Two interesting papers came out last week [from the Archives – click on the clock logo to see the original post], both using transgenic mice to ask important questions about circadian organization in mammals. Interestingly, in both cases the gene inserted into the mouse was a human gene, though the method was different and the question was different:
Comments Off on The Lark-Mouse and the Prometheus-Mouse
Posted in Clock Tutorials
Thursday morning was the Biofluorescence morning, with lectures by the three most recent Nobelists who received their prize for the discovery and first uses of the Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) and its derivatives that glow in other colors. It’s hard to think of an animal that is as non-model in the lab as jellyfish and a discovery as important and useful for modern biological research.
Unlike PZ who was a diligent liveblogger in the conference hall, I watched all three lectures from the press room, livestreamed on my laptop, while multitasking and generally enjoying the perks of being “Press” (continuous supplies of coffee, juices and fresh fruit, in addition to multitudes of power cords and good wifi). I am happy to report that all three talks were very good, exciting and thought-provoking. Ashutosh covered all three talks in great detail in his post.
Firts to go was Prof. Dr. Osamu Shimomura – watch the video. Then came Prof. Dr. Martin Chalfie – watch the video and read PZ’s post. Finally, it was the turn for Prof. Dr. Roger Y. Tsien – watch the video and see PZ’s post
These were the most biological talks, thus I could understand them in full. On the other hand, the next talk by Richard Schrock was so technical that I did not understand a word (and gave up listening after a couple of minutes). As someone noted on Twitter: “Schrock gives the same talk to the broad audience in Lindau that he also presented at the EuCOMC to organometallic specialists”. I bet even some of the chemistry students in the audience had trouble understanding the talk, let alone the non-chemists there, e.g., the press, bloggers, dignitaries, guests, politicos, local aristocracy, etc. I could see that he is a really nice guy, and that he is a super-star of chemistry, and that his discoveries are really, truly innovative and useful, but I was hoping he would adopt his talk to his audience a little bit.
The last talk of the meeting was the only real disappointment for me. It was a talk with a provocative title (and Abstract) of Molecular Darwinism by Prof. Dr. Werner Arber. This time I think PZ was too nice to the guy (beer, sausages and strudel will do that you, soften you, here in Bavaria).
So, what was the talk about? It was an undergraduate-level introduction to evolution. And that would be fine if it was a good undergraduate-level introduction to evolution. But…
Simplifying things is a good thing. Oversimplifying makes it wrong.
What Arber was doing was “inventing” terms. Or, to be precise, he was reinventing and mixing up terms. He was using existing terminology in biological science and applying it to wrong concepts. Confusion ensues. For example:
“Acquired” has a meaning in biology – but not the one he is using. The word “acquired” is used when discussing acquired characteristics, in Lamarckian sense. But he was using it to describe a process that has a perfectly good name already: “horizontal transfer”.
“Molecular evolution” is also a term that has a specific meaning – use of the molecular clock to measure philogenetic relationships and distances between species. Not all evolution is molecular evolution. Phenotypes evolve, too.
Second, evolution does not equal natural selection. Natural selection is one of the important processes of evolution, but not the only one (random drift, neutral evolution, sexual selection…are all very important and wide-spread). If Larry was there, his head would explode in the face of such raw display of selectionism and adaptationism.
Third, “evolution genes” have nothing to do with “genes for evolution”. There is a large and vibrant literature on Evolution of Evolvability, but it does not appear Arber is familiar with it.
And no, your work that you got your Nobel for is NOT the central piece in the evolutionary theory no matter how hard you are trying to make the case for it, sorry. Restriction enzymes are the awesomest and even I used them as much as I never really did any molecular biology. They are an indispensable tool for the entire discipline. But they are not an important factor in evolution itself – just the part of the machinery.
And finally, please do not ever use the word “Darwinism”. It is only used by Creationists (and journalists who don’t know any better) to imply that we are all some kind of idol-worshippers, memorizing the Origin as if it was a bible. What I am trying to say is that a careful use of words is essential for communicating science. Careless use of one term to denote something else that already has a different name is confusing, misleading and irresponsible.
That one poor lecture, of course, did not put a blemish on the rest of the meeting, all the amazing talks, panels and social events.I just re-read a very interesting post of mine about the whole “Nobel conundrum” – the pros and cons and effects of Nobel Prizes, and I muse on various aspects of it. This meeting made me rethink some of those same questions again.
At many meetings, scientific superstars of that stature fly in, give a talk, have the dinner with the organizers, and fly out. This meeting is different – it is specifically designed to get superstars to mix and mingle with young researchers. While the talks are uber-traditional lectures in format – not even followed by Q & A sessions! – there were plenty of organized sessions for young people to spend time talking to the laureates, ask questions, discuss things (those meetings were closed to the press, to give them complete feeling of freedom). While the youngsters may have come in wide-eyed and idol-worshipping, they must have left with a different feeling: that Nobelists are humans, too.
Another take-home lesson from every laureate was that one needs to be a complete human. Not just a scientist. Not just a self-slave-driver in the lab. But also to have other interests and hobbies, and perhaps be involved in some kind of activism.
Finally, it was noted many times this week that these people made their discoveries while in very small labs, struggling with funding, working on highly unusual things. They did not come out of large expensive research labs (though many of them run such places now) doing regular science. Perhaps there is something structurally different about a small lab that gives a young student freedom to follow one’s hunches that is made difficult by the complexity and hierarchy in a large, well-funded place.
Nobel prizes did not get awarded for science that had to be done incrementaly over many years. Most discoveries were made during brief bursts of activity – 2-3 years perhaps. A young researcher had to be at a right place, at a right time, to see what everyone’s seen before but, for a change, actually notice it, and to come to it with a prepared mind. Luck and creativity and thinking outside the box produce the prizes, not many years of slogging in the lab. But most of the science that has to be done includes slogging in the lab. It’s just there should be joy in doing it without an expectation that a Prize may come your way one day.
The events done, we went out to relax, have some famous Bavarian beer (again) – a couple of pictures under the fold:
Just trying to catch up with the publicartions in various PLoS Journals this past week. Here are some interesting titles.
As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. You can now also easily place articles on various social services (CiteULike, Mendeley, Connotea, Stumbleupon, Facebook and Digg) with just one click. Here are my own picks for the week – you go and look for your own favourites:
Posted in Science News
A brief interview with one of the young researchers attending the Lindau Nobel conference – Matthew Siebert of the University of California, Davis, USA:
Comments Off on Lindau Nobel – interview with Matthew Siebert
Posted in Lindau09
This post is a modification from two papers written for two different classes in History of Science, back in 1995 and 1998. It is a part of a four-post series on Darwin and clocks. I first posted it here on December 02, 2004 and then again here on January 06, 2005:
Comments Off on Clock Tutorial #3c – Darwin On Time
Posted in Clock Tutorials
No man was ever endowed with a right without being at the same time saddled with a responsibility.
– Gerald W. Johnson
Comments Off on Clock Quotes
Posted in Clock Quotes
This is going to be a challenging post to write for several reasons. How do I explain that a paper that does not show too much new stuff is actually a seminal paper? How do I condense a 12-page Cell paper describing a gazillion experiments without spending too much time on details of each experiment (as much as I’d love to do exactly that)? How do I review it calmly and critically without gushing all over it and waxing poetically about its authors? How do I put it in proper theoretical and historical perspective without unnecessarily insulting someone? I’ll give it a try and we’ll see how it turns out (if you follow me under the fold).
Clock Genes – a brief history of discovery
Late 1990s were a period of amazing activity and rate of discovery in chronobiology, specifically in molecular basis of circadian rhythms. Sure, a few mutations resulting in period changes or arrhythmicity were known before, notably period in fruitflies, frequency in the fungus Neurospora crassa, the tau mutation in hamsters and some unidentified mutations in a couple of Protista.
But in 1995, as the molecular techniques came of age, flood-gates opened and new clock genes were discovered almost every week (or so it appeared).
Comments Off on A Pacemaker is a Network
Posted in Clock Tutorials
It’s a beautiful place:
Comments Off on Lindau Nobel conference – the Lindau island
Posted in Lindau09
The series of interviews with some of the participants of the 2008 Science Blogging Conference was quite popular, so I decided to do the same thing again this year, posting interviews with some of the people who attended ScienceOnline’09 back in January.
Today, I asked my SciBling GrrrlScientist of the Living the Scientific Life blog to answer a few questions.
Welcome to A Blog Around The Clock. Would you, please, tell my readers a little bit more about yourself? Who are you? What is your (scientific) background?
I write the blog, Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted), under the pseudonym, GrrlScientist. I held a Postdoctoral Fellowship in the molecular evolution of parrots, a PhD in Zoology (Ornithology) and a bachelor’s degree in Microbiology and Immunology (emphasis: Virology). I have bred, worked with and lived with a variety of parrot species for most of my life, specializing in the lories (loriinae), which are brightly-colored nectar-feeding parrots of the south Pacific islands. I also have worked as a research technician in cancer research and in HIV/AIDS research.
What do you want to do/be when (and if ever) you grow up?
Good question. Until quite recently, I made many career plans and worked very very hard to achieve them. However, since I have been unemployed for so long, I no longer have the luxury of making any sort of plans at all, or striving to accomplish them. Now, I am quite preoccupied with simply paying my rent. I often feel as though I am writing for my life (sort of like “running for my life”).
That said, I met a friend for coffee a few weeks back, and she said that my career is writing a blog. Professional blogger. Ugh, I hate that word, “blogger”. Until she mentioned that, I had never thought about writing a blog as being a career, nor as an especially respectable career. But her observation does make sense because I work on my blog every day of the week, for 6-15 hours per day — just like when I was working on my postdoc research. My devotion to my blog keeps me from becoming overwhelmed by the worries and realities of the world.
But I no longer know what I want to do when I grow up. Except for my blog, I feel quite disillusioned and disenfranchised, and often
alienated from society. But I would like to be happy and healthy at some point in the future, though. Just to prove it is possible.
What aspect of science communication and/or particular use of the Web in science interests you the most?
The internet is an amazing way for an intellectual to be exposed to a tremendous amount of new information and different ways of thinking, for communicating this information to others, and for testing new ideas in a public forum. I’ve always enjoyed learning new ideas and sharing this information with others. For me, part of learning includes making new information “mine” by writing about it in my own words. I’ve written for most of my life and had my articles published in a variety of magazines, newsletters and other print sources, but I’ve never before enjoyed the reach and power that I have on the internet.
At the Conference, you led a session about Nature blogging. Is there a distinction between Science blogging and Nature blogging? What did you learn from that session?
Some audience members thought of science blogging as a subcategory of Nature blogging, while others thought the reverse. My own opinion is that science and nature blog writing are separate, but often overlapping, topic areas. My conference co-host, Kevin, and I worked out a series of questions in advance, posted them on my blog and asked my readers as well as the conference participants to write responses to those questions in comments or on a piece of paper, which we later summarized and published on our blogs. After everyone had finished writing their answers, we discussed each question. But the level of passion was unexpected, and the depth and thoughtfulness with which everyone addressed these questions was really inspirational. The
seminar hour flew by, and we did not manage to get even halfway through these questions, but everyone really enjoyed this discussion, and Kevin and I certainly did, too.
How does (if it does) blogging figure in your work? How about social networks, e.g., Twitter, FriendFeed and Facebook?
Back in the days when I had a real job, I never wrote while working. Instead, I wrote during the time when I could have been hanging out in pubs. But that all changed when my postdoc funding ended before I managed to find another paying position. But five years out, if you believe that writing a blog can be a full-time job, then I’d say that blogging IS my work, since that is the one constant in my life.
I rely on social networks for two things; rapidly spreading the word about interesting blog entries and as news feeds that provide material for me to write about. Some of you may have noticed that my blogging style has changed somewhat recently — a change that I am not altogether happy about. Currently, I am learning how to balance my need to read and learn about “everything” that pops up on those social networks with my desire to write about such things for others. When I finally manage to establish this balance, my readers will no doubt be the first to know because my blog writing style will once again change to reflect this, it will become something that I am happier with.
When and how did you discover science blogs? What are some of your favourites? Have you discovered any new cool science blogs while at the Conference?
I started writing a science blog in 2004 in complete ignorance of the existence of any other blogs on this subject area. However, I quickly found other science and medical blogs and bloggers and made a tremendous effort to join the community by commenting on other blogs and hosting science blog carnivals, and keeping up an extensive private email correspondence with other science and medical blog writers. That said, I don’t feel comfortable “playing favorites”, especially since there are so many high-quality science and medical blogs out there that I read and enjoy. (I have stopped being a prolific commenter). I did not discover new science blogs while at the conference since I am fairly well-acquainted with most of them, but I DID discover many wonderful people “out there” who write blogs about science and other topics. In my opinion, this is the real gift of conferences like this: fleetingly rare and wonderful face time.
Is there anything that happened at this Conference – a session, something someone said or did or wrote – that will change the way you think about science communication, or something that you will take with you to your work, blog-reading and blog-writing?
I have spent years hiding my blog’s existence from everyone, and denying that I was the author in those rare circumstances when asked about my blog. This created a huge disconnect between my online life and my “real” life. The overall gestalt of the conference transformed me because I met so many readers — mine and other blog readers — and found that they are so astute and intelligent. This experience added depth to my perception about blog readers in general from being “people” in an abstract sense to being warm and caring individuals — friends I have not met (face to face) — yet. That was the single most positive aspect among many about this conference that daily affects how I think about blog reading and writing and about my readers.
It was so nice to meet you and thank you for the interview. I hope to see you again next January.
Thank you for the interview. One of my goals for 2010 is to return to North Carolina to share in the fun and the discovery.
==========================
See the 2008 interview series and 2009 series for more.
Posted in SO'09, SO'09 Interviews
This post about the origin, evolution and adaptive fucntion of biological clocks originated as a paper for a class, in 1999 I believe. I reprinted it here in December 2004, as a third part of a four-part post. Later, I reposted it here.
Comments Off on ClockTutorial #3b – Whence Clocks?
Posted in Clock Tutorials
How simple it is to see that all the worry in the world cannot control the future. How simple it is to see that we can only be happy now. And that there will never be a time when it is not now.
– Gerald Jampolsky
Comments Off on Clock Quotes
Posted in Clock Quotes
I am running to the Lindau Harbor for the last day’s trip and will be offline for the next 12 or so hours. So I don’t have time for a long post right now about this cool new dinosaur paper we just published in PLoS ONE.
So please check it out – see what it is all about and read the paper itself.
Posted in Paleontology, PLoS, Science News
Microarrays have been used in the study of circadian expression of mammalian genes since 2002 and the consensus was built from those studies that approximately 15% of all the genes expressed in a cell are expressed in a circadian manner. I always felt it was more, much more.
I am no molecular biologist, but I have run a few gels in my life. The biggest problem was to find a control gene – one that does not cycle – to make the comparisons to. Actin, which is often used in such studies as control, cycled in our samples. In the end, we settled on one of the subunits of the ribosome as we could not detect a rhythm in its expression. The operative word is “could not detect”. My sampling rate was every 3 hours over a 24-hour period, so it is possible that we could have missed circadian expression of a gene that has multiple peaks, or a single very narrow peak, or a very low amplitude of cycling (it still worked as a control in our case, for different reasons). Thus, my feeling is that everything or almost everything that is expressed in a cell will be expressed in a rhythmic pattern.
If you have heard me talk about clocks (e.g., in the classroom), or have read some of my Clock Tutorials, you know that I tend to say something like “All the genes that code for proteins that are important for the core function of a cell type are expressed in a circadian fashion”. So, genes important for liver function will cycle in the liver cells, genes important for muscle function will cycle in muscle cells, etc.
But I omit to note that all such genes that are important for the function of the cell type are all the genes that are expressed in that cell. The genes not used by that cell are not expressed. But I could not go straight out and say “all the genes that are expressed in a cell are expressed in a circadian pattern”, because I had no data to support such a notion. Until yesterday.
What happened yesterday?
Comments Off on Everything Important Cycles
Posted in Clock Tutorials
The series of interviews with some of the participants of the 2008 Science Blogging Conference was quite popular, so I decided to do the same thing again this year, posting interviews with some of the people who attended ScienceOnline’09 back in January.
Today, I asked Eva Amsen, a participant at the 2007 and 2009 meetings, to answer a few questions.
Welcome to A Blog Around The Clock. Would you, please, tell my readers a little bit more about yourself? Who are you? What is your (scientific) background?
Hello readers of Bora’s blog! I’m Eva, nice to meet you. I finished a PhD in Biochemistry at the University of Toronto in December, and before that I studied Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology in Amsterdam.
What is your Real Life job?
That depends… At the time I’m typing out these answers, I still have a few days left at my job at an undergraduate biology program, where I created/developed/ran a new website and did some other education support tasks. But by the time this goes live, I probably won’t be there anymore, and depending on when Bora posts this, I might even be traveling. Traveling’s not a job, though, although I do tend to plan my trips as meticulously as if I was a travel agent. But I am also doing some part-time freelance writing, so I guess that is my only consistent Real Life job at the moment. I’m also currently in the process of searching for a new full-time job. I would like to find a job in which I can coordinate communication between scientists, rather than a job doing research itself.
What aspect of science communication and/or particular use of the Web in science interests you the most?
I’m fascinated by the huge shift from offline to online communication in research that happened in the 1990s. The very first people to communicate online *were* scientists: the first internet connection was between research groups! I’m of the very narrowly defined generation who got their first e-mail address as they entered university: e-mail already existed in academia, but high school students weren’t using it yet. At the time, not all journal articles were online yet, but by the time I graduated, I only *rarely* needed to physically visit a library. The web has made searching the literature so much more simple than it was before. But now, it seems to have come to a point where the web is making things *more* complicated. Should you blog? If so, who should blog? Do you publish your data online or not? Are people blurring personal lives with professional lives, and is that inevitable or do we need to separate the two again? Why are some people completely obsessed with all that has the suffix 2.0, while others just want to sit back and quietly read a paper? These are the things that I like to think about, and why I fly out to events like ScienceOnline.
How does (if it does) blogging figure in your work? How about social networks, e.g., Twitter, FriendFeed and Facebook?
Well, that depends which “work” we’re talking about. It has always been entirely separate from my work in research – blogging was just a hobby. It still is. I blog because I like doing it, and meanwhile ended up with three science blogs. (Expression Patterns, Easternblot and Musicians and Scientists)
For the job I just finished, I implemented a content management system that lets the staff update the website in a really simple way, very much *like* a blog, although we don’t allow comments on the news posts because moderation would be too much a of a time commitment. We have talked about ways to use Twitter in the classroom, but I haven’t used that in an education setting myself. For freelance writing, my blog has been crucial. I don’t think I’ve ever had a paid writing job that wasn’t directly or indirectly related to my blogging. I tend to not explicitly recommend blogging as a career move unless someone says they want a career in science writing.
As for FriendFeed and Facebook, I am very skeptical about their use in a work setting. Once you start to mix your work network with your private network, things get confusing and messy. But as I said, I’d like to find a job where I can think more about how scientists interact online, and what is *best* for them, so my opinion shouldn’t matter so much. I’m more interested in the *facts* – are researchers getting more or less work done when they use a particular service? Are they better for it, and how do you define “better”? There are a lot of factors involved in this, and I think the scientific community is starting to wonder these things more and more. I can talk about this for hours, and sometimes blog about it, so lets just move on…(related blog posts: Scientists and Web 2.0 and From the Vault – The FriendFeed Attitude).
What are some of the similarities and differences between ScienceOnline and the conference you organized in Toronto?
SciBarCamp, which I organized twice in Toronto, is based on the BarCamp/SciFoo model, where participants create the schedule on the opening night. Since we had a lot of guests who were very interested in new, web-based ways to communicate science, we did have some topics (and participants!) that also came by at ScienceOnline. But we’ve also had broader sessions, about using science to save the environment, or science in poetry, or demonstrations of Mars Rovers or hydraulic music instruments. Whatever the participants want to talk about on the first day, that ends up on the program.
It was so nice to see you again and thank you for the interview. I hope to see you again next January.
Bye! And I hope to see *you* at the next SciBarCamp!
==========================
See the 2008 interview series and 2009 series for more.
Posted in SO'09, SO'09 Interviews
This post, originally published on January 16, 2005, was modified from one of my written prelims questions from early 2000.
Comments Off on ClockTutorial #3a – Clock Evolution
Posted in Clock Tutorials
Nobody sees a flower, really – it is so small – we haven’t time, and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.
– Georgia O’Keeffe
Posted in Clock Quotes
There are a bunch of bloggers here at Lindau, wearing Press badges, going to Press meetings and generally behaving like Press. Apart from PZ and myself, most of them are German sciencebloggers who are posting their interviews and dispatches on the Lindaunobel blog on Scienceblogs.de (you can filter only English-language posts here) as well as on Page 3.14. Last night we went out for dinner together and had great fun. Most of my pictures turned out, well, pretty bad, except perhaps this one:
Posted in Lindau09
Carnival of Evolution #13 is up on FYI: Science!
Festival of the Trees #37 is up on TGAW
Four Stone Hearth #70 is up on Afarensis
114th Meeting of the Skeptics’ Circle is up on Homologous Legs
Grand Rounds Vol. 5 No. 41 are up at Edwin Leap
Carnival of the Green #186 is up on Conserve Plastic Bags
Friday Ark #249 is up on Modulator
Posted in Uncategorized
This is a repost of a May 29, 2008 post:
Comments Off on Clock Classics: It all started with the plants
Posted in Clock Tutorials
The series of interviews with some of the participants of the 2008 Science Blogging Conference was quite popular, so I decided to do the same thing again this year, posting interviews with some of the people who attended ScienceOnline’09 back in January.
Today, I asked Betul Kacar of the Counter Minds blog, to answer a few questions.
Welcome to A Blog Around The Clock. Would you, please, tell my readers a little bit more about yourself? Who are you? What is your (scientific) background?
I am Betul Kacar, originally from Istanbul, Turkey, living in the USA. I actually came here to get a PhD but now that I am graduating, I am starting to feel that I am here only to steal an American’s job. My doctoral studies structured around biochemical work on a teleost enzyme (MAO). Now I am getting ready for an exciting project for my post-doctoral work: “resurrecting and evolving 4-billion year old proteins”. Interested? More can be found here.
What do you want to do/be when (and if ever) you grow up?
I don’t want to be a grown-up when I grow up. That said, I don’t want to lose my ambition and passion for scientific research and I think that is possible if one has the curiosity and courage of a child.
But if you insist, I want to see the Earth from a space shuttle that is headed to Mars.
What is your Real Life job?
Well.. I spend my day time in the lab doing research but I guess people no longer consider academia as real life. Therefore, in my -other- life I dance & teach tango. I am also a volunteer for the IRC (International Refugee Committee). Many refugees come to the US and they need help in many ways, if you’d like to help see this .
What aspect of science communication and/or particular use of the Web in science interests you the most?
I am learning. Nothing excites me more than new ideas and thoughts. Therefore through blogging I think I found the right place for me. Not that I get hundreds of hits everyday, but it is just nice to feel a part of the club, plus, all the interesting people (like you) I got to meet. Some people from Turkey reached me through my blog, and now I am writing articles for a popular science magazine called NTV-Bilim in Turkey. So yes, blogging does open you new doors and raises opportunities. One shall not underestimate the power of the Web.
How does (if it does) blogging figure in your work? How about social networks, e.g., Twitter, FriendFeed and Facebook?
I have friends who read my blog.. well at least they tell me they do so. My graduate advisor wanted me to keep my work limited to publications therefore I have not been able to write on my project details on the blog. I try to write some real-time campus happenings, that way when people see me around, they share their comments and thoughts. Mostly fun. These days I can not blog as often due to my dissertation writing but I promise to strike back starting August. — I don’t use Twitter.
When and how did you discover science blogs? What are some of your favourites? Have you discovered any new cool science blogs while at the Conference?
My dear friend and collegue, Karen Ventii PhD (science to life), introduced me to the blogging world. I am very glad she did. I like to communicate and I like doing experiments, however laboratories are not the perfect place to be talkative (learned the hard way). Blogging helped me to release my words, my thoughts and everything else that I could no longer keep to myself.
This year was my first time at a SciBlogs Conference, and I had limited time, so I tried to read as many name tags as I could and go talk to sciblings. Therefore I had a lot of “oh so, this is him/her” moments, some disappointing, some surprising but always fun. I got to meet Stephanie Zvan for instance, after reading and following her blog for so long, her blog name has become like a brand in my mind. I called her “almost diamonds” for a while then switched to her first name eventually (I hope this doesn’t make me sound like a weirdo)
Is there anything that happened at this Conference – a session, something someone said or did or wrote – that will change the way you think about science communication, or something that you will take with you to your job, blog-reading and blog-writing?
I have never thought of the copyright issues or the problems that I might encounter with my employee based on the things I put on my blog. Conference made me realize that my blog is not my secret diary, it is out there and people actually read it. I was more careful on what I put or say in my blog afterwards, though I am still working on it. Like, one way to control myself is not to write when feeling too emotional or frusturated so to not regret later – and for a Mediterranean, that is a challenge.
Eh, I know! Mediterranean myself. Was there an event that marked your first year at blogging?
Definitely, blogging helped me to make a voice on Turkey’s censorship of evolution. I even made it to the news in Turkey. So instead of sitting at home and being frusturated on my own, it was a good feeling to be actually doing something. It was also amazing to see how evolution can gather so much attention on one’s blog! Some creationist was threatening me and he even told me to behave (or else). A lot of action and drama for a small blog, right?
After all I feel happy with the crowd I gathered. I always feel happy when a new reader stops by. I have no big ambitions on blogging (like being a blogging super star), as I said earlier, having fun and learning new things: priceless.
What is your favorite ice-cream flavor?
Vanilla
It was so nice to meet you and thank you for the interview. I hope to see you again next January.
My pleasure Coturnix, thanks for all the fish (and baklava).
==========================
See the 2008 interview series and 2009 series for more.
Posted in SO'09, SO'09 Interviews
….is – you’ll have to go here to see.
PZ was sleepy this morning, but he was a diligent blogger – he sat through each and every talk this morning and wrote about them all in two posts. Knowing myself (and my ADHD) I did some cherry-picking. I skipped the heavy-duty chemistry lectures that I was bound not to understand, and went to only two talks I really wanted to see.
The first one was by my yesterday’s co-panelist Prof. Sir Harold Walter Kroto (homepage, Wikipedia, Lindau biography). Just this moment, I am sitting in the press room discussing with other bloggers who are at this very moment writing blog-posts about Kroto’s talk, how impossible it is to describe it. He touched on many topics – numbers, chemistry, science, environment, education, Web (or as he puts it: GYWW – Google/YouTube/Wikipedia World), religion, scientific method and much more. But it is impossible to describe it, really. What was it about? It is one of those talks where you need to be there, sit back, and let the speaker grab you. Laugh. Enjoy. So, you should just watch it yourself. See what strings it pulls for you. How it makes you think. What moral you get out of the story.
The second talk was by Prof. Dr. Peter Agre (Wikipedia, Lindau biography). This was definitely something different (watch his talk here). After all these talks about chemistry, and several on the science of climate change, Agre decided to do something different – remind us what this is all about. His talk was essentially a vacation slide-show of his four camping/canoeing trips in the Arctic areas of Canada and Alaska. But every shot was breathtakingly beautiful. And every now and then, a picture would remind us how fragile those seemingly harsh environments are and how strongly susceptible they are to climate change. Others used numbers and graphs to issue warnings about the necessity for quick response to the climate issue. Agre used powerful imagery to appeal to our emotions instead – not just how it all works, but what is it that we are trying to preserve and protect.
Posted in Lindau09
This is the third in the series of posts designed to provide the basics of the field of Chronobiology. This post is interesting due to its analysis of history and sociology of the discipline, as well as a look at the changing nature of science. You can check out the rest of Clock Tutorials here.
Comments Off on ClockTutorial #2a: Forty-Five Years of Pittendrigh’s Empirical Generalizations
Posted in Clock Tutorials
The liberality of sentiment toward each other, which marks every political and religious denomination of men in this country, stands unparalleled in the history of nations.
– George Washington
Comments Off on Clock Quotes
Posted in Clock Quotes
 | Bora Zivkovic on Morning at Triton |
 | Angie Lindsay Ma on Morning at Triton |
 | Linda chamblee on Morning at Triton |
| Jekyll » Blog… on The Big Announcement, this tim… | |
 | Mike H on The Big Announcement, this tim… |
Buy the 2009 Science Blogging Anthology:
Buy the 2008 Science Blogging Anthology:
Buy the 2007 Science Blogging Anthology:
Buy the 2006 Science Blogging Anthology:
A Blog Around The Clock 