Horses Suffer From Obesity, Just Like Humans:
Horses are inheritably couch potatoes. An overeating, slothful horse leads to an obese horse. Unlike humans, however, horse owners often don’t see the dangers of an obese horse. Caretakers may see no harm in giving their horses rich foods, but obesity in horses is just as unhealthy as obesity in humans and can lead to fatal diseases.
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Posted in Science News
They are asking you to rate them here.
I have never heard of about half the people on the list – perhaps they are ‘influential’ in their small circles. Others are celebrities, and they may be influential in distracting people from things that matter. Some used to be influential in the past, or are influential abroad but not here. PZ suggests everyone gives Dawkins a 100%. Sure – the only scientist on the list (although they call him, gasp, an “evolutionist”!!!!).
Watch out – the stuff loads really slowly and it is too easy to give a 50% when your intention is to give a different rating. I have only voted for Elizabeth Edwards (who have since slipped from 14th to 34th place!) because she is the only one I know in person and the only one to have commented on my blog.
Posted in Society
In three minutes, 98 percent of all the matter there is or will ever be has been produced. We have a universe. It is a place of the most wondrous and gratifying possibility, and beautiful, too. And it was all done in about the time it takes to make a sandwich.
– Bill Bryson
Posted in Clock Quotes
Update: The issue has been resolved amicably and Shelley has some further thoughts. And some even more further thoughts. The discussion will continue here on Scienceblogs and elsewhere in the follwoing days….
If you read other Scienceblogs and not just me, you are likely quite aware of the “Wiley Affair”, but if you are not here is a quick summary:
Posted in Blogging, Science Practice, Science Reporting
It is the malaria week right now, isn’t it? Check out this nifty website about the efforts to fight malaria in Kangaba, Mali. Just click and drag on each picture and you can swing it around full 360 degrees.
Hat-tip: Anton
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Posted in Medicine
Cold Spring Harbor 72nd Symposium: Clocks & Rhythms, May 30 – June 4, 2007. Abstract deadline is way past due, but just to go and be there (and blog from there) would be super-awesome.
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Posted in Chronobiology
If you have a moment, this is a useful study to participate in:
Do you blog? If yes, then please consider participating in an online survey from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Information and Library Science. The study, Blogger Perceptions on Digital Preservation, is being conducted under the guidance of the Real Paul Jones. The study team is interested in hearing from all bloggers on their perceptions on digital preservation in relation to their own blogging activities, as well as the blogosphere in general. To hear more about this survey, please visit the study’s fact sheet at http://www.ils.unc.edu/~hcarolyn/blogsurvey/. From there, you can link out to the web-based survey. The survey will be available from April 25 through May 23, 2007. We believe blogs are valuable records of the human experience. Help to contribute to continued access to these important records by participating in our study. If you have any questions, feel free to contact Carolyn Hank, the study Principle Investigator, at hcarolyn AT email DOT unc DOT edu. Thanks!
116th Carnival of Education is up on The Education Wonks
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Posted in Carnivals
High Melatonin Content Can Help Delay Aging, Mouse Study Suggests:
A study carried out by researchers from the University of Granada’s Institute of Biotechnology shows that consuming melatonin neutralizes oxidative damage and delays the neurodegenerative process of aging. In this study researchers used normal and genetically-modified mice which were subjected to accelerated cell aging. Researchers believe their results can also be applied to humans.
Posted in Science News
There is a job opening for a science writer at Analytical Chemistry. If you are a science writer, or you know any science writers (or people who want to be science writers) who want to live in the DC area and have studied science at a graduate level, please encourage them to contact Liz Zubritsky at: e_zub AT acs DOT org.
The job does not require a Ph.D. in science, but only some graduate studies in science, not necessarily chemistry. That is because the job requires reading a lot of scientific papers and the writers have to be able to get a sense of what’s important about a paper quickly.
If you know anyone who might be interested, please share this.
Posted in Science Reporting
Carnival Of The Liberals #37 is up on BogsBlog: Clarity Amid The Muck.
In two weeks, Carnival Of The Liberals will be hosted here by me, so send your entries via this automated submission form.
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Posted in Carnivals
If you can’t sleep, then get up and do something instead of lying there worrying. It’s the worry that gets you, not the lack of sleep.
– Dale Carnegie
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Posted in Clock Quotes
Carnival of Postdocs #3 is up on What’s Up, Postdoc?
Grand Rounds, Volume 3, #31 is up on Med Valley High
Carnival of the Green #74 is up on The Evangelical Ecologist
Pediatric Grand Rounds Volume 2 Edition 1: The Year In Review…..is up on Unintelligent Design
Carnival of Homeschooling – Bee edition – is up on Sprittibee.
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Posted in Carnivals
Blogs! A new world! Breaking new frontiers all the time!
A few days ago, PLoS ONE posted a few job ads, including this one. A friend of mine saw it and thought the job-description was pretty much a Bora-description (another friend wrote in an e-mail that all it is missing is a clause “must be a Red-State Serbian Jewish atheist liberal PhD student”), so he sent me the link.
Some people like to keep secrets, but I like to air my thoughts in public (why have a blog otherwise?) so I posted my thoughts about it late on Friday night and decided to sleep on it, think about it over the weekend, consult with my wife, my kids, my brother, my mother and a few good (blogging) friends, then formally apply on Monday (yesterday).
Next morning, I woke up to a comment by the Managing Editor of PLoS ONE asking if my blog-post should be considered as a formal job application. My comment in response was a Yes.
Now, that’s a first! I never consciously try to be the first in everything, but it seems that such things always happen to me. The first to have a blog-post cited in a paper, the first to publish data, the first to organize a Science Blogging Conference, the first to edit a Science Blogging Anthology… I just do what I want and like. By not having anyone to answer to but myself, I have more freedom than most other science bloggers to do what I want and like and break new ground in the process. So why not be the first to apply for a job by posting on my blog, then formally apply by posting a comment on the post?
Anyway, I can’t tell you all the details right now, but we are talking and I may go for an interview soon. I’ll keep you posted if and when something remarkable happens.
Oh, btw, you can also be online frontier pioneers by posting one-sentence letters of recommendations in the comments to that post (or this one) if you feel like it…
Posted in Blogging
Science publisher extends journalists’ access:
A leading science publisher is granting journalists from developing countries access to its scientific papers that are not otherwise freely available. Elsevier announced the initiative at the World Conference of Science Journalists in Australia last week (19 April).
Posted in Science Reporting
Barry Saunders is a local columnist for Raleigh News & Observer who I never thought was very funny (there is a mysoginist streak in his writing) so I rarely read him these days. But the other day I could not help but notice that he started his column with the old “no atheists in foxholes” stupidity – in context of the VT massacre, of course.
I was far too busy these last couple of days to do anything about it myself, feeling confident that he was gonna hear about it from many others. And, sure he did. Just like Katie Couric, Tom Brokaw, Bob Schieffer and John Burnett (the latter two publically apologized), he got inundated by mail. But unlike the others, he refuses to see how insulting the phrase is and instead calls the atheists “anal” and thinks he’s funny. Just digging himself deeper.
You can read my old take on the phrase here. Perhaps Saunders needs another loadful of e-mails to set him straight….(barry.saunders@newsobserver.com)
Posted in Atheism, Media, North Carolina
Earth’s First Rainforest Unearthed:
A spectacular fossilised forest has transformed our understanding of the ecology of the Earth’s first rainforests. It is 300 million years old.
Posted in Science News
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Posted in Balkans, Science News
This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Posted in Clock Quotes
Zuska wrote a very good review of Allegra Goodman’s book “Intuition” from a very different angle than any other review I have seen so far, including those by Grrrlscientist and myself. Thought-provoking and worth your time.
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Posted in Books
In the age of Google, perhaps they are:
I saw a pattern of responses to the question, “Do you have a business card?” Many of the responses were the same, “just Google my name and you will find me.”
So, go now and do your ego-tickling exercise: search for your first name only, then search for first and last name, then for first and last name in quotation marks. Will people find you if they Google your name?
When I search just “Bora”, the top hits are about the island in Tahiti, the next tier is for Volkswagen Bora (and Google helpfully asks if that is the search you want to expand). I am the first human to show up right underneath the car: ‘Science And Politics’ is #2 and “A Blog Around The Clock” is #5.
When I search for “Bora Zivkovic”(with or without quotes), you need to go a long way down the page to find anyone but me (there is apparently a Danish soccer player of that name).
With a name like this, it was not hard to get so high. But a John or Mary Smith may have more difficulty. How did you do?
Posted in Fun
I never thought that I would link to Razib approvingly, but his recent series of posts about evolution of religion are right on the mark. You can start with today’s post and follow the links back to his older posts. A good start for a discussion on the topic.
RPM found this on The Disgruntled Chemist’s blog: the most awesome Rube-Goldberg machine I have ever seen. Much better than the one built by the Mythbusters guys. Just follow this link and watch the movie!
RPM complains that it does not appear to actually do anything, but, who cares? The thing is so intricate! Think of it this way – this is a metaphor for a cell: the (circadian) clock sounds an alarm and as a result a large number of molecular interactions occur resulting, in the end, in the opening of the curtain an ion channel.
I have already mentioned here, here and here that a Rube-Goldberg machine is a better metaphor for the circadian mechanism than the Clock, but it is also a better metaphor for all things intracellular as well: one biochemical reaction leading to another, to another, to another….
Posted in Fun, Science Education
Similar Brain Chemicals Influence Aggression In Fruit Flies And Humans:
Serotonin is a major signaling chemical in the brain, and it has long been thought to be involved in aggressive behavior in a wide variety of animals as well as in humans. Another brain chemical signal, neuropeptide Y (known as neuropeptide F in invertebrates), is also known to affect an array of behaviors in many species, including territoriality in mice. A new study by Drs. Herman Dierick and Ralph Greenspan of The Neurosciences Institute in San Diego shows that these two chemicals also regulate aggression in the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster.
In a series of studies that used drug treatments and genetic engineering we have produced flies that make increased or decreased amounts of serotonin, or whose nerve cells that use serotonin or neuropeptide F are silent or inactive. Our investigations showed that the more serotonin a fly makes, the more aggressive it will be towards other flies. Conversely, presence of neuropeptide F has an opposite modulatory effect on the flies’ behavior, reducing aggression. Serotonin and neuropeptide F are part of separate circuits in the brain, circuits which also differ to some extent between males and females. Male flies are much more aggressive.
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Posted in Science News
You are as old as the last time you changed your mind.
– Tim O’Leary
Posted in Clock Quotes
This is the first study I know that directly tested this – the effects of rotating shifts on longevity – in humans, though some studies of night-shift nurses have shown large increases in breast cancers, stomach ulcers and heart diseases, and similar studies have been done in various rodents and fruitflies:
Working in shifts shortens life span: Study:
A study of 3,912-day workers and 4,623 shift workers of the Southeastern Central Railway in Nagpur showed the former lived 3.94 years longer than their counterparts on shift duties, said the study by Atanu Kumar Pati of The School of Life Sciences in Pt Ravishankar Shukla University, Raipur.
—————
Shift work affects the circadian rhythm, the 24-hour cycle in the physiological processes of humans that leads to several sleep-related and social problems.
Circadian rhythms are important in determining the sleeping and feeding patterns of all animals, including humans. Brain wave activity, hormone production, cell regeneration and other biological activities are linked to this daily cycle.
Pati and his colleague K Venu Achari analysed a database of dates of death, retirement and death of each worker and published their findings in the latest issue of “current science”.
They also studied data on deaths due to all causes of 594 railway employees, including 282 day workers and 312 shift workers, over a span of 25 years. The cause of death was not documented in the database. An analysis of the data showed that day workers tend to live 3.94 years longer than counterparts working in shifts.
All day workers performed duty between 9 am and 6 pm with an hour-long lunch break from 1 pm and included those on office job and doing miscellaneous duties, the study said.
Those coming for shift duties worked in a rotating system consisting of a day shift (8 am to 4 pm), first night (4 pm to midnight) and second night (midnight to 8 am).
They worked in each shift continuously for six days and had a single day break before resumption of the next shift. The shift workers included running staff, gangmen and those doing miscellaneous jobs.
“The longevity of each worker was computed from the dates of birth, retirement and death,” Pati said. The researchers cited a number of animal studies that documented the life-shortening effects of weekly shifting of light-dark cycles.
It has been argued that these effects could be mediated through disruption of the circadian rhythm. Lighting schedule manipulation has also been reported to produce detrimental effects on the lifespan of insects.
Posted in Chronobiology, Clock News, Rhythmic Human
I am sure that other science bloggers (on or off the Seed scienceblogs) will have to say more about all of these studies over the next few days:
To Understand The Big Picture, Give It Time – And Sleep:
Memorizing a series of facts is one thing, understanding the big picture is quite another. Now a new study demonstrates that relational memory — the ability to make logical “big picture” inferences from disparate pieces of information — is dependent on taking a break from studies and learning, and even more important, getting a good night’s sleep.
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Posted in Science News
I cannot afford to waste my time making money.
– Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz (1807-73)
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Posted in Clock Quotes
Gene Genie #5 is up on Neurophilosophy.
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Posted in Carnivals
It is Sunday. You have time to read it. And you should – no excuses! In today’s New York Times – You Are What You Grow:
—————————
For the answer, you need look no farther than the farm bill. This resolutely unglamorous and head-hurtingly complicated piece of legislation, which comes around roughly every five years and is about to do so again, sets the rules for the American food system — indeed, to a considerable extent, for the world’s food system. Among other things, it determines which crops will be subsidized and which will not, and in the case of the carrot and the Twinkie, the farm bill as currently written offers a lot more support to the cake than to the root.
—————————
To speak of the farm bill’s influence on the American food system does not begin to describe its full impact — on the environment, on global poverty, even on immigration. By making it possible for American farmers to sell their crops abroad for considerably less than it costs to grow them, the farm bill helps determine the price of corn in Mexico and the price of cotton in Nigeria and therefore whether farmers in those places will survive or be forced off the land, to migrate to the cities — or to the United States. The flow of immigrants north from Mexico since Nafta is inextricably linked to the flow of American corn in the opposite direction, a flood of subsidized grain that the Mexican government estimates has thrown two million Mexican farmers and other agricultural workers off the land since the mid-90s. (More recently, the ethanol boom has led to a spike in corn prices that has left that country reeling from soaring tortilla prices; linking its corn economy to ours has been an unalloyed disaster for Mexico’s eaters as well as its farmers.) You can’t fully comprehend the pressures driving immigration without comprehending what U.S. agricultural policy is doing to rural agriculture in Mexico.
—————————
Read the whole thing….
A must-read by Peter Eichenberger:
How does it feel that North Carolina is becoming a center for profits amid the blatant and egregious blurring of law enforcement and corrections?
With the great sucking sound, that of the vacuuming of personal information of law-abiding Americans emanating from DeeCee, I would enjoin all of you out there to study more carefully what your legislators are turning this place into–just another arm of the entity, the U.S. government, which has gotten us into more huge messes than I have time or interest in recounting.
With regards to corporations like GEO and Blackwater, like with tow-truck drivers or bondsmen, private enforcement means you lose your constitutional rights. Not only are there almost no legal limits to what they can do, but their procedures and policies are often kept from oversight for “proprietary” reasons. Vis the Wackenhut juvenile facility in Louisiana that saved money by not providing the inmates with clothing–you know, costs and all.
Posted in North Carolina, Politics
Never again: Brad Miller on Darfur by Bob Geary:
……I decided one other thing. I could no more imagine Liddy Dole performing in public the way Brad Miller did at Pullen than I could see her admitting that the Bush administration has been a disaster in every conceivable way. Dole doesn’t see any mistakes, or at least she doesn’t admit them. She’s put her energies, since getting elected to the Senate, into Republican politics and nothing else, including fronting the National Republican Senatorial Committee. If she has ever gotten up in front of a small interfaith group and openly agonized about a world problem, as Brad Miller did Thursday, and literally begged the group for their ideas on how to move forward, well–but Republicans like to deal in certainties, not complexities. And Dole, the couple of times I’ve encountered her, can’t stand to be questioned, let alone question herself out in the open.
And Miller? He’s a soul-searcher who can’t help but show it.
A Miller-Dole campaign would offer about as sharp a contrast as you could hope for, not merely between Democrats’ policies and Republicans’, but between the real, awful issues we face as Americans and the cosmetic unreality of the way we’ve managed to avoid facing up to them for too many years.
Bring that on.
Related:
Who will challenge Elizabeth Dole?
Comments Off on We need to get this guy funded and elected!
Posted in North Carolina, Politics
New Genus Of Frogmouth Bird Discovered In Solomon Islands:
Your bird field guide may be out of date now that University of Florida scientists discovered a new genus of frogmouth bird on a South Pacific island. New genera of living birds are rare discoveries — fewer than one per year is announced globally. David Steadman and Andrew Kratter, ornithologists at the Florida Museum of Natural History, turned up the surprising new discovery on a collecting expedition in the Solomon Islands. Theirs is the first frogmouth from these islands to be caught by scientists in more than 100 years. They immediately recognized it was something different.
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Posted in Science News
Boredom is the feeling that everything is a waste of time; serenity, that nothing is.
– Thomas S. Szasz
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Posted in Clock Quotes
It has ‘Coturnix’ written all over it, don’t you think? I am even wearing my PLoS t-shirt right now as I am typing this!
But, why is it necessary to move to San Francisco? My wife is terrified of earthquakes and CA is one state she always said she would never move to.
Looking at the job description, everything can be easily done sitting in my pajamas here in Chapel Hill, or on a submarine, or on the Moon. It’s all online:
PLoS ONE Online Community Manager
The Public Library of Science (PLoS) is a non-profit advocacy and publishing organization located in the China Basin area of San Francisco, California. We publish a growing collection of Open Access scientific and medical journals whose complete contents are freely available online. Our long-term goals are to create an online “public library of science” containing every scientific and medical paper ever published, and to develop the information technologies needed to maximize the value of this resource. For more information about PLoS, visit http://www.plos.org/.
Job Description
PLoS ONE is a high volume, efficient and economical system for the publication of peer-reviewed research in all areas of science and medicine. But what makes PLoS ONE really different happens after publication – users are able to annotate, comment on, and rate articles. To facilitate and moderate this post-publication interaction, we’re looking for someone with a scientific background to help guide PLoS ONE through high growth, gather feedback from the online community and keep discussions on topic.
You will be responsible for managing the PLoS ONE user community, monitoring the discussion threads, expanding membership and organically growing the site based on community feedback. PLoS ONE will be adding new technology to foster relationship-building throughout the year and you will help shape this technology. You will also work with focus groups and external communities to gather feedback and promote PLoS ONE.
This should not be your first role with an online community. We would like a couple of years experience working directly within an online community, preferably with an online scientific community.
This is a full-time, permanent position available immediately at our San Francisco office, and we are looking to fill it as soon as possible. Our salaries are competitive for nonprofit organizations, but less than comparable salaries in the corporate environments. Compensation is dependent on qualifications. PLoS offers a benefits package which includes vacation, 401(k), health, vision and dental coverage.
The responsibilities of the Online Community Manager include, but are not limited, to the following:
* Field questions from the online community.
* Work to grow the number of participants and activity on the site.
* Moderate the discussions threads and forums (which will be scientific in nature).
* Help keep the online community free of spam and on topic.
* Create and implement specific policies to guide positive growth in the online community.
* Identify problems and create solutions to social and technical problems in the forums.
* Translate online community requirements into business opportunities.
* Work with marketing team to develop e-marketing campaigns specific to the online community.
* Communicate technical issues to the web team and advise the online community on issues.
* Use an in-house Content Management System to update the website.
* Perform statistical analysis using web logs.
* Upload files to Unix servers using standard and secure FTP programs.
* Carry out other technical and site administration duties as required.
Knowledge Skills and Abilities
* 2-5 years of “hands on” professional experience with moderation and management of online communities, specifically online scientific communities. Compulsive participation a plus.
* Strong understanding of online communities, blogging and current online culture.
* A broad understanding of and enthusiasm for science.
* Strong verbal and written communication skills for monitoring online communication.
* Must work well with others; be willing and able to support end users in a constructive manner.
* Understanding, experience and comfort with Open Source technology.
* Proven ability to effectively analyze and communicate complicated technical and social issues to a management team.
* Good judgment and the ability to handle multiple conflicting goals without active supervision.
* Sense of humor and the ability to handle screaming masses of highly opinionated scientists without going insane.
* A passion for and an understanding of how to leverage Web 2.0 tools for social change.
* Must be passionate about working with the scientific community.
* Excellent analytical and problem solving skills.
Education
* BA Degree or equivalent experience.
Application Procedure
If interested please send resume and cover letter to jobs@plos.org and use the job title as the subject of your email. No phone calls or visits, please. Principals only – email from recruiters will be ignored.
If there is any aspect of this job that you think I am unsuited for, let me know. If there is another person who you think would be a great candidate for this, let that person know.
Update: Actually, a total move to SF is not out of question (now that we discussed this at home). Still, SF is the most expensive city to live in (so people are leaving for the sub/ex-urbs and adding to the rush-hour traffic even more). I was thinking I could start out in SF for a month or two, then work from here and just go to SF when needed.
Posted in Blogging, Science Practice, Science Reporting, Workplace
Yup, that was going to be the title of this post. I got the paper and was ready to write the post when I noticed that Peter scooped me and posted about the same paper today (yup, there is just not that many cool papers on Charismatic Marine Megavertebrates to spread around this week). I have nothing to add, so just go and see his post:
The results demonstrated that a free-ranging whale shark displays ultradian, diel and circa-lunar rhythmicity of diving behaviour. Whale sharks dive to over 979.5 m, making primarily diurnal deep dives and remaining in relatively shallow waters at night.
Posted in Animal Behavior, Chronobiology, Clock Zoo
A couple of days ago as I was walking my daughter home from school, I passed a group of people who I immediatelly guessed were associated in some way with the Edwards campaign because they looked so out of place in our little village: overdressed, tense and way too serious!
Then, I recognized one of the faces – from TV! It was Joe Trippi!
Well, he was certyainly not going to come all the way down to Chapel Hill just to have lunch with buddies and enjoy the weather, so I knew something was afoot at the Edwards campaign. But, although I live a spitting distance (OK, if you spit hard downwind) from the HQ, I don’t have a ‘mole’ inside the campaign who could tell me more. But I was guessing that Joe was signing on the campaign in one way or another.
And, well, that is what happened. See his announcement on the Edwards blog and more commentary in the NY Times and on DailyKos.
Some of the old Deaniacs are panicking (apparently they don’t like Trippi and he appears to be able to rub some people wrong), but I am not worried. He was not hired to run the campaign or to control the money or to craft the message. He will not have a central or a very powerful role in the campaign. He just joined an already enormous and star-studded Internet And Media team as an advisor.
Well, “advisor” is a very vague term. So, he’ll offer “advice” and it is up to Bonior and Edwards to decide if the advice is brilliant or crock. And with Trippi, there are bound to be some brilliant ideas every now and then. It is better if those are offered to Edwards than to a competitor, I guess….
Anyway, I am much more excited about Kate Michelman being a part of the team than Trippi…..
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Posted in Politics
To get anywhere, or even to live a long time, a man has to guess, and guess right, over and over again, without enough data for a logical answer.
– Robert Anson Heinlein
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Posted in Clock Quotes
You may be aware that there is a huge discussion about framing science going on in the blogosphere. It has gotten out of hand. But, for those who want to dig in, or want to analyze the posts and comments (that is a lot of data!), here is the comprehensive list of links (excluded are links to Creationists’ sites). Most of the posts also have long and interesting comment threads as well, worth reading through:
Posted in Blogging, Framing Science
Change of Shift: Volume 1, Number 22 is up on Blissful Entropy
Comments Off on Nursing Blogging of the fortnight
Posted in Carnivals
Science journalists and science communicators who attended the Knight New Media Center Best Practices: Covering Science in Cyberspace seminar in March 2007 collectively wrote a blog during the meeting:
Two dozen prominent science journalists and science communicators were invited to participate in this special conference with three goals: 1) Identify the critical issues facing science journalists in the digital age; 2) identify innovative forms of multimedia story-telling and presentation of complex issues online; and 3) identify “best practices” for coverage of science issues on digital platforms. Among the topics discussed were:
* Defining exactly what is “science”;
* Revealing untold science stories and determining why they have not been told;
* Exploring visual journalism and digital story telling techniques.
Knight New Media Center welcomes comments from readers related to the journalists’ specific discussions or related to the more general topic of science journalism. To post your comments, please browse the blog posts once the seminar has begun.
There are some interesting entries there.
(Hat-tip: Anton)
Posted in Blogging, Science Reporting
Voracious Grasshoppers Puzzle Texas Entomologists:
They’re not afraid of heights, they’re voracious, and Dr. Spencer Behmer wants to know if you’ve seen them hanging out in oak trees or on your house. They’re post oak grasshoppers, and Behmer, a Texas Agricultural Experiment Station entomologist, wants to research their life cycle and behavior. If you haven’t heard of them, don’t feel alone. Until recently, most Texans hadn’t. “I didn’t see them for the first 25 years of my career,” said Dr. John Jackman, Texas Cooperative Extension entomologist. “I would have told you there weren’t any grasshoppers that chewed on trees.”
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Posted in Science News
Take the time to come home to yourself everyday.
– Robin Casarjean
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Posted in Clock Quotes
I and the Bird #47 is up on Bell Tower Birding
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Posted in Carnivals
It is Marine Megavertebrate Week right now, so why not take a look at one of the most Mega of the Megaverts – the grey whale (Eschrichtius robustus):
Do whales sleep? You may have heard that dolphins do – one hemisphere at the time, while swimming, and not for very long periods at a time. A combined Russian/US team of researchers published a study in 2000 – to my knowledge the best to date – on sleep-wake and activity patterns of the grey whale: Rest and activity states in a gray whale (pdf) by Lyamin, Manger, Mukhametov, Siegel and Shpak.
Posted in Animal Behavior, Chronobiology, Clock Zoo, Sleep
Its’ early in the process, and many are reluctant so far….but, one person said he’d consider it (you can still recommend that Diary if you wish) – Rep.Brad Miller (D – NC13). I hope he does. If he does, I’ll knock doors for him. Why?
He’s a blogger. And he chairs the new House Committee on Science and Technology, with subpoena power.
He came to the Science Blogging Conference in January and is the person that every Democrat, every North Carolinian, every blogger and every scientist should want to see move from the House to the Senate and, in the process, oust Sen.Dole from politics. Oh, and he is a really nice guy, too.
Posted in North Carolina, Politics
Carnival of Education #115 is up on dy/dan.
Carnival of Homeschooling: #68 is up on Why Homeschool.
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Posted in Carnivals
Scientists Unravel Intricate Animal Behaviour Patterns:
There is a scene in the animated blockbuster “Finding Nemo” when a school of fish makes a rapid string of complicated patterns–an arrow, a portrait of young Nemo and other intricate designs. While the detailed shapes might be a bit outlandish for fish to form, the premise isn’t far off. But how does a school of fish or a flock of birds know how to move from one configuration to another and then reorganize as a unit, without knowing what the entire group is doing?
New research by University of Alberta scientists shows that one movement started by a single individual ripples through the entire group–a finding that helps unravel the mystery that has plagued scientists for years.
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Posted in Science News
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