derivative work

This article (”Dark Night for Bats”, Kirsten Weir, Salon.com) compares the current wave of bat deaths with bees’ colony collapse disorder. I’d add the precipitous decline in frogs, as well.

My father-in-law (in Massachusetts) was in town for his fiftieth MIT reunion — class of 1958! He took my partner and me to a couple of events, and we noticed among the red-jacketed men a few red-jacketed women. By various accounts, there were nine to fifteen women (out of a thousand students) in [...]

Our cyberpunk future approaches: monkeys with brain implants can control robotic devices.

Starting yesterday, NIH’s new open access policy is in effect, mandating deposit of NIH-funded research (no, really, this time they mean it). See A Blog around the Clock for more info, including relevant links to info about the comments — open till May 1.

Natalie Angier began an article on sexual monogamy in the natural world by reference to the Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal. The entire article is a rebuke to the evolutionary psych hogwash that has been bandied about the Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal, although I particularly enjoyed the first sentence of the second paragraph:
You can accuse [...]

I just love the imagery in these descriptions of Saturn’s moon, Enceladus, in Friday’s NYT 3/13:
Cassini Gets a Cool Shower From an Ice-Spewing Moon
Then again, no other 310-mile-wide ice-ball moon in the solar system has a geyser of icy particles shooting out of its south pole.
Geysers of ice. Truly, this world is more wondrous than [...]

the awesome new blog from annalee & charlie (and others) io9 profiled research today on growing extra fingers. think of the piano competition bump on the resume that aggressive yuppie parents can give their six-fingered offspring!

i like this atheist’s creed pretty well. it was posted at pharyngula and i suspect that pz myers wrote it.

An atheist’s creed
I believe in time,
matter, and energy,
which make up the whole of the world.
I [...]

The seed vault I wrote about last year has opened, ahead of schedule. (NYT 2/26) Bent Skovmand would be proud.

Pharyngula recently dropped an aside on one of my favorite topics, scientists communicating about science to the public:
You can also hear the author discussing the methodology and results in a podcast, which I think is a wonderful idea. (Maybe every paper should be accompanied by a 15 minute podcast in which the author explains the [...]

God I love it when people discover more solar systems and planets. A new technique that permits detection of solar systems that include large outer planets, as opposed to large planets close to their suns, is proving fruitful. The solar system that was discovered includes large outer planets and may have small rocky planets, akin [...]

Surprise, having kids and a husband* make it less likely that women will get tenure-track positions or achieve tenure. See the “Marriage and Baby Blues: Re-defining Gender Equity” report (PDF) by Mary Ann Mason and Marc Goulden (2003).
Thanks to my partner (a postdoc) who sent me this illustrative graphic from the report.
…
* I say “husband” [...]

As a former medical librarian I thought this editorial by a medical librarian in the BMJ was fascinating.
First this amazing information:
Within a year of its release Google Scholar has led more visitors to many biomedical journal websites than has PubMed (J Sack, personal communication, 2005).
… which certainly lends credence to the pro-tagging, anti- or indifferent-to-cataloging [...]

It’s great to see more info about the rumored the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library — which will publish India’s traditional knowledge:
Indian scientists say the country has been a victim of what they describe as “bio-piracy” for a long time.
“When we put out this encyclopaedia in the public domain, no one will be able to claim [...]

A new book by Fred Jerome & Rodger Taylor, Einstein on Race and Racism, fleshes out the historical record on Dr. Einstein’s anti-racist work. The most amazing thing is that, apart from a few quotes, the work that Einstein did on race has been largely forgotten by the public, and obliterated from popular historical [...]

A friend passed me this stamp along with the following message for ‘pro-science subversives’:

These stickers are being introduced to increase awareness and appreciation of Charles Darwin. His theory of natural selection provided a simple, non-supernatural explanation for how life on earth had evolved and continues to evolve. Although scientists worldwide view evolution and natural [...]