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cmcclain | January 3, 2008Business owner: So if we destroy 1.1 acres natural habitat all we have to do is put 110 acres of concrete on the ocean floor?
Government: I am going to have to ask you to refrain from using concrete and use the government mandated 'artificial reef'
Business owner: Umm...sorry artificial reef. Won't people get wise?
Government: Nope...were promoting diversity...who doesn't like a reef?
Scuba Business Owner: I like reef! I just love diving on old ships, planes, concrete, tires. Best dive spots ever!
Sadly this is true.
cortex | January 3, 2008Phantom limb syndrome has always been intertwined with war. It was first discovered by Silas Weir Mitchell after the Battle of Gettysburg, when the hospitals of Philadelphia were overwhelmed by soldiers with amputated limbs. Many of these soldiers said that they still felt their missing arms and legs, even though they were clearly gone. As Weir Mitchell put it, the soldiers were afflicted with "sensory ghosts".*
After the Civil War, Weir Mitchell's clinical observations fell into obscurity. Because phantom limbs had no material explanation, medical science continued to ignore the phenomenon.…
cortex | January 3, 2008One of my resolutions for the new year was spending less time googling myself. (Such are the vanities of an insecure writer.) So far, I'm off to a bad start. I apologize for the self-promotion, but there have recently been some very nice reviews of the book that I thought I'd share. Here's an excerpt from the Washington Post review:
Jonah Lehrer's smart, elegantly written little book expresses an appealing faith that art and science offer different but complementary views of the world. His main argument, that artists have often intuited essential truths about human nature that are later…
cmcclain | January 3, 2008I've admittedly been hooked on Cloverfield since I saw the trailer (bottom). Can't say why really as I typically hate monster movies and huge internet hype translates into festering heaps of movies (e.g. Snakes on a Plane). Rick Macpherson is right, I am extremely happy about some recent Cloverfield news. Rick reports this morning that the monster is some abomination from the deep and a bastard child of baleen whale and arthropod. The sheer reproductive logistics of it are mind boggling. What really has this geek salivating is the 6ft tall ectoparasites covering the monster which are dead…
gregladen | January 2, 2008Obesity and Seatbelt Use; Epilepsy; Asthma
Obesity linked to decreased seatbelt use from PhysOrg.com
Obese people are less likely to use their seatbelts than the rest of the population, adding to the public health risks associated with this rapidly growing problem.
[...]
Epilepsy and brain pathology linked together by the protein ADK from PhysOrg.com
The brain of individuals who suffer from epilepsy is characterized by astrogliosis, a brain pathology evidenced by a complex series of changes in the morphology and function of brain cells known as astrocytes. Little is known about how…
cmcclain | January 2, 2008Apparently, Peter and I have finally done something right. Who I am kidding, Peter is perfect. I on the other hand am working Toward the Year of Craig to balance out the hell that was 2007. Low and behold I will not be needing this to wear around because Peter and I have managed to make it into OpenLab 2007
Well, The Day has arrived! After reading all of the 486 entries at least once (and many 2-3 times) and after calculating all of the judges' ratings of all the posts, Reed Cartwright and I are happy to announce which [50] blog posts will be published in the second science blogging…
grrlscientist | January 2, 2008tags: books, Open Laboratory
I just wanted to let you know that the book, Open Laboratory 2007: The Best Science Blog Writing of 2007 is now in production, and one of my submissions will be included in the book.
So, to give you a synposis of the book, the two main editors, Reed and Coturnix chose the top 70 or so submissions (out of 486!), according to the judges' ratings. After that, they tried to cut the list down to 50 (+2; one poem and one cartoon) -- a task that they found to be much more difficult. After much discussion, they decided to include 51 essays, one poem and one cartoon. As…
grrlscientist | January 2, 2008tags: Carnival of Storytelling, blog carnivals
The 8th edition of the Carnival of Storytelling is now available for you to read and enjoy. Best of all, they included one of my submissions!
sb admin | January 2, 2008Over at AlterNet, Grist's David Roberts and Lisa Hymas have compiled a list of the top 15 environmental stories of 2007. Climate change is the dominant theme, with scientists and Al Gore sounding the alarm and politicians responding (not necessarily in a productive way -- see the ethanol item). The list also includes stories we've covered here at The Pump Handle: our unsustainable food system, hazardous toys, and judicial rebukes of Bush administration environmental policy.
Is there a big environmental story that's missing from the list? And what's the 2008Â version likely to include a year…
cortex | January 2, 2008Lisa Diamond, a psychologist at the University of Utah, deserves credit for bringing a controversial idea to the academic surface. Here's the Boston Globe Ideas section:
In this country, we tell a certain story about homosexuality: We believe that people who come out as gay almost always stick with that gay identity for the rest of their lives. Diamond's research reveals that - at least for some females - that story might be wrong.
She followed dozens of women for 10 years, as they graduated from college, worked their first jobs, fell in love, changed their minds, and tumbled into the arms of…
cortex | January 2, 2008If, like me, you're sorely missing new episodes of The Office, then I've got the novel for you. It's Joshua Ferris' fantastic debut novel, and it's a sad/funny tour of office life. (Keep in mind that I've never worked in an office, so I have no idea how authentic the novel really is. But it feels authentic, and that's even more important.) I won't bore you with a summary of the plot, since what really interests me about the novel is the narration, which unfolds from the first person plural. Consider this excerpt:
We knew what "Your anger" meant because we suffered from the same anger from…
cmcclain | January 1, 20082007 at DSN...Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger. For 2008...Work It Harder, Make It Better, Do It Faster, which will Make Us Stronger. As usual as the end of year comes up I get a bit weepy and nostalgic. During this time I send Peter an email harassing him to produce the Best of DSN and Best of the Abyss. Peter this year gently reminded me it was my turn. This year I trekked around the globe and found experts in many fields to find the best of 2007. Well...actually I spent a half-hour emailing people I actually thought I could sucker into this. The judges are hodgepodge of internet semi…
grrlscientist | January 1, 2008tags: festival of the trees, blog carnivals
Hey treehuggers, the 19th edition of the Festival of the Trees is now available for you to read. They also included a contribution from me!
grrlscientist | January 1, 2008tags: carnival of the cities, blog carnivals
The special holiday edition of the Carnival of Cities is now available for you to enjoy. They included a contribution from me, too!
pharyngula | December 31, 2007Let's start the new year on a wishful note — here's hoping we have a wonderful 2008 with a sweet song from Israel KamakawiwoÊ»ole.
If you'd prefer the classic version, here's Judy Garland and Sarah Vaughan. I had to go with Iz, though, just because tropical islands and ukeleles are about as un-Morris-like as you can get.
grrlscientist | December 31, 2007
An Allosaurus skeleton in the lobby of AMNH, New Year's Eve, 2007.
Image: GrrlScientist 2007. [Larger view].
As proof that my readers are the bestest of the best, I met one of my long-time readers and her daughter at the American Museum of Natural History today and spent the afternoon with them.
It was great!
I took them to my favorite watering hole (their choice -- this is where I write for my blog when "my" library is closed (evenings, sundays and holidays)) and she and her daughter treated me to a delicious lunch and to wonderful conversation about all sorts of things; education,…
cortex | December 31, 2007Just wanted to thank everyone for making this blog such a consistent source of pleasure for me. I don't deserve such a smart audience, but I'm endlessly grateful for it. And thanks for putting up with all the shameless self-horn tooting over the past few months. I hope everyone out there has a happy and healthy new year.