Cane Toads

It’s Friday, I’m sleepy, and I’m not getting done as much as I should.  Still, it been a while since I posted new links.  And there are cane toads. I have a weird fascination with toads (and frogs).  They’re cute!  They have cute feet.  Slime is cool.  And all the ones I’ve ever held never bit [...]

The Child as a Projectile

I had to cover this review, just because I saw the title. If I ever have a child (pity that poor child) they will be guinea pigs for experiments on “children as projectiles”. I can’t help it, every time I read the phrase, I think of someone putting a baby with a little helmet into [...]

Animal Rights Extremists kill at least a dozen mink

….by releasing them from a mink farm. This is what happens when you set animals free without regard to the consequences. Now whether you think raising and killing animals for their fur is immoral or not, it takes a special kind of mind to cogitate that an appropriate solution is to spontaneously decrease the mink [...]

Role of serotonin in cocaine effects in mice with reduced dopamine transporter function: or, I know why they still coke up

Mateo et al. “Role of serotonin in cocaine effects in mice with reduced dopamine transporter function” PNAS 101(1), 2004. This one is a complicated, but very cool paper. But it involves some very crazy mice. So bear with me, here.

And thus the school year begins

With a whole bunch of posting on evolution and teaching it in the schools.  Most of them stem from this NY Times article about a teacher in Florida.  Lealaps has opened a thread on it, and Coturnix has weighed in with some good thoughts on why teaching evolution can be very tough, and Greg Laden [...]

I Need My Sleep!

Perhaps I grabbed on to this article with such interest because I am so COMPLETELY exhausted these days. I really think I’m beginning to suffer cognitive deficits as a result of sleep deprivation. Cirelli, Tononi. “Is Sleep Essential?” PLoS Biology Essays, 6(8) 2008. HELL YES SLEEP IS ESSENTIAL. I say that right now because I [...]

Send in the Clowns?

Today is Curious Science Friday.  It’s not crazy, though it is weird, and it is also curiously relevant.  I found a study on clowns! Vagnoli et al. “Clown doctors as a treatment for preoperative anxiety in children: a randomized, prospective study” Pediatrics, 116(4), 2005. I’ll have to begin this by stating that I’ve never really [...]

NSFW

HatTip: the dirty-minded neurotopia. It is interesting to note this use of a “tool” by a chimpanzee. My hope is that he at least wined and dined the poor toad. NSFW. AT ALL. You’ve been warned.

First real day of class

I signed up to teach 3 courses at the community college this fall; Human Biology and 2 sections of a Basic Concepts in Biology course. The latter is “remedial” biology, designed to catch up people with little or no biology experience so that when they take Intro biology, they’re all on the same level. We [...]

Maybe it’s because I’m so tired…

…but there are some HILARIOUS things on the blogs today. First I should mention that a couple of other people covered the new paper out on face processing, and they did it far better than I.  I recommend Not Exactly Rocket Science (hell, I recommend that guy no matter WHAT he posts, always an excellent [...]