Author Archives: Bora Zivkovic

Conference Pictures 1 – Friday dinner

On Friday night we had dinner at Town Hall Grill – the service and the food were excellent! Yum! [For those of you not local, the John Edwards campaign headquarters are exactly above on the second floor]
Under the fold you’ll see the pictures (let me know if I misidentified or non-identified someone – I will come back to these pictures-posts later and add links to everyone):

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Clock Quotes

People who say they sleep like a baby usually don’t have one.
Leo J. Burke

The Sci Blog Conference article in Raleigh News & Observer is now online

It must be hard writing a report on a conference where one of the most frequently voiced opinions is that mainstream media reports always get science stories wrong! But, Kristin Collins did a great job describing what just transpired on UNC campus at the Science Blogging Conference in this article (free registration may be required).
Update: The article was re-published in Charleston (SC) Post and Courier: Scientists hope blogging brings discoveries to the masses
Update 2: Syndication works like a charm: Houston Chronicle: Scientists hope blogging boosts public’s interest
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Back from the Conference

Well, I am back from the Science Blogging Conference, exhilarated and exhausted! After months of preparation, and last few days of frantic last-minute work, the Big Day has come and I could finally relax and enjoy myself. And enjoy it I did! I hope the others did as well.
First order of duty: go say Hello and Thank You to Anton without whose ideas, persistence, hard work and organizational skills, there would have been no conference!
From what we heard in person, everyone was excited about the meeting and voiced hope we will organize it again next year. To make your opinions heard, if you were there today, please take a moment to fill out this brief feedback questionnaire to tell us what you thought was good or bad today, and what we can do better next time (yes, the coffee was late, due to a death in the family of the owners of the cafe that was supposed to provide it, but Brian and Paul saved the day by quickly getting coffee from another place in the neighborhood). I also hope you are happy with your swag bag – the PLoS shirts are awesome!
Both Technorati and Blogsearch Google (as well as my own Sitemeter) are pretty slow and untrustworthy at providing the links to everyone who has already blogged (or liveblogged) about the conference, but I scanned the usual suspects (i.e., blogs of people who were there) and added some of the links to this and this collection of links so you can check out the first impressions (I’ll add more as I find them over the next day or two).
There are already some pictures up on Flickr and Technorati as well, just check the tag. There will be more (I will upload my pics right here on the blog tomorrow – I took quite a few before the batteries died).
The first two talks – excellent talks by Hunt Willard and Janet Stemwedel – were also recorded, and I will link to the audio files as soon as they are available online. Also, I’ll link to my interviews with Nature and News&Observer once they are online, as well as any other media reports that may come out (there were people here from NYTimes, WaPo, Independent Weekly, Charlotte Observer, PBS NewsHour and a couple of local radio stations).
The discussions were lively and I think very fertile – the group was very diverse and there was fast exchange of a lot of interesting and new ideas by bloggers, scientists, teachers, students, journalists and everyone else. Check the livebloggers for details of each session – I am too exhausted now to write a lot of details of each one I attended (but if you check the Program page of the wiki, each session has a link to its own page where people are now adding their thoughts, links etc).
I think I did well for my Seed Overlords and touted Scienceblogs.com as the next best thing after the invention of apple pie! We also promoted the anthology as heavily as was still in good taste (I’ve been adding links to the bottom of that post to everyone who mentioned the book on their blogs so far). Check out what John Hawks wrote about it – quite interesting and somehwat similar to what I wrote in the Preface. On the other hand [edit: see this follow up – thank you!], seeing so many people today who are interested in science blogs but do not know where to start and what it is all about (or may not be very technically savvy), I believe that the book will be useful tool to drive people who are not usually online to the science blogs. For such people, I think that this page (which evolved over the last couple of months or so) is a good starting point for exploration of the science blogging universe.
For those of you who just started your own blogs on Thursday, I’ll be watching you! And as soon as you have interesting content on your blog, I will be sending hordes of my readers to you! Also, keep an eye on the Blogtogether page and come to our regular blogger meetups, where we can help you with all the bloggy questions you may have.
Perhaps, if this guy with the deadline and no ideas what to write about read science blogs instead of pamphlets lying around the cafeteria, his understanding of science as well as his attitude would improve! The same goes for the guy who is reviewing Seed sciencebloggers here, here, here, here, here and here and was even allowed to post here. The reviewer probably never even scrolled down the front page of any of the scienceblogs, let alone dig through the archives, so whatever was the first post on top was the only source of information about the entire blog. If he was at the conference, he would have learned what science blogging is all about (or for that matter what blogging is all about).
It is impossible to list here all the interesting people I have met today (and I wish I had more time to spend with each – but there were, I dunno exactly – about 170 of them), but I am assuming that my blog readers are most interested in other science bloggers who were there. From the Seed Scienceblogging Universe, it was great spending some time with Janet, Zuska, James, Dave and Greta and Abel. Panda’s Thumb was well represented by Burt Humburg, Reed Cartwright and Professor Steve Steve. Larry, Eva, Rob, Bill, Cathy and Corie are even nicer in person then online (if that is possible). I wish I had more time to chat with Rob, Lorraine, Josh, Bharat, Jean-Claude, Jacqueline, Liz and Christina – next year (or next meetup if you are local)!
Everyone else can relax now – no more posts here titled “SBC – NC07”! Give me a couple of days to recuperate and I’ll be back to my normal SCIENCE blogging for a change!
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Clock Quotes

Nothing is as far away as one minute ago.
Jim Bishop

New Brain Carnival

Inaugural Edition: Brain Fitness Blog Carnival #1 is up on SharpBrains
There were 21 of us at the dinner tonight and it was grand. I will say more once I have the pictures uploaded. Now I better get my intro for tomorrow in shape and get some sleep before the big event!

Dinner

I am about to go to the airport to pick up four attendees. Tomorrow for dinner, we’ll be joined by US. Rep. Brad Miller! Never too late to sign up for dinners!

GeneBlogging of the Month

The newest edition of Mendel’s Garden, the genetics carnival, is up on Neurotopia.

Dinner Tonight

The dinner tonight is starting to look like a huge blogger meetup! Who will be there?
Suzanne Franks aka Zuska
Janet D. Stemwedel aka Dr.Free-ride
Anton Zuiker aka Mistersugar
Dave and Greta Munger
Brian Russell
Larry Moran and his daughter Jane
Paul Jones and his son Tucker
Bill Hooker
Cathy Davies aka Lab Cat
Reed Cartwright and Professor Steve Steve
Sarah Greene
Rob Knop
Bharat Chandramouli
Eric Roach
Adnaan Wasey
Xan Gregg
Will Raymond
George Birchard
Bonnie Springer
Amy Hughes
probably a couple of others who have not officially signed up, and me.
Pictures will follow…. (watch here and here for updates)
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My picks from ScienceDaily

Bats In Flight Reveal Unexpected Aerodynamics:

The maneuverability of a bat in flight makes even Harry Potter’s quidditch performance look downright clumsy. While many people may be content to simply watch these aerial acrobats in wonder, Kenneth Breuer and Sharon Swartz are determined to understand the detailed aerodynamics of bat flight – and ultimately the evolutionary path that created it.

…more under the fold:

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Lefty Blogosphere and the Love/Hate of Hillary

Lefty Blogosphere and the Love/Hate of HillaryI wrote this on January 28, 2006. Was I wrong then? Is that wrong now? Have things changed in the meantime?

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On the radio this morning….

You can hear me talk about the conference on NPR’s Marketplace if you listen to this audio file (the segment starts at minute 2:59)
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Clock Quotes

Let your light shine. Shine within you so that it can shine on someone else. Let your light shine.
Oprah Winfrey (1954 – ), O Magazine, January 2004

Skeptical Blogging of the week

The 52nd edition of the Skeptic’s Circle is up on Frank the Financially Savvy Atheist

Welcome a new SciBling!

Go say Hello to Karen Ventii of ScienceToLife, the newest addition to the ScienceBlogs.com Universe!

The Tar Heel Tavern – call for submissions

This week’s edition of the Tar Heel Tavern will be #100, hosted by Ogre, and with a theme “Winter”. Send your entries by Saturday and let me know if you want to host a future edition.

What we did tonight….

We (Anton, Brian and I) packed hundreds of beautiful bags full of goodies for the conference-goers.
Then, when we were done, we celebrated with a brand new bottle of Croatian slivovitz, tasting just like home, courtesy of Anton’s Cleveland friend. Thanks, Anton, the bottle safely made it home and is not empty yet!
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SBC – NC’07: Skills Session

Just finished with the Skills Sessions. About a dozen new blogs were started there. Everyone works at their own pace, so I’ll give them a few days to get their feet wet before I link to them, blogroll them and ask you all to give them some commenting love! They look really promising so far!
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SBC – NC’07

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Jason Lundberg, Janet Chui, Kipp Bodnar and Denise Haviland are coming to the 2007 North Carolina Science Blogging Conference. Are you?
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Is this Possible (and True)?

Criticize Congress go to jail?

“In what sounds like a comedy sketch from Jon Stewart’s Daily Show, but isn’t, the U. S. Senate would impose criminal penalties, even jail time, on grassroots causes and citizens who criticize Congress.
“Section 220 of S. 1, the lobbying reform bill currently before the Senate, would require grassroots causes, even bloggers, who communicate to 500 or more members of the public on policy matters, to register and report quarterly to Congress the same as the big K Street lobbyists. Section 220 would amend existing lobbying reporting law by creating the most expansive intrusion on First Amendment rights ever. For the first time in history, critics of Congress will need to register and report with Congress itself.

Update: Conversation continues:
Someone’s Trying to Play Us
Why astroturf disclosure legislation is needed
Was I duped by Astroturf?

Evolution of Biological Diversity

Evolution of Biological DiversityPart 12 of my BIO101 lecture notes. As always, click on the web-spider icon to see the original post (from June 04, 2006). Correct errors and make suggestions to make this better. Perhaps this entire series can be included in the “Basic Concepts” series.

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SBC – NC’07

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Steve Gunn, the Metro Editor at the Charlotte Observer, Erika Wittchen and John Beimler are coming to the 2007 North Carolina Science Blogging Conference. Are you?
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Clock Quotes

Not being able to sleep is terrible. You have the misery of having partied all night… without the satisfaction.
Lynn Johnston (1947 – ), For Better or For Worse, 07-22-06

Conference Blogging

I will mirror this post on the Science Blogging Conference homepage. Let me know if I missed you (i.e., if you ever mentioned or intend to mention the conference on your blog). This will be updated until everyone is exhausted! Because it is going to be so long, I’ll keep most of it under the fold (click on “Read more…”):

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SBC – NC’07

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Charles Harris from Natural History Magazine, Lorraine Cramer of Microblogology and Mary-Russell Roberson are coming to the 2007 North Carolina Science Blogging Conference. Are you?
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Important Blogospheric News

My blogfather Publius is moving! Legal Fiction is over (though it appears the valuable archives will remain available). He is joining the excellent crew at Obsidian Wings – Congratulations!
And PZ is promising to reduce the volume of his blogging as he is writing a book, which we will all eagerly await. His announcement was followed by another seven posts immediately after! Self-control did not last long, I guess….

Final notes on the Science Blogging Conference and Anthology

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This is what I posted on February 23, 2006, about eleven months ago. As you can see, both from my post, and from the comments, the idea was to have some kind of BloggerCon devoted to science blogging, almost like a giant MeetUp where a bunch of science bloggers can get together, finally match the names (and online handles) with faces, chat and gossip, show off their work, and have lots of beer.
But, what’s the point (apart from the great fun that would be)? How does one sell this idea to sponsors? It seemed that this idea was doomed for a quick death.
But then, Anton Zuiker came into the picture. At one of the local blogger meetups, we talked about this idea and he, being wise and experienced about organization of conferences, had a much, much better idea: to mix science bloggers with others who are interested in science communication – scientists and students, science teachers, librarians, writers and journalists, journal editors and local elected officials, software developers and science museum staff. This way, we could have a very fertile and exciting exchange of ideas – bloggers showing what can be done with this technology and hearing what others want to see more; non-bloggers learning about the blogging potential and showing how they use the Internet in their endeavors.
Eleven months later, the idea is becoming a realization. Anton did the lion’s share of the work (especially the nasty financial aspects of it), but Brian (who designed the beautiful logo displayed on top of this post), Paul and I pitched in as much as we could and knew how.
The first (and we hope annual) Science Blogging Conference is this weekend. We are really starting tomorrow with a Skills Session, where 30 of the conference participants will start their own WordPress blogs.
As people start arriving from distant places (like Canada, UK, New York City, Seattle and California), we’ll get together for a dinner on Friday (sign up – we need to know the exact numbers).
The big show is on Saturday – check the exciting Program we have put together – it combines a formal (talks), semi-formal (mediated break-out sessions) and informal (a true Unconference session to be formed on the spot) parts. Of course, some of the best ideas come out of chats in the hallways between sessions and during meals, including the Saturday night dinners (sign up for dinner by editing the Wiki if you have not yet done so).
If you have ever written about this conference in the past, or intend to write in the future (including liveblogging), or take pictures, podcasts or videos, let me know so I can link to all of that in one place for easy access. Whenever you write (or post pictures on Flickr etc.), please use always the same tag: .
As you can see, we expected 150 participants, and, even after purging the list from people who said they could not come after all, we are still up to 170 participants right now (everyone over that number is on a waitlist). If you dig through the list of registrants, you will see that only about a quarter are bloggers and that we have achieved the diversity we wanted to see.
For those of you who are new to science blogging, you can use this page as your starting point for exploring. For those of you who are coming to the conference, there will be a great Swag Bag full of goodies waiting for you at the registration table on Saturday morning (if you already have something that’s in your bag, please share it or exchange with others, as we have more participants – 170+ – than bags – 150!)[Update – just in: we will have 225 bags, though not all will have every single item].
Just in time for the conference, we managed to pull off, at a breakneck speed, the first ever Science Blogging Anthology. Due to so many people linking to the announcement post (see the bottom of that post for reciprocal links which often contain interesting ideas or useful criticisms) has already been seen about 3000 times and the book page at Lulu.com has been seen 2217 times, has, after just 24 hours risen to the Lulu Sales Rank of 10,934 and got three 6-star reviews (yes, we also managed to sell a few copies so far). Keep spreading the word!
First few copies will be here at the conference, for show-and-tell and to try to get people to buy a copy. Next batch of prints, I understand, will go to people who were the first to order the book online. The next batch (some time next week?) will go to the authors of the 50 essays showcased in the anthology – for that, I need you to e-mail me your snail-mail address to give to Lulu.com so they know where to send your complimentary copy!
None of this would be possible without the generous support of our hosts and sponsors, including Ibiblio, Endeavors, UNC School of Medical Journalism, Lulu.com, Sigma Xi, The American Scientist, Blogads, Seed Scienceblogs.com, Seed Magazine, Ecco, Harper Collins, NC Museum of Life and Science, JMP Software, RTI International, Burroughs Wellcome Fund and Blogburst and PLoS-One.
This is so exciting! I hope you will enjoy the conference as much as I know I will!
And after the conference, I will sleep for a day or two, then get back to my dissertation and, hopefully, to a more serious style of blogging. It is not surpsising that recent visitors do not see why is this blog supposed to be a science blog as I have not written a substantive science post in weeks! I am itching to get back to that myself. Many posts are just waiting to be written and I hope you will still be here waiting for me to write them
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Evolution, Interactions, and Biological Networks

Here is a new paper that just came out on PLoS-Biology. What do you think?

Just Science?

So, RPM, Razib and Chris are promoting the idea of Just Science, meaning that from Monday, February 5, till the end of Sunday, February 11, we should write only about science itself, and not about pseudoscience, quackery, religion, politics of science etc.
This is my 1864th post on this blog. Out of that, there are perhaps 4-5 debunking some kind of Creationism, and 4-5 debunking some other pseudoscience. A drop in the ocean! There is a little bit more politics (but usually not of science), and several posts on religion/atheism. Everything else is either science or “chatter”, i.e., links to other people, personal stuff, meta-blogging of some kind, the conference/anthology announcements, etc. Thinking that people here would be quite unhappy if I blogged daily about politics (especially with my open support for John Edwards), I do most of that on my old blog.
Right now, I am in the midst of the last-minute preparations for the Science Blogging Conference. After that, I’ll sleep for a day or two. Then, I will eagerly return to my Dissertation and that is where my serious science writing will be focused.
For the blog, I’ll do whatever hits me on any particular day/hour/minute. I can refrain from bashing Creationists during the designated week, but I will not promise anything. I may write serious science or I may not. I have a few books I still need to write reviews of (including Dawkins and Dennett – so that violates the Just Science principle right there). Perhaps I can write one of the Basics posts during that week. I can try. But no promises. I blog at a whim.
But you tell me what you want to see…

SBC – NC’07

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Michelle Langston, John Streck and David Ketelsen are coming to the 2007 North Carolina Science Blogging Conference. Are you?
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Liberal Blogging of the week

The 30th Carnival of the Liberals is up on Shakespeare’s Sister

ScienceBlogging of the fortnight

The 1771 edition of the Tangled Bank has been rediscovered by scrupulous historical research on The Voltage Gate.

Welcome a new SciBling!

Go say Hello to Signout! And send your entries for next week’s Grand Rounds right there.

Anthropology Blogging of the Week

Four Stone Hearth #7 is up on Aardvarchaeology. The image made me hungry!

EduBlogging of the week

The 102nd Carnival of Education is up on Dr.Homeslice
Carnival of Homeschooling #55: Parents’ Meeting Edition is up on Dewey’s Treehouse

SBC – NC’07

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Brad Herring of the Museum of Life and Science and John Blake of P2LS are coming to the 2007 North Carolina Science Blogging Conference. Are you?
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Clock Quotes

If time flies when you’re having fun, it hits the afterburners when you don’t think you’re having enough.
Jef Mallett, Frazz, 08-01-05

Basic Terms and Concepts – update

Here is the list of posts in this series so far:
Mean, Median, and Mode
Normal Distribution
Force
Gene
Central Dogma of Molecular Biology
Evolution
Clade
What do you want me to write about? Circadian stuff? Group selection? Animal physiology and behavior?

My picks from ScienceDaily

As always, fell free to rip apart either the papers or the pre-releases in the comments (if they deserve that, of course – some are OK:
Code Pink: Extreme Weather Leaves Flamingos Hungry:

Lesser flamingos (Phoeniconaias minor) at Lake Bogoria, Kenya, are suffering from malnutrition, report Earthwatch-supported scientists working there. The scientists are investigating the causes of recent large-scale mortality events, resulting in the death of thousands of lesser flamingos in Kenya last year and at least half a million birds during the 1990s. Post-mortem examinations on several flamingos found dead at Bogoria in late 2006 revealed that the birds weighed just 63 per cent of their normal body mass, approximately 1,050 grams. An analysis of the lake water confirmed that very low levels of spirulina (a blue-green bacteria that is the primary food source for lesser flamingos) were leaving the birds with only 10 per cent of their minimum daily food requirements.

Age Is More Than A Number: In Barn Owls, It Reveals How Susceptible One Is To Climate Change:

Fluctuations in weather and the environment affect survival and reproduction of animals. But are all individuals within a population equally susceptible? Theory on the evolution in age-structured populations suggests not — those life stages that are more important for overall fitness should be less susceptible to environmental variation than other life stages. Empirical support for this prediction is rare because detailed data need to be collected over many years, and true variation tends to be inflated through the way in which natural populations are sampled.
In the January issue of The American Naturalist, Res Altwegg (University of Cape Town and University of Victoria), Michael Schaub (Swiss Ornithological Institute and University of Bern), and Alexandre Roulin (University of Lausanne), examined temporal variation in survival and reproduction of barn owls in western Switzerland that had been observed over the past fifteen years. Using recently developed statistical tools, they were able to show that those fitness components that experienced stronger selection were indeed less variable over the years.
“Our results help explain why certain age classes are more susceptible to adverse weather, and they will help us understand how climatic variation affects populations of organisms in nature. This is important for predicting the effect of climate change on populations,” the authors said.

Big Vegetarian Mammals Can Play A Critical Role In Maintaining Healthy Ecosystems, Study Finds:

Removing large herbivorous mammals from the African savanna can cause a dramatic shift in the relative abundance of species throughout the food chain, according to scientists from Stanford University, Princeton University and the University of California-Davis. Their findings were published in the Jan. 2 edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). In the study, the research team used large electric fences to exclude cattle, elephants, zebras and other herbivorous mammals from experimental plots on a ranch in central Kenya from May 2004 to December 2005. During that time, the scientists monitored changes in the populations of trees, beetles, lizards and other plant and animal species.

It Takes A Village: Female Ducks Negotiate Joint Rearing Of Ducklings:

Female eider ducks are well known to team up and share the work of rearing ducklings, but it now appears that they also negotiate not only how much effort each puts into the partnership, but also profit-sharing. An international group of scientists used a long-running study of the eider population in a Finnish archipelago to test predictions about how each hen seeks to maximize her benefits from the partnership without making it so unattractive that other hens withdraw their participation. As hens arrive at the rearing-area with their ducklings, a period of intense socializing ensues. The hens then sort themselves into cliques — pairs, trios, or quartets — with each hen in a group assuming a distinct role.

Mushrooms Have A Future In Fighting A Fowl Parasite:

Wide use of a mushroom extract to protect poultry against a major parasitic disease is now closer, thanks to an Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientist and her South Korean colleagues. The researchers–led by immunologist Hyun Lillehoj at the ARS Animal Parasitic Diseases Laboratory in Beltsville, Md.–developed a technique for controlling coccidiosis, which costs the world’s poultry industry billions of dollars in losses annually.

Researchers Discover Drug That Blocks Malaria Parasites:

Northwestern University researchers have discovered how malaria parasites persuade red blood cells to engulf them — and how to block the invading parasites. The malaria marauders hack into the red cell’s signaling system and steal the molecular equivalent of its password to spring open the door to the cell. The researchers have found that a common blood pressure medication — propranolol — jams the signal to prevent the parasite from breaking in.
Scientists had long been perplexed by malaria’s ability to hijack red blood cells, then wildly multiply and provoke the life-threatening symptoms of malaria.

Patients With Amnesia ‘Live In The Present’:

Scientists at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, University College London, have shown that people with damage to the hippocampus, the area of the brain that plays a crucial role in learning and memory, not only have trouble remembering the past but also in imagining new and future experiences. Damage to the hippocampus can be caused by a lack of oxygen to the brain, for example during a cardiac arrest, or various other illnesses such as limbic encephalitis or Alzheimer’s disease.

New Study Examines The Influence And Impact Of Conspiracy Theories Surrounding The Death Of Princess Diana:

In their forthcoming paper The hidden impact of conspiracy theories: Perceived and actual influence of theories surrounding the death of Princess Diana, Dr Karen Douglas and Dr Robbie Sutton from the University of Kent show that people are persuaded by conspiracy theories about Princess Diana’s death even though they do not necessarily know it. In their study, which is to be published in the Journal of Social Psychology, the authors find that while people accurately judge the extent to which others are influenced by conspiracy theories, they are unaware of the extent to which their own attitudes have changed — a change that may actually serve to perpetuate the theories.

Spouse’s Personality May Be Hazardous To Your Health:

To the long list of things to consider when choosing a mate, there is now evidence suggesting that your spouse’s personality can have a major influence on your own ability to recover from – and perhaps even survive – a major challenge to your health. It is a finding drawn from a study by a team of researchers including John M. Ruiz, an assistant professor of psychology at Washington State University, as well as Karen A. Matthews and Richard Schulz, at the University of Pittsburgh, and Michael F. Scheier with Carnegie Mellon University.

Obligatory Readings of the Day – War

Mike
John

SBC – NC’07

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Catherine Clabby, the science reporter for Raleigh News & Observer and Rob Zelt are coming to the 2007 North Carolina Science Blogging Conference. Are you?
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SBC – NC’07

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Trisha Crutchfield and Joy Widmann are coming to the 2007 North Carolina Science Blogging Conference. Are you?
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Look left…

Since the Big Announcement is slowly drifting down the page, I placed a picture of the book on my left sidebar – just click on it!

Green Rounds

Carnival of the Green #60 is up on One/Change
Grand Rounds Vol. 3, No. 17 is up on Six Until Me

My picks from ScienceDaily

Why Are Lions Not As Big As Elephants?:

Carnivores are some of the widest ranging terrestrial mammals for their size, and this affects their energy intake and needs. This difference is also played out in the different hunting strategies of small and large carnivores. Smaller species less than 15-20 kg in weight specialize on very small vertebrates and invertebrates, which weigh a small fraction of their own weight, whereas larger species (>15-20 kg) specialize on large vertebrate prey near their own mass. While carnivores around the size of a lynx or larger can obtain higher net energy intake by switching to relatively large prey, the difficulty of catching and subduing these animals means that a large-prey specialist would expend twice as much energy as a small-prey specialist of equivalent body size. In a new article published by PLoS Biology, Dr. Chris Carbone and colleagues from the Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London reveal how this relationship might have led to the extinction of large carnivores in the past and why our largest modern mammalian carnivores are so threatened.

Closing A Loophole In The RNA World Hypothesis:

New scientific research may close a major loophole in the RNA world hypothesis, the idea that ribonucleic acid — not the fabled DNA that makes up genes in people and other animals — was the key to life’s emergence on Earth 4.6 billion years ago. That hypothesis states that RNA catalyzed all the biochemical reactions necessary to produce living organisms. Only later were those self-replicating RNA units joined by organisms based on DNA, which evolved into more advanced forms of life.

Marine Bacteria Can Create Environmentally Friendly Energy Source:

Bacteria in the world’s oceans can efficiently exploit solar energy to grow, thanks to a unique light-capturing pigment. This discovery was made by researchers at University of Kalmar in Sweden, in collaboration with researchers in Gothenburg, Sweden, and Spain. The findings are described in an article in the journal Nature.
“It was long thought that algae were the only organisms in the seas that could use sunlight to grow,” says Jarone Pinhassi, a researcher in Marine Microbiology at Kalmar University College. These microscopic algae carry out the same process as green plants on land, namely, photosynthesis with the help of chlorophyll.
In 2000 scientists in the U.S. found for the first time that many marine bacteria have a gene in their DNA that codes for a new type of light-capturing pigment: proteorhodopsin.
Proteorhodopsin is related to the pigment in the retina that enables humans to see colors. It should be possible for this pigment to enable marine bacteria to capture solar light to generate energy, but until now it had not been possible to confirm this hypothesis.

An Animated Key To The World Of Young People:

Animated films produced by children offer wide-ranging insights into how the younger generation see the world around them. This was the conclusion of an extensive project run by the “Zoom” Children’s Museum in Vienna, Austria. During a number of workshops, children and young people were given the opportunity to make their own animated films. The messages these films contain have now been interpreted as part of the project, which is supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF). Initial results indicate that the young generation is in two minds about technological progress and is extremely worried about our impact on the environment. The study also showed that gender stereotypes are far from being overcome.

‘Flock of Dodos’ screenings in Raleigh

*N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences
/Downtown Raleigh/
**Thursday, January 18
“Flock of Dodos” screening with filmmaker, Randy Olson
7:00 p.m. Museum Auditorium
Free
*Filmmaker and Evolutionary Ecologist , Dr. Randy Olson, presents his
new film */Flock of Dodos/*: /*The Evolution / Intelligent Design Circus.*/
“Flock of Dodos” is the first feature-length documentary to present both
sides of the Intelligent Design / Evolution clash and tries to make
sense of the issue by visiting Olson’s home state of Kansas. The film
digs below the surface of the debate by examining the language being
used by both sides of this “circus” and the actual people presenting
each side. By doing so, Olson poses a serious question to the
scientific community as to who really is the “flock of dodos.”
After the screening, Dr. Olson will give a presentation followed by a
Question and Answer session.
The Museum will host additional free screenings of “Flock of Dodos” at
the following times:
Saturday, February 3, 3:00 p.m.
Saturday, February 10, 3:00 p.m.
Monday, February 12, Time is TBA — “Darwin Day”
We are hoping to have a panel of speakers in conjunction with the Darwin
Day screening. If you may be interested in participating on a panel to
further discuss this topic, please let us know.
The Museum is located at the corner of Jones and Salisbury Streets.
919.733.7450

SBC – NC’07

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Kirk Ross, columnist for (and former editor of) The Independent Weekly, as well as hard-blogger on Exile on Jones Street, The Mill and Cape Fear Mercury is coming to the 2007 North Carolina Science Blogging Conference. Are you?
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Clock Quotes

What I give form to in daylight is only one per cent of what I have seen in darkness.c
M. C. Escher (1898 – 1972), Quoted in Comic Sections, D. MacHale (Dublin 1993)

The Science Blogging Anthology – the Great Unveiling!

The Open Laboratory - order hereYes! It is finally here! What you have all been waiting for, impatiently, for three weeks! The Science Blogging Anthology is now for sale. Go to Lulu.com by clicking here (or click on the picture of the book to your right) and place your order! You can choose to buy a PDF to download (but do you really want to print out 336 pages!?) or order the book with its pretty cover – it takes only a couple of days to arrive at your doorstep.
You can see here how it all got started, just three weeks ago, smack in the middle of the holidays when nobody was online and traffic was down to a third of the normal – and the whole thing just exploded! It was meant to coincide with the inaugural Science Blogging Conference. You can check out all 218 finalists here and the Final 50 here. Don’t forget to check the comments! And if you are interested in the process, there have been numerous updates along the way here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
First, I’d like to thank everyone who submitted nominations, either their own or for other people’s work.
Second, I’d like to thank the distinguished panel of twelve reviewers who helped me narrow down the field from 218 to 50 posts: Janet, Karmen, Jennifer, Jenna, John, Bill, MC, Carl, Leo, Heinrich, John and one anonymous reviewer, as well as Anton who tremendously helped on the technical side of this endeavor.
Next, I’d like to thank all those who have helped spread the word about this so far, by posting links on their blogs: Arunn, MC, MC again, MC again, Ema, Ed, Ed again, Ed again, Archy, Archy again, Afarensis, Afarensis again, Larry, Bee, John, Dan, Martin, Sya, Sir Oolius, Florine, John, Rob, Curious Cat, Nuthatch, Aydin, Clare, Radagast, Pedro, Pedro again, Jenna, Anton, Luca, Liz, et alli and bbgm (did I miss anyone?).
And I thank in advance everyone who buys the book, e-mails their friends about it, links to this post from their blogs, or places this post on one of the social networking sites (see the buttons at the bottom of the post).
What about next year?
This anthology was designed to coincide with the first Science Blogging Conference – and we made it in the nick of time – the conference is this Saturday. We are hoping to make the conference an annual event, so why not the anthology again, to be published in late January of next year, and the year after that…? I have already heard (and read on blogs) the sentiment that there should be one every year.
I have asked for volunteers to be the editor of the next edition, but nobody raised their hand, and a few people suggested (mostly in the comments on the ‘Final 50’ post) I should do it again. Frankly, I enjoyed the experience as frantic as it was and I’d like to do it again. And next year it will not be so frantic: instead of three weeks between the first idea and the book actually seeing print, I’ll have twelve months to slowly collect quality posts and get a ‘feel’ for the annual output of the science-blogging world.
So, please, at any time between January 1st and December 31st 2007, if you write a kick-ass post, let me know. I’ll bookmark it and jot a few notes to myself and take it into consideration for the next edition. If you see a great science-related post, especially written by a blogger who may be new and not yet the part of the inner circle of us science bloggers, please let me know. If your best post is in another language, have it translated into English and send me the permalink – let’s increase the diversity!
Also, send your best stuff to appropriate blog carnivals. I will dutifully monitor posts that appear on the following carnivals: Tangled Bank, Grand Rounds, Carnival of the Green, Skeptic’s Circle, Mendel’s Garden, Bio::Blogs, Encephalon, Animalcules, Circus of the Spineless, I And The Bird, Festival of the Trees, Oekologie, Four Stone Hearth, Panta Rei, Philosophia Naturalis, Change Of Shift, Pediatric Grand Rounds, Radiology Grand Rounds and any new ones that may appear this year.
I hope you enjoy the book and that you will continue to visit the many science bloggers who have been linked in the semi-finals and finals and many more found on their blogrolls.
Buy the book here!
Update: I’d also like to thank everyone who is helping to spread the word by linking to this post from their blogs, including (let me know if I missed you):
Stranger Fruit, Archy, Evolving Thoughts, Nonoscience, Accidental Blogger, The Loom, Intueri, Neurophilosophy, Aardvarchaeology, Bioephemera, Open…, Archaeoastronomy, Panda’s Thumb, Rhosgobel: Radagast’s Home, The Physics of Sex, Bark Bark Woof Woof, The Third Bit, The Real Paul Jones, Bootstrap Analysis, Open Reading Frame, Science And Politics, Stoat, Cognitive Daily, De Rerum Natura , Bee Policy, Liberal Coalition, Words and Pictures, Uncertain Principles, Pharyngula, Aetiology, The Blog Herald, Scientific Assessment, Shakespeare’s Sister, Scientia Est Potentia, Pegase, BlogSheroes, Idea Consultants, Pure Pedantry, Confessions of a Science Librarian, Thoughts from Kansas, Arbitrary Marks, Carolina Blog Consultants, Omni Brain, The Education Wonks, Lean Left, Ed Cone’s Word Up, Skeptico, The Scientific Indian, Retrospectacle: A Neuroscience Blog, Emergiblog, bbgm, Sandwalk, Page 3.14, Neurontic, today’s The Buzz Of The Blogosphere on the front page of Scienceblogs.com, Easternblot, Siris, The Voltage Gate, A Somewhat Old, But Capacious Handbag, The Scientific Activist, 10,000 Birds, digg, stumbleupon, The Daily Transcript, Newton’s Binomium, Pimm, Snail’s Tales, Dispatches from the Culture Wars, Respectful Insolence, Mistersugar, Creek Running North, Alone on a Boreal Stage, Seed’s Daily Zeitgeist, Migrations, SharpBrains, Element List, Et alli…, Syaffolee, Neurocritic, Epigenetics News, Bad Astronomy blog, Science Made Cool, Chaotic Utopia, Afarensis, Abnormal Interests, MSNBC Clicked, The Isle, Hot Cup Of Joe, She Flies With Her Own Wings, A DC Birding Blog, And Doctor Biobrain’s Response Is…, The Blog That Ate Manhattan, East Ethnia, Desipundit, Decorabilia, Yesh, Sereniteit, Lab Cat, Johnkemeny, The Greenbelt, Thomasburg Walks, Milkriverblog, Science!, my DailyKos Diary, Genetics and Health, Cosmic Variance, Darwin.net, Examining Room of Dr.Charles, Cognitive Daily, DocBug, Burning Silo, Brainshrub, Resonance Partnership Blog, Claw of the Conciliator, Bibliothecaris in Blog, De conceptuele ingenieur, Ciencia em dia, Mike the Mad Biologist, Discovering Biology in a Digital World, Tales from the Microbial Laboratory, John Hawks Anthropology Blog, Science Notes, Curious Cat, Galactic Interactions, SciBos – Corie Lok’s blog, Cocktail Party Physics, The Countess, Element List, Petrona, A Blog Around The Clock, Red State Rabble, Pen-Elayne on the Web, Total Information Awareness, Postscripts, Terra Sigillata, Guide To Reality, Pennsylvania Citizens for Science, Ivory-bills LIVE!!, Novelr.com, Daily Kos, The Executioners Thong, Uma Malla pelo mundo, JORGE GAJARDO ROJAS, Ouroboros, Savage Minds, Neural Gourmet,

SBC – NC’07

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Greg Corrin and Alex Gunn are coming to the 2007 North Carolina Science Blogging Conference. Are you?
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