Posts
May 10, 2013
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5:25 PM | Le Parti conservateur et la science
J’ai lu ces deux articles cette semaine… Article #1 Article #2 Soupir… Pas besoin d’en dire plus.
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Columbia has a terrible football team. The school lost 44 football games in a row the 1980s. Columbia's record in the last seven years is 15-45. Its Ivy League record is even worse.
Back in 2011 the school's marching band was even suspended for performing this song at the Cornell game (which Columbia, of course, lost):
We always lose lose lose
by a lot and sometimes by a little
we all were winners at the start,
but four years has taught us all the value of
just giving up, cuz we really
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1:42 PM | I blame the parents
From time to time, I am given to wondering why I have achieved so little in life generally. Answers suggested by my friends and family have included ‘laziness’ ‘not trying hard enough’ ‘lack of confidence’ ‘too unfocussed’ ‘too much procrastinating’ … Continue reading →
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12:47 PM | Planes
When I moved from London to Cromer, colleagues were genuinely aghast, How, they asked, would I get to international meetings? “Norwich International Airport,” I replied. It’s 35 minutes’ easy drive from my door. Parking is plentiful, cheap, and all of … Continue reading →
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I just read a particularly interesting post by Dr. Becca about life about halfway through the tenure track that got me thinking, particularly one section: I feel like most of my job right now is to be famous… What I mean by this is that I’m pretty sure a lot of my future success is […]
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10:26 AM | An eventful week for Manchester United
Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement has been on the cards for some time, so when the rumours started flying around on Tuesday night I was not particularly surprised. After all, he has served the club immensely well for over 26 years, and it made a lot of sense for him to retire on a high note, […]
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5:32 AM | This is water
Buffer On May 21, 2005, David Foster Wallace got up before the graduating class of Kenyon college and delivered one of history’s most memorable commencement addresses. It wasn’t until Wallace’s death in 2008 that the speech took on a life of its own under the title This Is Water, and was even adapted into a [...]
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(source)Hi Julie, WOW!Dogs in clothes. Corgis in bikinis at the beach. Greyhounds in onesies. We people do some weird things to our canine friends, no?! I'm pretty sure I wouldn't enjoy being dressed up in a padded outfit all day long, so I think I'll pass on sharing that experience with my dogs. As you said, cultural perceptions, ethics and expectations add a whole layer of extra consideration. It's not always easy to work out what dogs want or need. That's why I
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Wells D.L. (2009). Sensory stimulation as environmental enrichment for captive animals: A review, Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 118 (1-2) 1-11. DOI: 10.1016/j.applanim.2009.01.002
Graham L., Wells D.L. & Hepper P.G. (2005). The influence of olfactory stimulation on the behaviour of dogs housed in a rescue shelter, Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 91 (1-2) 143-153. DOI: 10.1016/j.applanim.2004.08.024
Wells D.L. (2006). Aromatherapy for travel-induced excitement in dogs, Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, 229 (6) 964-967. DOI: 10.2460/javma.229.6.964
MOTOMURA N., SAKURAI A. & YOTSUYA Y. (2001). REDUCTION OF MENTAL STRESS WITH LAVENDER ODORANT, Perceptual and Motor Skills, 93 (3) 713-718. DOI: 10.2466/pms.2001.93.3.713
Citation
May 09, 2013
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carnivorecam:
Skunks are more bad ass than mountain lions! what?
No one likes to mess around with skunks…
Love this tumblr CarnivoreCam (which is run by a UCSC PhD student who posts pictures of animals captured by motion detecting cameras throughout the Santa Cruz Mountains).
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No matter what state you hail from, he's an employee of one of your state universities.
And he's probably a coach. Except for a few states where academic deans top the list (and Nevada, where the big winner is a plastic surgeon employed by University of Nevada School of Medicine) the jocks are the big winners here.
Here's the map, by Reuben Fischer-Baum at Deadspin:
Fischer-Baum points out that just because these coaches are public employees doesn't mean their massive salaries (Mack […]
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8:56 PM | In which things flow naturally forward
I’ve been pondering the impermanence of things lately. Maybe it all started with the departure of a well-liked clinical researcher from our lab, an OB/GYN with a sense of the absurd who never failed to make us laugh. Now when … Continue reading →
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When I was in freshman biology (Biology 4A, with the great Dr. Robert Goldberg at UCLA in the late 1970s), things were pretty "old skool" about learning in and out of the classroom. We took notes during lecture. We studied. We were tested. We sweated over and earned grades. But even then, Professor Goldberg insisted that it was all about our taking "ownership" of our own learning, and he held us to strict percentage standards. In part, this was to
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In 1958, still a decade before the moon landing, Engineering made UCLA the first university with an astronautics program. This prototype of a space suit was designed in 1961.
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In the series “A Modest Proposal,” my colleagues and I will propose inventions and projects that I think are eminently doable and would love made real. So Glass from Google helps people see what you see, in a hands-free way that’s simpler to use than a handheld camera. To me, that could lead to an [...]
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Senator Elizabeth Warren, consumer advocate and erstwhile Harvard Law professor, has introduced her first bill. It would lower the interest rate that students pay on their federal education loans.
According to a piece in the Boston Globe:
Federal loan rates are scheduled under federal law to double on July 1, from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent. Warren’s bill would let students borrow instead at the rate big banks pay to the federal reserve, which she said is currently about .75 percent,
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3:32 PM | More in Odd College Rankings
Today in outlandish and sort of mathematically questionable college rankings, we’ve got a fun new one.
Not content with one shallow measure of education quality, Buzzfeed has ranked America’s party schools according to the hotness of their students. The winners?
East Carolina University
University of Georgia
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Central Michigan University
University of Colorado, Boulder
New York University
University of California, Santa Barbara
University
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1:53 PM | Feeding the genome
When the Human Genome Project wrapped in 2003, we assumed this ginormous data set would provide the much needed parts-list to fill in the blanks of human health and disease. But in the last ten years it’s become exceedingly clear that things are just not that simple. Yes, our genes are obviously more than a [...]
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This post is written by Chris Buddle (Associate Professor, McGill University). This article was originally published in “The Canadian Arachnologist” – a newsletter about Arachnology in Canada (this newsletter is no longer being published). Spider sex can be a dangerous and costly venture, the classic example being the (often) misunderstood act of sexual cannibalism (e.g., […]
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12:42 PM | Like it or not, you're in sales
It always fascinates me to get different opinion of how this career works. It's part of my interest in blogging and why I find the NIH crowd worth watching. But one thing that unites scientists is the need to sell their ideas. Without being able to pitch your research plan to an audience (whoever has [...]
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Brain monitoring 127- Transcranial Doppler ultrasound to assess cerebrovascular reactivity: reliability, reproducibility and effect of posture – McDonnell et al. Calcium channel blocker and the brain 128- Cerebral oxygenation and haemodynamic effects induced by nimodipine in healthy subjects – Canova et al. Filed under: Cerebrovascular physiology, Review of the literature
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‘Which books did you find helpful for thinking about science?’ Here’s my answer, off the top of my head: ten thought-provoking, intriguing, sometimes obstreperous works. Note that they’re deliberately not science books, and some are only tangentially ‘about’ science. (Maybe I’ll try science books the next time I feel the need for a ‘top ten’ [...]
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I used to be appalled at the quality of my students’ writing on exams and other in-class assignments. Now I’m slightly less appalled. Here’s what changed things: About ten years ago, I got overly fed up with sloppy errors on exams and quizzes. Students would misspell the most basic words, and make standard homonym errors [...]
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11:30 AM | Evolutionary theory gone wrong
Survival of the fittest? Darwin never said thatEvolution? It is only a theory, many creationists will tell you. "Only a theory" is meant to be dismissive, yet much of science is based on things that are only a theory. Theories are important; they are how science works. Theories are not facts – theories are explanations of the world that we observe. Theories are based on facts but are not themselves facts. As they are the basic stuff of science, calling something only a theory makes no sense
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May 08, 2013
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Inventors of Fantastic and Alien Tongues
Known among hobbyists and linguists as “conlangs,” constructed languages have a long history including Klingon, Na’vi and Dothraki languages —created by UCSC/UC Berkeley alum Marc Okrand, Paul Frommer and UCSD linguistics alum David Peterson, respectively.
All three can’t emphasize enough how important considerations of culture, environment and even biology are to their language creations. The four-fingered Na’vi, for instance, have an octal
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9:57 PM | How fast can trees migrate?
“As I did stand my watch upon the hill, I looked toward Birnam, and anon methought the wood began to move.” - Messenger, Shakespeare’s Macbeth The simple story of the last 2.5 million years of vegetation response to climate change could be summed up like this: temperature goes up and down, plants go back and forth. We’ve … Continue reading »
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I haven’t posted on politics for a while, but recent events have prompted me to now. As a Labour party member and supporter, there is little to be encouraged about, and much to be frustrated by. Meanwhile UKIP’s success in the council elections last week, and some of the knee-jerk reactions to this by the [...]
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7:34 PM | L’art d’assister au bon congrès
Depuis le début de mes études graduées en 2002, mon circuit régulier de congrès est le suivant: American College of Sports Medicine (environ aux 2 ans) Société québécoise d’hypertension artérielle Société québécoise de lipidologie, de nutrition et de métabolisme Société … Lire la suite →
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For those of you interested in marine science and boat-based field research: Fall 2013 Marine Mammal and Sea Turtle Research Internship Program Description The IMMS Research Internship Program is designed as a way for students interested in a career in … Continue reading →
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6:55 PM | Pregnancy and safety in the lab
I do surgeries on rats using isofluorane as anesthetic. This is a
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6:39 PM | The Viva Experience
I’ve seen a few posts around recently from anxious PhD students approaching their vivas in fear and trepidation or discussing the experience in the immediate aftermath. For instance, here is @hapsci discussing things after the event in a state of … Continue reading →
