Archive for June, 2009
June 30, 2009 at 9:29 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Okay, I did a little snooping around our hit stats and discovered that we could use some targeted clicking to push a couple of the blogs that are donating their June payout to the Doctors Without Borders / Medicins sans Frontieres over the next pay threshold. So if you all read a couple of extra archived posts, maybe send one to a few friends, Twitt it or whatnot we’ll be doing well. If you are a SuperReader, you might think of putting a post, old or new, from one of these blogs on the Reader’s Picks list.
First up is:
Read the rest of this post… | Read the comments on this post…
Original post by DrugMonkey none@example.com
June 30, 2009 at 9:02 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
I love it when new readers stumble upon old posts.
Such was the case when I received the following delightful comment from Seattle-based psychologist, Dr Gary Grenell, on my April 2008 post about the passing of Dr Charlotte Tan, a pediatric cancer chemotherapy pioneer:
I was probably in one of her earliest actionmycin-D trial groups for Wilms tumor in 1957. Now at age 55, 52 years later, still going strong!
Most of you scientific youngsters today probably only know of actinomycin D as a laboratory tool for inhibiting RNA synthesis. But here in the following repost, learn about the fungus-to-bench-to-bedside application of actinomycin D:
This post appeared originally on 4 April 2008.
Childhood cancer chemotherapy pioneer, Dr Charlotte Tan, dies at 84
http://scienceblogs.com/terrasig/2008/04/childhood_cancer_chemotherapy.php
Actinomycin D was the first antitumor antibiotic isolated from Streptomyces parvallus cultures by the lab of 1952 Nobel laureate, Dr Selman Waksman, at Rutgers University. However, it took a young [...]
Original post by Abel Pharmboy none@example.com
June 30, 2009 at 8:11 pm · Filed under 12788
In the latest issue of the journal Public Understanding of Science, Lorraine Whitmarsh from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in the UK, publishes a study that finds that the terms “climate change” versus “global warming” do matter to public perceptions. In a mail survey of a representative sample of 590 residents from the Portsmouth, UK region, Whitmarsh gave half the participants a questionnaire asking them to evaluate the risks and impacts of “climate change” and the other half of the sample asking them to evaluate the risks and impacts of “global warming.”
From the article, here’s a summary of the findings:
The term “global warming” is more often associated with:
? heat-related impacts–in particular, temperature increase and melting icebergs and glaciers;
? human causes–including pollution, carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, CFCs, fossil
fuel consumption, cars/traffic fumes, and overuse or misuse of earth’s resources;
? ozone depletion and increased ultraviolet (UV) light penetration of [...]
Original post by Matthew C. Nisbet none@example.com
June 30, 2009 at 7:53 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Gimme A Hug is a documentary from the Protect the Sharks Foundation.
Sharks are one of the most important top-predators in our oceans and there is still a lot we don’t understand, or even know, about this fascinating animal.
This short documentary shows one of the most mysterious phenomena in the animal world; amazing animals, showing a totally different behaviour then most people would expect.
The DVD is available for purchase with subtitles available in several languages. See the trailer at the Protect the Sharks Foundation website. Link -via the Presurfer
Original post by Miss Cellania
June 30, 2009 at 7:52 pm · Filed under 12780
(YouTube link)
If you are ever lucky enough to get the chance to drive a Ford Model T {wiki}, keep in mind that they were a bit different from modern cars. Who knew it had three pedals, none of which was an accelerator? Henry Ford Estate volunteer Ed Hebb takes you through the process. -via Metafilter
Original post by Miss Cellania
June 30, 2009 at 7:50 pm · Filed under 12782
Sylvilagus palustris hefneri is a now-endangered species of rabbit named in honor of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner. University of Central Florida graduate teaching assistant Rosanna Tursi is studying the genetic diversity of the species in the Florida Everglades, of which there may be only 300 rabbits remaining.
Hefneri is the most recently recognized subspecies of the marsh rabbit. It’s small with short, dark brown fur and a grayish-white belly. Discovered in 1984, the subspecies was named in honor of Hefner after his organization donated money to support fieldwork on the rabbits. Good for Hef!
His namesake bunnies live in an island environment and are dependent on specific grasses and plants for feeding, nesting and shelter. Population growth and development in their area has led to the death of the bunnies at the hands of vehicles or domestic animals. Their natural habitat also is being destroyed.
Link -via Digg
(image [...]
Original post by Miss Cellania
June 30, 2009 at 7:39 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
It’s easy to fall in love with this photo series from Vlad Artazov. With only bent nails and some basic sets, he is able to convey a whole spectrum of human emotions. The result is beautiful and surprisingly, sadly touching. View the whole gallery to get the full effect.
Link
Original post by Jill Harness
June 30, 2009 at 7:00 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
How many times did Pavlov ring the bell before his dogs’ meals until the dogs began to salivate? Surely, the number of experiences must make a difference, as anyone who’s trained a dog would attest. As described in a brilliant article by C.R. Gallistel (in Psych. Review; preprint here), this has been thought so self-evident “as to not require experimental demonstration” - yet information theoretic analysis suggest the idea is incorrect, at least when the time from the bell to the food is constant. More problematic is the fact that the whole issue is ill-formed for experimental verification: technically speaking, one can never actually accept the (null) hypothesis that some experimental manipulation has no effect. But as Gallistel says, while “conventional statistical analysis cannot support [the null hypothesis]; Bayesian analysis can.”
Read the rest of this post… | Read the comments on this post…
Original post by Chris Chatham none@example.com
June 30, 2009 at 5:46 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Although the paper addresses Tanzanian lions, this is a photograph of a Namibian lion Starting some years ago, we began to hear about revisions of the standard models of lion behavioral biology coming out of Craig Packer’s research in the Serengeti. One of the most startling findings, first shown (if memory serves) as part of a dynamic optimization model and subsequently backed up with a lot of additional information, is the idea that lions do not benefit by living in a group with respect to hunting. They live in groups despite the fact that this sociality decreases hunting effectiveness. This is a classic case of “but wait, I can see it with my own eyes!” vs. data.
Some of the most recent work done by Packer’s team has just been highlighted in a pretty nice write up by Mattt Walker in the BBC, representing [...]
Original post by Greg Laden none@example.com
June 30, 2009 at 5:00 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
I waited.
I knew it was coming. It had to. History was on my side. My quarry was nutty, but in a way exceedingly predictable. it wasn’t so much that I knew exactly what he would do. He wasn’t predictable in that way. It was that I knew he would do something crazy. Actually, on second thought, I did know what he was going to do. I had only to consider how ghoulishly he treated Tony Snow and Bernie Mac, and Tim Russert and how he leapt at the opportunity to abuse Christina Applegate. Whenever celebrities die, he is there, looking for any opening to blame the death on that evil “allopathic” scientific medicine. And there were two major deaths last week. Both were big, but one was really, really big. I’m talking Elvis big. Best of all for him, one of them died of cancer and the other died mysteriously.
I [...]
Original post by Orac none@example.com
Next entries »
.jpg)