Clik here to view.
Defining life foolishly
Some like to define living organisms as that which 1) reproduces, 2) has inheritance, and 3) has variation. In other words, living things would be those which evolve by natural selection. Rosie...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Drought - Garden news during dry times
It's been a bit over 3 weeks since any significant rain has fallen, and it's getting tough on plants. New plantings are being pampered with regular watering because the only alternative is to let them...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Zinc for the common cold: the industry responds
In my recent articles about zinc treatments for the common cold (in March and May), I expressed skepticism that zinc has any effect on the duration of colds. The maker of Cold-EEZE, ProPhase Labs...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A drought reprieve
The Phactor has never been more pleased to have his BBQ dinner delayed (Thai marinaded chicken). After 3 weeks of no rain (1/10th of an inch doesn't really count), some very mannerly thunderstorm...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The devil went down to Georgia, gave a talk, and sampled some beers.
When I travel, as infrequent as that is, I try to sample the local breweries. Last fall I visited Athens Georgia to give a talk and was able to try some offerings from two breweries Terrepin and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
#arseniclife wrapup
I think that the #arseniclife saga is finally nearing its end. Our refutation paper was published on Science Express on Sunday July 8; Science lifted its embargo early, to coincide with my Evolpalooza...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Tree size in relative measures
One of the big troubles with having a lot of big trees, really big trees, is that they make lots of other trees look small, or smaller, by comparision. Now this is not a problem unless one of them...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Does education mean more or less religion? It depends on the country
The relationship between education, intelligence, and religion is endlessly fascinating. Previous studies have shown that nations with higher average IQ tend to be less religious, and this holds for...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Pygmephoroidea: Lives of Phoresy and Fungi
Slide-mounted specimen of pygmephorid, Siteroptes sp., photographed by Qing Hai Fan. Today's subjects, the Pygmephoroidea, are an assemblage of mites that are mostly free-living feeders on fungi,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How long does an experiment take in biology?
A potential student asked this question, a good question, but the answer isn't easy. It takes however long it takes for the treatments to result in significant results, or until you are quite certain...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How Placebo's Evil Twin Makes You Sicker
Whenever a pharmaceutical company tests a new migraine prevention drug, nearly 1 in 20 subjects will drop out because they can't stand the drug's side effects. They'd rather deal with the headaches...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Les Cernettes
posted by @ulaulaman about #LesHorriblesCernettes #music #cern #HardronicMusicFestival Les Horribles Cernettes is a rock-swing group that started its activity with the... birth of the web! Indeed the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Do Electric Guts Dream of Android Burgers? Part 1 #microtwjc
The next paper for #microtwjc raises some interesting questions about what effects probiotics have on the gut. If you want to study the gut, and the bacteria within it, there are a number of little...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Change is here
As they say, the essence of chemistry is change, so it seems only fitting that I will be moving part of my blogging to a new blog (with the same name) on the Scientific American blogging network. My...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Tallgrass prairie not so tall this year
Yesterday was some planned maintenance work at our prairie research site. The weather was just right for field work: hot and humid, sweltering, a word based on the root "swell". It was a pretty...
View ArticleClik here to view.
#microtwjc Do Electric Guts Dream of Android Burgers ? part 2
In part 1 of this post, I briefly described the key piece of equipment used in this study- the TIM2 machine, designed to model the large intestine. So let's see what this machine can tell us about...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Grant proposal plans (yes, again...)
But this time it's not just plans for a proposal to CIHR (the Canadian equivalent of NIH). I'm certainly also going to apply to NSERC (the Canadian equivalent of NSF) and maybe to other agencies too...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A new CIHR proposal?
The more I think about the 'significance' part of our latest CIHR proposal, the weaker I think it was. So here I'm going to lay out the bones of a different proposal, one that builds very well on our...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Breaking more records than predicted
As midwestern North America continues to swelter in high temperatures and become more parched, you still haven't heard much in the news about global warming. Now as more and more crops in this bread...
View ArticleClik here to view.
First Record of Late Triassic Vertebrate Fossils from Lithuania and the...
Brusatte, S. L., Butler, R. J., Niedźwiedzki, G., Sulej, T., Bronowicz, R., and J. Satkūnas. 2012. First record of Mesozoic terrestrial vertebrates from Lithuania: phytosaurs (Diapsida:...
View Article