Wednesday Pickings

First Neurotopia was picked for the top 30 Science blogs by the Times Online!!! Sci is very flattered and pleased for our mention:

Punchy and irreverent views on research and medical education from US postgrads/postdocs in neuroscience and physiology — and has Friday Weird Science specials on the science of sex.

W00t. Also, big congratulations go out to other awesome mentions, including Laelaps, Not Exactly Rocket Science, PZ, Bad Astronomy, Bora, Revere, The Intersection, Lay Science, the Loom, Mind Hacks, and Respectful Insolence. Sci feels like we are now playing in the big leagues or something!
And PZ posted a thing on masturbating elephants. It’s kind of crazy.

Scientia Pro Publica is out!

It actually came out yesterday, but Sci was crazy busy doing awesome sciency things. I would say I looked a lot like this:

(From Girl Genius, which is completely awesome, and which I’ve probably mentioned before. My life is TOTALLY one of adventure, romance, and MAD SCIENCE! You like yourself some awesome steampunk, start reading. You will NOT be disappointed.)
But anyway, Scientia Pro Publica is up at Lab Rat. We’re in it, and there’s a cool thing on sperm wars from Mauka to Makai. And there’s a post on the possible psychiatric illness of Salvador Dali. What, you thought those dripping watches were NORMAL?
Check it out!

Encephalon is up!

Check it out at Ionian Enchantment. Some great stuff this issue, including a great deal on ADHD from Sharp Brains. And a cool post from Mindhacks on Mummy brain scans!!!

Encephalon Issue…whatever

Is up! And we’re in it. Two posts on Opponent-Process theory! I highly recommend this edition, there’s an entire section on addiction, including an article on the addictive potential of marijuana, and another on the myth of dopamine and pleasure (ain’t pleasure, it’s…salience…sort of…of value-related stimuli).

Also, check out Juniorprof today, great post up on chronic pain, from someone who knows pain.
And finally, I’m sure you’ve all heard about Ida to death, I know I have. But Laelaps has a GREAT Op-Ed on it that’s just come out in the Times!!! And he’s been misquoted by the Discovery Institute! That’s a sign you’ve made the big-time. 🙂

Tuesday Happenings

First, a reminder to everyone to please take the condom breakage survey! Click Here to take survey. I will try to post results at the end of the week.

Second, the latest edition of Giant’s Shoulders is out over at the Evilutionary Biologist. And we’re in it, for the post on Death that proved I have never read Frankenstein. So you should read. 🙂
Not only that, the latest edition of Encephalon is out over at Ionian Enchantment! And Neurotopia is in it for the series of depression posts that have been eating my life.
And there’s a ton of great stuff that’s been going around on the blogs, especially related to academia, and to those of us working our way through grad school purgatory.
Over at I Love Science, Really, there’s a great post on keeping up with the scientific literature. I just discovered I Love Science, Really (can I abbreviate it something like “ILSR”?) and she’s got a great tone. Check it out! And to second her point: junior grad students, start reading. NOW. I am not kidding. Take copious notes on your readings, organize them obsessively, and know exactly where they are. You will thank us later.
Dr. Jekyll & Mrs. Hyde has a post up on the fear of scooping. Despite how we all like to talk about science being an open and happy environment, the fact is that there’s a lot of politics, and everyone lives in the fear of being…scooped. I now have moments of panic whenever anything comes out that even remotely resembles my thesis topic, because, though you COULD publish the least publishable unit and get it all out there ASAP, there’s something to be said for fleshing it out and publishing a lovely story. But only as long as no one does it before you do.
And in the vein of politics in science, Youngfemalescientist has a post up asking what happened to scientific discourse. It made me very worried, because I know a lot of what she’s talking about. Check it out.
And Finally, leigh has posted a GREAT post on opioid pharmacology. I’m now super pissed at her because she beat me to it. I planned to do that next week, leigh!!! But in the end, it’s all right, as she probably did the better job. 🙂

Announcing the Guest Editor for Open Lab 2009!

*drumroll*
And the winner is….
me.

Yup! Scicurious will be the guest editor of Open Lab 2009! I’m super thrilled to be involved, and it’s a big honor to be asked to do something like this, especially because it means I’ll be buried typing-fingers deep in the best science blogging to be found!
For those not in the know, Open Lab is a yearly, printed-on-the-flesh-and-blood-of-real-trees version of the best that science blogging has to offer. All submissions will be evaluated by a jury of fellow science bloggers, and the top 50 will be selected for publication. The end result is a wonderful compilation of the greats in science blogging, and is a rare note of permanence in internet world, where nothing last more than about 15 minutes. If you are curious to see, Sci recommends that you check out the new and shiny Open Lab 2008, because she’s in it.
And so, I hereby open up for 2009 submissions! To submit a post for Open Lab, please go to this submission form. You can nominate as many posts as you wish, and Sci encourages you to have no shame about nominating yourself. But keep in mind that posts must date no earlier than Dec. 1, 2008.
So start submitting! And also…just in case…Sci would like to point out that she is not judging, and so if you wanted to submit anything of HERS…just sayin’.

What happens when Sci has a life

Every so often, Sci wishes she had a life outside the lab. So then Mr. SiT takes her away from it all for a weekend. This is super fabulous, and Sci has a wonderful time, coming back refreshed and rejeuvenated to…
…her overflowing email
…her hungry cat
…her overflowing desk
…etc
and in the heat of all this, and trying to make up for wonderfully well-spent time, and caffeinate enough to get everything done, she misses things.
Things like the fact that the next edition of Giant’s Shoulders went up! Dr. Laden was kind enough to include us even though I was an idiot and didn’t submit in time. There’s some good stuff in there. I especially recommend the post on the giant killer lungfish (I need a few of these for my army when I take over the world), as well as two great posts on Francis Bacon from The Intersection.
And the next issue of Encephalon went up at the Neurocritic! We’re also in this one for our post on the mouse that couldn’t get high. I really like that Neurocritic did with the carnival, it’s really obvious that they read everything they included very closely. Rockin’.
Oooooh, one more thing. Dr. Isis has posted a FABULOUS response to a letter on grad school interviews. Sci just took the n00bs through their interviews here at MRU. Perhaps at some point I will post some advice of my own from a grad student perspective. Her advice is excellent and I hope was really helpful.
And now, back to burning the after-midnight magic. This whole training to be a science rockstar thing is hard work.

ScienceOnline ’09 and some Housekeeping

And now we’re back. The last weekend, Sci spent her time at ScienceOnline ’09, the yearly aggregate of science. Every year, the blogging salmon make their way home to spawn, to go to sessions, and, of course, to drink a LOT. It was Sci’s first time, and she had a BLAST. I think I spent half my time running up to people and going “EEEEK! I LOVE YOUR BLOG!” Sci was a very happy geek.
The people I met and blogs you may know:
Adventures in Ethics and Science
Abel Pharmboy
Acmegirl
Bora
Rebecca Skloot
Laelaps
GrrlScientist
gg
Highly Allochtha…Allocan…Alll…Chris
Greg Laden
Sciencewomen
The Fairer Science
Cognitive Daily
White Coat Underground
The Flying Trilobite
Zuska
Thoughts from Kansas
…argh, the list goes on. There were so many!! And they were all so AWESOME!
And this is where we get into housekeeping. I want to update our little blogroll over there, and I want to make sure that everyone who I adore is on it. So if you would like to be on the blogroll, and you’re not on it, this is entirely due to Sci being forgetful. Believe me, I want to see you everyday on our little sidebar! So if you want teh link loves, please leave a comment, or send me an email, and there will be a sidebar renovation in the next few days. Similarly, if you find your pre-existing link in the sidebar doesn’t work, or goes to the wrong site, or you simply hate me, also leave a comment or an email, and I’ll fix it or take it down once I’m done crying in the corner.
And finally, Giants’ Shoulders went up just as I left for ScienceOnline! And my post on Korsakoff’s Syndrome got in! Check it out, apparently there’s something else in there about porn…

I should start my own blog carnival…

…and it shall be called “stuff that Sci thinks is cool”. We can call it STSTIC (like ‘statistic’, only with misplaced letters, or maybe more like “Stastic…”) for short.
Welcome to the first issue of “Stastic”, wherein Sci gets all Spastic and Ecstatic (SEE the combination now?!) about the things she missed on the blogsphere. And she missed a LOT. When I finally got up the gumption to look at my rss feed, I found I had missed well over 500 posts. I almost went into seclusion at that point. It took me several hours to get through them all (admittedly my internet was being horrid). But there were a lot of gems. Clearly, when people are relaxed in between semesters (though ‘relaxed’ is a relative term), they can churn out some amazing stuff.

‘Twas the day of experiments, and all through the lab…

Ok, that just gave me an idea for a poem. I think I have to write it.
But first: Giant’s Shoulders went up yesterday at Rigorous trivialities. And we’re in it. So yay. I particularly like the post by bayblab on the rise and fall of phrenology.
And tomorrow is a big day! It’s the day that PLoS is celebrating its birthday!! I wonder what the terrible twos will be like for a Journal. More fights with Nature? So there’s going to be a contest, blogging your favorite paper from PLoS, and whoever wins…wins. See Coturnix for details. I’m totally in, though I’m not sure I’ll have a lot of time to put something really good together. You think I can post more than once?
And now, Sci has to go and run a TON of experiments. The poem will have to wait. But it will happen! I am inspired.