Congrats, Phil

First, PZ, now Phil Plait (aka Bad Astronomer) – the science bloggers are starting to invade the pages (online and hardcopy) of Seed Magazine. The lines are blurring. The old media model is crawling slowly towards the ash heap of history….

Reality will bite you if you choose to ignore it

Alan Sokal (famous for attacking the Lefty postmodernist abuse of science in the 1990s) and Chris Mooney (famous for attacking the Republican War on Science in the 2000s) sat down and wrote an excellent article in LA Times that came out today:
Can Washington get smart about science?
The article gives a historical trajectory of the problem, how it moved from political Left to the Right and what the new Democratic Congress is doing and still can do to bring back the respect for science, or for that matter, the appreciation for reality (which, no matter what the Bushies wish, they cannot make out of thin air):

For, in the end, all of us — conservative or liberal, believer or atheist — must share the same real world. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria do not spare deniers of evolution, and global climate change will not spare any of us. As physicist Richard Feynman wrote in connection with the space shuttle Challenger disaster, “nature cannot be fooled.”
To avoid nature’s punishment, we must take steps now to restore reality-based government.

Much more eloquent and up-to-date than this related, but old rant of mine.

NC blogging of the week

The very first blog carnival, the Carnival of Vanities was invented here, in Chapel Hill.
The very first state-based blog carnival, the Tar Heel Tavern was invented here, in Chapel Hill. There were about a hundred editions of this weekly carnival so far and the Second Anniversary is approaching fast.
The latest 102nd edition was posted last night on Moomin Light. Next week, the carnival comes back home to my old, recently resurrected blog Science And Politics. Send me permalinks to your best post (or two) of the week by Saturday night, at: Coturnix AT gmail DOT com.
Also, let me know if you want to host a future edition of the carnival. Let the tradition continue – meet the NC blogging friends, old and new, every week in a different virtual tavern.

Godlessness of the week

Carnival of the Godless #59 is up on Aardvarchaeology

Clock Quotes

A single day is enough to make us a little larger.
Paul Klee (1879 – 1940)

Blogrolling – added today

I don’t know why the big boys are purging their blogrolls. I prefer to grow mine:

Spheroid

A Geocentric View

Drawing The Motmot (classic archives)

Drawing The Motmot (current)

The Easthom Page

Harter Learning

Jim Buie’s blog

An Online Communities Blog

Robots Will Take Over!

I am an Asportual male, too

Perhaps not as bad as Zeno, but close.
At least I used to watch, when I was a kid, whenever Yugoslav national teams in various sports played at big international competitions like Olympics, World Championships and European Championships. I watched Red Star soccer team demolish all of its European and World competition back in 1990. I watched Jausovec, Zivojinovic, Seles and Ivanisevic at Wimbledon and French Open.
Perhaps there is a difference between inter-club competition and international competition and in the USA nobody cares about international competition. Since I never watched anything ‘domestic’ (e.g., the Yugoslav soccer league matches), I guess I would have been a complete Asportual male if I was growing up in the States as well (I just happened to hear that NCSU beat UNC in basketball today – a fact that I can report with no emotions whatsoever although I am an NCSU alum and I live in Chapel Hill – and that there is something really big in sports happening tomorrow so I have to be worried about traffic if I need to drive somewhere).
On the other hand, since I was myself practicing and competing in karate and equestrian sports at one point or another, I watched much more of those sports at all levels, from local to international and everything in between. But there, when you are inside a sport, you actually personally know many competitors – you probably had beer with them many times, etc. It is a different ball-game altogether.

When is the Biological U.N. report on Global Warming coming out?

Russ, correctly, points out that the new UN report on Climate Change says not a word about the impact global warming will have on ecosystems, plants and animals (including the human animal).

As promised, I’ll bug you about this for ten days!

Let’s make sure that this really happens.

More “balanced” view on Global Warming….!

Global Warming threat may be even harsher than the latest UN report suggests, but the Wingnuts want to make sure we teach the kids quite the opposite. Yeesh!

Oh, how thoughtful of the Intelligent Designer!

A-ha! Finally! Now I understand the connection between Creationism and the overall anti-sex sentiment of the Fundamentalists!
New reseaarch shows that E.coli swim upstream due to the Design of their flagellum! And where do they swim from and swim to? Yes, you guessed it right! And you can also watch the movie.

You think we are sick and tired of conference organizing?

Think again! Not just that we have already started planning for the NEXT year’s Science Blogging Conference, but Anton is taking the lead in organizing another one this summer. And if all you liked at the SBC was dinner (and please do tell us if that was the case), you are definitely going to love this one: it is a Food Blogging Conference! Check the proposed program – eating, eating, eating (yes, and some tasty drinking as well) and liveblogging it all!
Update: There is more related news here.

While you are reading this…

…I am doing this, and probably enjoying it just as much as every time before…

My picks from ScienceDaily

Researchers On The Path To Building Bone:

UAB (University of Alabama at Birmingham) researchers have developed a method to increase bone density in mice, a development that might have future benefit for humans in the treatment of osteoporosis and bone fracture. The research, published in the Jan. 29 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, involves manipulation of the Pten gene, which contributes to the process by which cells die, known as apoptosis.

Food-mood Connection: The Sad Are Twice As Likely To Eat Comfort Food:

People feeling sad tend to eat more of less-healthy comfort foods than when they feel happy, finds a new study co-authored by a Cornell food marketing expert. However, when nutritional information is available, those same sad people curb their hedonistic consumption. But happier people don’t.

Huge Settlement Unearthed At Stonehenge Complex:

Excavations supported by National Geographic at Durrington Walls in the Stonehenge World Heritage site have revealed an enormous ancient settlement that once housed hundreds of people. Archaeologists believe the houses were constructed and occupied by the builders of nearby Stonehenge, the legendary monument on England’s Salisbury Plain.

Dig Deeper To Find Martian Life:

Probes designed to find life on Mars do not drill deep enough to find the living cells that scientists believe may exist well below the surface of Mars, according to research led by UCL (University College London). Although current drills may find essential tell-tale signs that life once existed on Mars, cellular life could not survive the radiation levels for long enough any closer to the surface of Mars than a few metres deep — beyond the reach of even state-of-the-art drills.

Evidence For Human-caused Global Warming Is Now ‘Unequivocal’:

The first major global assessment of climate change science in six years has concluded that changes in the atmosphere, the oceans and glaciers and ice caps show unequivocally that the world is warming. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes that major advances in climate modelling and the collection and analysis of data now give scientists “very high confidence” (at least a 9 out of 10 chance of being correct) in their understanding of how human activities are causing the world to warm. This level of confidence is much greater than what could be achieved in 2001 when the IPCC issued its last major report.

Clock Quotes

So little time and so little to do.
Oscar Levant (1906 – 1972)

Friday Weird Sex Blogging – a cop-out again, and 15 minutes late…

I was in the middle of writing a serious review of a paper meant for Friday Weird Sex Blogging, when reading this paralized me (hopefully only transiently and I will finish it by next week).
So, when in trouble, I can always go back to Physics Of Sex and see if Buzz has someting new up. And he does.
Is the Select Comfort air mattress good for sex? To answer that question, a good scientist performs an experiment.
The Brownian motion of bar-hopping is something you need to know about if you are single and on the dating scene (thank FSM I am not, and hopefully never will have to be again).
And this book seems to be for the true connoisseur, though I am interested to know more details about the purported adaptive function of female orgasm. Ill just have to put it on my wish list for now, until I can afford to buy it.

How the Giraffe Got Its Neck? Take 2

A few weeks ago I mentioned (and kinda joked about it – see the accompanying images) a study about the adaptive function of the giraffe’s neck. Now Darren Naish goes into more detail about the study and does it much more seriously than I did. And John Wilkins adds a historical context (to which I alluded in my older post).

Bioinformatics Blogging of the Month

Bio::Blogs #7, the carnival of bioinformatics and quantitative biology, is up on BioHacking

Counter-propaganda

On Iran:
Ezra Klein gets the interview and comments on it. Breathe a deep sigh of relief.
The House:
Elizabeth explains and Jim Buie and Sam Spencer defend. Nature preserve and a Green House, not a McMansion.
Gay Marriage:
Better honest and open than wishy-washy, says the LGBT community.

Basic Terms and Concepts – update

John Wilkins is updating, daily, the list of blog posts on Basic Terms And Concepts in science and math from archaeology to physics to philosophy of science. Keep checking it out until we have a permanent repository for this.

Good Blog, Bad Blog

Some politicians fear blogs. They must have something to hide, dontcha think?
Other politicians love blogs and run their own. Unsurprisingly, they are beloved by their constituencies.

If you had better things to do today…

…here are brief summaries of what they said and how they were received (e.g., how many standing ovations, bloopers, etc.):
DNC Winter Meeting: Chris Dodd On The Stump
DNC Winter Meeting: Barack Obama On The Stump
DNC Winter Meeting: Ret. Gen. Wes Clark
DNC Winter Meeting: Ex-Sen. John Edwards On The Stump
DNC WInter Meeting: Hillary Clinton On The Stump

I Just Can’t Do It

When good things happen, I am the first to cheer. If it is your birthday or blogiversary, you got married or your child is born, if you got a promotion on a job or published a paper – you know I am the first one to post a comment on your blog, perhaps post about it here…
But when the news are bad, I just clam up. I dont’ know what to say. I have no idea how many times over the past few days (and months, really) I wanted to post a comment on Chris Clarke’s blog, to say something about Zeke. A couple of times I started writing, just to hate what I wrote (too sad, too cheerful, too condescending, too emotionless, too emotional…) and never hit “Post”. While my eyes were welling from Chris’ words.
Likewise, I never said anything about the death of Molly Ivins. I usually have an easy time grieving over public people’s deaths, but for me Molly was much more…dunno, closer? Intimate? I felt like I knew her personally although I never met her in person. I only read her op-eds. I read “Bushwacked” (still a must-read – the title is deceiving as the book is a well-documented account of the way Bush Administration places GOP party hacks in positions of power in various Federal departments, eliminating ombudsmen, removing any venues for complaint or redress by the litle man and giving the mega-corporaitons the run of the country). That’s it. Yet, the news of her death really hit me personally.
But I don’t know what to say and how to say it.

Beagle Project Update

I guess I will bug you about this for the next ten days – my personal pet cause if you want. No takers yet….
Here is the e-mail newsletter about it I got today:

Dear All,
Beagle Project updates:
• We are now a UK registered company and have applied for charitable
status; now that we officially exist and are accountable we have
started fundraising,
we have paypal donate buttons on the
Homepage and weblog page:
www.thebeagleproject.com
www.thebeagleproject.com/beagleblog.html
we’re asking individuals for a Darwin (£10) or a Jackson ($20 – he was
US President at the time of the voyage. Corporate sponsorships packs
available: email me.
• Our profile has shot up following recent write ups on the popular
American science websites Pharyngula and A blog around the clock here:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/01/the_beagle_project.php
and
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/01/miss_prism_has_a_brilliant_ide.php/
and here:
http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2007/02/help_fund_the_beagle_project_a.php
and several good fundraising ideas outlined on our beagleblog here
http://www.thebeagleproject.com/2007/01/good-people-good-will-good-ideas.html
• TV interest: lots of it, especially from stations from outside the
UK. Bigwave TV who specialise in science and natural history
programming have shot a promotional film about the project – contact me
if you’re interested.
• We have had some tremendous free advice from PR and fundraising
professionals whose hourly rates would make your eyes water and we’re
now recruiting admin support so we can step our efforts up still
further.
• We are working towards developing the science and education aspects
of the programme, bringing professionals in to advise and manage. BUT
the priority right now is fundraising for the build. We need £100,000
(well £98,500 after the last three days donations) by April and £3.3
million in 14 months if we are to have a replica HMS Beagle sailing and
celebrating Darwin in 2009. Ideas and contact which may lead to
sponsors and donations welcome.
• And finally, a small but necessary rant for which I make no apology.
This is a photo of the replica of HMS Endeavour entering Whitby
harbour.
endeavsml%20copy.jpg
The estimated crowd in town on that day: 20,000. James Cook learned
his seamanship in Whitby, the original Endeavour was a Whitby built
ship. Yet this replica was built in Australia, because a British
attempt to build a replica HMS Resolution (another of the Whitby built
ships on which Cook circumnavigated the globe) had collapsed amid
shrugging British indifference. I don’t want that to happen to Beagle:
the build of the Beagle in Britain could be the story that keeps
interest in Darwin200 bubbling away in the media and (especially) gets
young people interested during 2008 (I’m a youth sail training skipper
and regularly attend the Tall Ships Races – square riggers fire young
people’s enthusiasm like little else). The launch will be a headline
story and its arrival in the Galapagos, sailed by a crew of
international young scientists will be an image that goes round the
world. And the Beagle will science, especially the teaching of
evolution, a legacy for the ship’s 30-odd year working life. There are
just 741 days until 12 February 2009 – we can have a replica HMS Beagle
in the water by then. It will take three months to have the plans
approved and 14 months to build. But for that to happen we need your
enthusiasm, donations, overt support, contacts and assistance right
now. Not in 2008, or 2009.
Have a look over the newly poshed-up website: if you run a website or
weblog, please feature us, link to us and help spread the word.
Forward this email to people you think may be interested and if you
think they should be but aren’t interested enough, light a fire under
them. 2009 will be really missing something if there is a Beagle
shaped hole in it. The last couple of days have really (temptation
use corny wind/sail sailing metaphor…resisted) raised our profile and
interest, especially in the US and I’m keen that we keep the momentum
up and turn this is practical offers of financial support, advice and
media coverage.
Regards,
Peter McGrath
Trustee, project co-founder, website designer.

Teen Sex, ‘Hooking Up’, Gay Marriage, Femiphobia and Bush Victory Are All Interconnected

Teen Sex, 'Hooking Up', Gay Marriage, Femiphobia and Bush Victory Are All InterconnectedContinuing with the last week’s topic (originally posted on March 11, 2005 – click on the spider-clock icon to see the comments, including by Mark O’Connell – who I subsequently met and blogged about, on the original post)

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Harry Potter, Vol.VII

Potter%20cover.jpgHarry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is now available for pre-order at Amazon. I ordered two copies (one for me, one to send to friends in Belgrade). Regular issue, not Deluxe. It ships July 21, 2007. Can’t wait!

Semidead?

Sounds like Washington Press Corps over the past six years (and more). But really, it has something to do with genetics. Either you are alive, or you are fully, truly dead, or you are just not dead yet.

My picks from ScienceDaily

Lots of good stuff today – hard to pick favourites:
Human Preference For Other Species Could Determine Whether They Survive:

As humans exert ever-greater influence on the Earth, their preferences will play a substantial role in determining which other species survive. New research shows that, in some cases, those preferences could be governed by factors as subtle as small color highlights a creature displays. In the case of penguins, mostly black-and-white flightless birds that live predominantly in the Southern Hemisphere, those most popular with humans appear to be the ones that display markings of warm colors such as red, orange or intense yellow, said David Stokes, a conservation biologist at the University of Washington, Bothell.

More, under the fold….

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Clock Quotes

Time does not change us. It just unfolds us.
Max Frisch

Blogrolling – added today

Natural History Artworks

Primordial Blog

Salutor

Framed

Welcome To DigitalKaos

The Contemplative Nuthatch

Commonground

Jonstraveladventures

Positive Psychology Blog

Strange Loops

To Netroot or to Pretend to Netroot?

A tale of two candidate’s video distribution strategies:

These examples highlight an interesting problem for candidates: while YouTube offers tools to manage posting comments, you cannot control what content your page links to. In going to “where the people are,” you leave yourself open to direct commentary from the people. Counter-commentary may be located directly beside your stumping. Contrast this to Brightcove’s promise of control, an interface that does not link directly to intertextual documents. Additionally, even when you find commentary on Brightcove, it is coming from established sources. While you might get criticized it is coming from the media, rather than the people you are trying to reach.

Brian (on Yesh) comments:

Some old school campaign advisers and PR folks may think that the main stream media has the loudest final word on truth about politicians. Wrong. Perception is an important factor. Word of mouth effects perception more than traditional media. Why? Trust. People don’t trust corporate media as much as they used to.
The democratization of communication has let loose a giant amount of opinions and facts hereto unavailable to so many people. It balances and counterbalances the spin corporate media has on it. The Internet give us choice and teaches us how to be responsible media users. (previously known as media consumers)

Physics Blogging of the Week

Philosophia Naturalis #6 is up on Science And Reason. Have I missed any other carnivals this week?

Big Plans for NC (and Triangle) Blogging in the New Year

So, whats’ cookin’ in the local blogging world? Quite a lot, actually.
First, our little group, BlogTogether is growing, growing. Instead of being just a little <a href="Anton’s sideproject, we are thinking of turning it into a non-profit organization – so if you have experience with founding non-profits please let us know ASAP.
Also, apart from Anton, several others (including myself) are now able to post there. This will make the blog much more active and interactive this year than it was ever before. We are also looking for a nice-looking logo for it so we can slap it on side-bars of all of our blogs. If you have talent, give it a try!
Second, we are much more ambitious with meet-ups this year. We plan on having, each month, one virtual meet-up (here). We’ll continue with our regular two meet-ups (at Milltown at 6:30pm) where we sit down over coffee or beer and chat, usually starting with a particular topic (see here for some topics we are planning for February and March), before it becomes a free-for-all. Even if you are not a blogger – come by and within minutes you’ll have a blog of your own as we’ll help you set one up in minutes!
Once a month we’ll have a more active meet-up, actually doing something fun for a change (and get our butts off the comfortable chairs). This month, we’ll go bowling (hey, the place has wi-fi, so you can liveblog!). In the past, we’ve had between four and eight people normally showing up at meetups (unless a celebrity comes by – then everyone shows up). Let’s try to have a greater attendance this year. After all, now that both Pandagon (with both Pam and Amanda living here) and Panda’s Thumb are Triangle-based blogs (should our logo have a panda on it?!), the epicenter of power-blogging of the world is somewhere in the RTP area, I’d guess. So come by and meet the blogging stars!
We are already planning the second Science Blogging Conference (and the anthology to go with it) for early 2008!
In the meantime, think about joining us for the FoodBlogging series of events (if eating, drinking, eating, drinking and repeating it all over again can be called ‘events’) this summer. Sure, click on that link and salivate! What great places to eat and drink with fellow bloggers and blog about it!
Anton is hinting about some major activity on the StoryBlogging front this year as well.
And there are more ideas floating around (a design conference, perhaps an EduBlogging Conference, etc.)
Finally, and very importantly, the Tar Heel Tavern #102 will be hosted at Moomin Light this weekend. There is no theme, so send whatever you’d like to: songfinn AT yahoo DOT com by Saturday evening..
Once again, the Tavern was closed last weekend for the lack of a host. Let’s not let this carnival die – it was the first state-based carnival ever and it survived two years and more than 100 editions!
Do you want to host in the near future? Let us know. Do you want to get more involved in managing the carnival (as Laurie, Erin and I are both too busy with other stuff to do so full-time)? In any case, let us know at: coturnix AT gmail DOT com (me) or lponeill AT att DOT net (Laurie).

JRE links for today

The Way Down South: Johnny Populist & The Born Fighter:

In short, Moser’s new article (part of a series on Southern Politics) debunks the myths perpetuated by the DLC and national pundits, skewering John Kerry’s “anti-Southern strategy” and Thomas Schaller’s “Whistling Past Dixie” and advocating a new Democratic Populism to win back not only large sections of the South (not to mention the industrial Great Lakes states).

Former NC Senator John Edwards to Walk In Our Shoes:

Edwards Is First Presidential Candidate to Accept SEIU Challenge to Spend a Day in the Life of a Working Family

Former Senator John Edwards has agreed to be the first presidential candidate to spend a day on the job and at home with a member of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

Hybrids and Light Bulbs and Action

The day the independent inspector came to evaluate the house, we were on pins and needles while he tested our home’s energy performance. As he packed his equipment, he gave us the good news: we are an Energy-Star home!

Edwards wrapping up the left blogsphere & Obama’s got the Millennial’s

This is a interesting angle of hires from the netroots for Edwards. Shakespeare’s Sister and Pandagon are blogs that I think would be characterized as ‘ideologically-centered’ as oppossed to being ‘big-tent’ democratic blogs. This is actually the first move by the Edwards campaign in the netroots that I find ground-breaking.

Women on Top at the Edwards Campaign

However, not being familiar with these websites, what I liked from both was they were not centrist, mushy, can’t we all get along blogs. They are clearly left of center, with strong and witty writing. I like that Edwards seems to be pushing both the presidential agenda AND hopefully his blog and netroots outreach leftward.

Related:
The Most Fantastic Blogospheric News of the Day (or longer)
and
The Most Fantastic Blogospheric News of the Day (or longer) – Part Deux!

Help Fund The Beagle Project – and have fun doing it!

I first saw about this on Pharyngula the other day and I think it is a majestic idea! A group of Brits are trying to build a replica of HMS “Beagle” and, on the Darwin Bicentennial in 2009, sail around the world following the exact path Charles Darwin made on his historic voyage. Have scientists, journalists and, yes, bloggers, on board who will do research, take pictures and videos, and write their ship-logs for everyone to read (if a ship-log is on a blog, is it called shlog?). Stop at every port and promote evolution!
Most definitely take your time to check out their website and blog to learn more about the project.
They’ll have wi-fi on the ship. They intend to have webcams on board as well. Oh, how I wish I could be on board! You can just imagine what kind of mad blogging I’d do! Any sponsors out there?
I wonder how long the trip would last? After all, the original Beagle took a lot of time mapping the coast of South America and exploring the inland areas in multi-day and sometimes multi-week parties. The new Beagle does not need to do that and can probably cut the total sailing time down to a year or even less.
But such a big project requires money! A lot of it – $6 million! And this is where you can help. Miss Prism, PZ Myers, Adam Turinas and others are coming up with creative ways to urge their blog-readers to donate to this worthy project. You should do the same on your blog!
Since, unlike MissPrism, I cannot knit, and I am not rich, how can I help? Perhaps I can urge you all to donate and, if you are interested, you can forward me the payment-confirmation e-mail (you don’t have to, of course). I will not reveal your name and link on my blog (unless you insist), but will post every day over the next ten days to reveal what the highest donation was to date. At the end of a ten-day period, I will contact the person who donated the most (to ask for permission to use the name and link and to give me the snail-mail address) and send that person a copy of The Open Laboratory. That’s probably the only thing of value I have and can give!
So, start donating now! And spread the word!

This is a busy week in the world of Blog Carnivals…

Skeptics Circle #53 is up on Slicing with Occam’s Razor.
Festival of the Trees #8 is up on Ginkgo Dreams.
There is a (finally!) brand new Carnival of the Mathematics
And, although there are already three other EduCarnivals doing well, there is another one coming, the Carnival of the Edublogs focusing on the use of technology in the classroom.
And I linked to a bunch of other carnivals already this week as the new editions were getting posted…

Are you a science blogger?

If so, you should read this, print it out and stick it on the side of your computer monitor. Then re-read it every time you sit down to write a post discussing actual scientific research.

Introduction to Anatomy and Physiology

BIO101 - Lecture 5: Introduction to Anatomy and PhysiologyNext in the series of BIO101 lecture notes. Chime in to correct errors and make it better (reposted from June 11, 2006):

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My picks from ScienceDaily

Nonvenomous Asian Snakes ‘Borrow’ Defensive Poison From Toxic Toads:

Most snakes are born with poisonous bites they use for defense. But what can non-poisonous snakes do to ward off predators? What if they could borrow a dose of poison by eating toxic toads, then recycling the toxins? That’s exactly what happens in the relationship between an Asian snake and a species of toad, according to a team of researchers funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Integrative Organismal Systems (IOS).

More….

Continue reading

Clock Quotes

Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.
Benjamin Franklin (1706 – 1790)

Anthropology and History Blogging of the Week

Four Stone Hearth #8 is up on Northstate Science
The 47th History Carnival is up on ProgressiveHistorians

The Most Fantastic Blogospheric News of the Day (or longer) – Part Deux!

How many such pieces of news can one survive in one day!
Now that Amanda has been welcomed by concern-troll-mysoginists who followed her from her blog to the Edwards campaign blog (where, frankly, nobody lets them stir the pot) there is another great piece of news!
Melissa McEwan, aka Shakespeare’s Sister was also hired by the Edwards internet team. Go say Hello to her as well. Edwards certainly has great taste and good sense how to win over the netroots!

If you are a Triangle area blogger…

…I’ll see you here tonight at 8pm.
Which is right now!

Greenwich time to remain Greenwich time

In light of my post earlier today about the discrepanices between ‘real time’ and ‘clock time’ (or ‘social time’), it is heartening that the Parliament in the U.K. wisely decided not to switch their clocks to the time the rest of Europe observes. If they did, they would be seriously out of whack. After all, at Zero Meridian in Greenwich (yup, I stood astride it, of course), midnight is really midnight – it is the middle of the time zone. Resetting it by one hour would put the Brits at the far Western edge of another time zone and they would always experience true midnight a long time (60-120 minutes!) after the clocks say it is midnight (the same goes for dawn, noon, dusk and any other time).
Now, if they (and us and everyone else) could only decide not to go through the twice-annual ritual of re-setting the official clocks by one hour (Spring forward, Fall back), that would save a lot of lives….

New Model for Interval Timing

While study of Time-Perception is, according to many, a sub-discipline of chronobiology, I personally know very little about it. Time perception is defined as interval timing, i.e., measuring duration of events (as opposed to counting, figuring which one of the two events happened first and which one second, or measuring time of day or year).
Still, since this blog is about all aspects of biological timing, I have to point you to a new paper in Neuron (press release) about a new computer model for human time-perception.

“If you toss a pebble into a lake,” he explained, “the ripples of water produced by the pebble’s impact act like a signature of the pebble’s entry time. The farther the ripples travel the more time has passed.
“We propose that a similar process takes place in the brain that allows it to track time,” he added. “Every time the brain processes a sensory event, such as a sound or flash of light, it triggers a cascade of reactions between brain cells and their connections. Each reaction leaves a signature that enables the brain-cell network to encode time.”

Of course, this is a little vague as far as neurophysiology goes, and we need to remember that even the most brilliant mathematical model may end up being wrong. Still, the model seems nifty and I hope they follow up with real lab work to test it.
Steve of Omni Brain has more and points to this 2005 review of the topic in Nature Review Neuroscience.

Green Invertebrates

Circus of the Spineless #17: The Symbology of Invertebrates is up on The Voltage Gate
Carnival of the Green #62 is up on Jetson Green

Liberal Blogging of the week

Carnival of the Liberals #31 is up on Pollyticks.com

Ugh!

You may have heard that Joe Biden announced today (or was it yesterday, who pays attention any more) that he is running for President. Just like he announced last week. And the week before. And several consecutive weeks before that. Still hoping someone – anyone – would notice.
But also, Joe Biden announced today that his Presidential campaign is over:
Biden
Biden?
Biden!

Sun Time is the Real Time

Blogging on Peer-Reviewed Research

If you really read this blog “for the articles”, especially the chronobiology articles, you are aware that the light-dark cycle is the most powerful environmental cue entraining circadian clocks. But it is not the only one. Clocks can also be entrained by a host of other (“non-photic”) cues, e.g., scheduled meals, scheduled exercise, daily dose of melatonin, etc.

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‘Pulp Fiction’ does not need to pay copyright, just be honest

'Pulp Fiction' does not need to pay copyright, just be honest(August 10, 2005)

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