different, the scientists had actually only given them three different wines. This meant that the first two wines were used twice, but given two different price…
cmcclain | January 15, 2008
New research by Bornemann et al. in Science this week indicates that warming periods might actually promote ice growth. Using forams from core samples taken on the deep ocean floor off South America, the researchers reconstructed temperature records for the Turonian (93.5 to 89.3 millions years ago). Despite a relatively balmy 35 degrees C tropical sea surface temperature, the glaciation events took place (evidenced by the a positive d18 O excursion in the marine limestone). Absolutely love this quote from the article (emphasis mine)
We are left with the apparent paradox that the…
tlambert | January 14, 2008Remember how Shane Morris posted a photo that he claimed showed that the "wormy corn" sign had been taken down when in fact the sign was visible in his photo? Here's the latest (from Private Eye):
After the Eye reported Morris's threats in issue 1194, he wrote to demand a right to reply and made the extraordinary claim that Michael Khoo, then a Greenpeace campaigner, had tampered with the signs to sabotage the research. Morris said a photograph taken of Khoo next to the signs at the time of study proved his allegation.
It proved no such thing. No one, including Morris, had previously argued…
grrlscientist | January 14, 2008tags: All Women Blogging Carnival, blog carnivals
The latest edition of the All Women Blogging Carnival is now available for your reading pleasure. They included two contributions from me!
grrlscientist | January 14, 2008tags: SheBlogs Carnival, blog carnivals
The 12th edition of the SheBlogs Carnival is now available for you to enjoy. They also included an essay that I wrote!
grrlscientist | January 14, 2008Because I am one of the contributors, I will not review this book. However, I know that some of you may wish to review it and I also know that a few more of you might wish to actually purchase a copy just so you can read it! If so, you can go here to purchase your very own copy.
The rumor is that Nature is reviewing this book, and I know that Amazon will be listing this book for sale soon (remember; I get a 1% "reward" on total sales for every Amazon purchase that you make through my blog, at no cost to you). I will update you with the Amazon link to the book after it is available.
grrlscientist | January 14, 2008tags: Sir David Attenborough, Attenborough in Paradise, DVD review, BBC programming, nature filming, filmography
I've always enjoyed David Attenborough's nature programs and films when I've managed to see them on TV and now, thanks to several of my readers, I've been able to view nearly everything that Attenborough has available on DVD. But after watching the wonderful collection of films included in Attenborough in Paradise and Other Personal Adventures (BBC Worldwide; 2007), I have been transformed from a pleased watcher into an unabashed and enthusiastic admirer.
Attenborough in Paradise…
cortex | January 14, 2008After posting on some new research that suggests we are more sexually fluid than we typically assume - in other words, our strict sexual categories are largely cultural - I got a fascinating email from a reader:
I thought you may find my own experience, having lived in both eastern and western societies, interesting. I was born and lived the first 18 years of my life in Iran, and have been in the States for the last 21 years. Although Iran is an extremely conservative and mostly religious society; social and sexual norms are not what one may expect them to be in a muslim society (or at…
cmcclain | January 14, 2008I am very excited that the new year brings an exciting opportunity for me. I was solicited, and I accepted an Academic Editor position with the open-access journal PLoS One. PLoS one invited me to join to increase the presence of ecological and marine biological studies at the journal. Many of you may have noticed my hints in the last month.
For those of you who don't know, or have a skewed view, here is what the open-access concept represents. Publications are full text, peer-reviewed articles, that occur online and can be accessed at no charge to the user. Note that these are permanent…
thescian | January 14, 2008Concept design of the Polish Pavilion for 2010 World Expo in Shanghai. Via Geoff Manaugh's fantastic BLDGBLOG, one of my favorite places on the internets.
cortex | January 14, 2008It took a few centuries, but it looks as though psychology and neuroscience are finally moving beyond the dualisms of Descartes. Here is the always interesting Boston Globe Ideas section:
The brain is often envisioned as something like a computer, and the body as its all-purpose tool. But a growing body of new research suggests that something more collaborative is going on - that we think not just with our brains, but with our bodies. A series of studies, the latest published in November, has shown that children can solve math problems better if they are told to use their hands while thinking…
thescian | January 14, 2008Tom Hodgkinson writes in The Guardian:
I despise Facebook. This enormously successful American business describes itself as "a social utility that connects you with the people around you". But hang on. Why on God's earth would I need a computer to connect with the people around me? Why should my relationships be mediated through the imagination of a bunch of supergeeks in California? What was wrong with the pub?
And does Facebook really connect people? Doesn't it rather disconnect us, since instead of doing something enjoyable such as talking and eating and dancing and drinking with my…
petnoyer | January 14, 2008 What's happening in the Science News section at the Washington Post? A recent story about bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) made me wonder exactly what's going on behind the journalist's desk. The article in question is called "Advocates hope science can save big tuna", published Dec. 24, 2007.
The Post article reviews scientific approaches that illustrate bluefin tuna migrations to and from spawning grounds in the Gulf of Mexico and the Mediterranean Sea, then notes the bluefin populations are plummeting, but finally surrenders the problem to "political will" and the federal government. This…
razib | January 13, 2008Nature on PBS has a two-part special about dogs. Part I is on tonight, and Part II is next week. I'm sure both will be showing as reruns.....
cmcclain | January 13, 2008Rick discusses two of my favorite things coffee and enticing sea nymphs. On the origns of the Starbucks Coffee Logo at MBSL&S.