What am I doing in Washington DC this weekend

post from Pharyngula on 05 November 2008 11:24:42 PM. © Pharyngula

Besides spending some time with the good people of Americans United, I'll be giving a talk at George Mason University at 7pm on Saturday night. Here's the flyer:

If you can't quite read that tiny print, the information is also online at the Beltway Atheists Meetup Group and on Facebook.

Say, does anyone want to invite Obama to show up?

By the way, you should read AU's post-election analysis of the state of the religious right. You will be disappointed to learn that they did not simply evaporate after the election.

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42nd Street Times Square Passageway Subway Art 18

post from Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted) on 05 November 2008 08:59:59 PM. © Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted)

tags: Times Square, 42nd street, The Revelers, subway art, NYC through my eye, photography, NYC

The Revelers (2007).

Artist: Jane Dickson. Photographed in the passageway at 42nd Street/Times Square traveling east between the 8th Avenue/Port Authority Bus Terminal A, C, & E trains) and the 7th Avenue/Broadway (1, 2, & 3 trains) platforms.

I watched the workmen install these mosaics (I wish I had photographed the process to share with you) and photographed them all after the adhesive had dried.

Image: GrrlScientist 9 September 2008 [larger view].

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Dona Nobis Pacem

post from Of Cats on 05 November 2008 08:39:00 PM. © Of Cats

Today is the Blogblast for Peace. I hope today for peace, love and understanding amongst all creatures on earth.

Wishing Peace and Harmony for all across the globe :)

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Bacteria and Efficient Food Digestion

post from Curious Cat Science and Engineering Blog on 05 November 2008 07:40:00 PM. © Curious Cat Science and Engineering Blog

Gut Bacteria May Cause And Fight Disease, Obesity

“We’re all sterile until we’re born,” says Glenn Gibson, a microbiologist at the University of Reading in Britain. “We haven’t got anything in us right up until the time we come into this big, bad, dirty world.”

But as soon as we pass out of the birth canal, when we are fetched by a doctor’s hands, placed in a hospital crib, put on our mother’s breast, when we drag a thumb across a blanket and stick that thumb in our mouths, when we swallow our first soft food, we are invaded by all sorts of bacteria. Once inside, they multiply - until the bacteria inside us outnumber our human cells.
…
University of Chicago immunologist Alexander Chervonsky, with collaborators from Yale University, recently reported that doses of the right stomach bacteria can stop the development of type 1 diabetes in lab mice. “By changing who is living in our guts, we can prevent type 1 diabetes,” he told The Wall Street Journal.

The bottom line: We now have two sets of genes to think about - the ones we got from our parents and the ones of organisms living inside us. Our parents’ genes we can’t change, but the other set? Now that is one of the newest and most exciting fields in cell biology.

Follow link with related podcast: Gut bacteria may cause and fight, disease, obesity. This whole area of the ecosystem within us and our health I find fascinating. And I fall for confirmation bias on things like becoming inefficient at converting food to energy as a way reduce obesity.

You could have two people sitting down to a bowl of cheerios, they could each eat the same number of cheerios but because of a difference in their gut bacteria one will get more calories than the other.

They then gave an example of the difference being 95 calories versus 99 calories. Hardly seems huge but it would add up. Still that is a less amazing difference than I was expecting.

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Here's why we need science communicators

post from The Mr Science Show on 05 November 2008 07:11:02 PM. © The Mr Science Show

From the Border Mail, Letters 01/10/2008

When I was a kid, we never had drought after drought.

Then we started with daylight saving. We started with a little bit, but now we have six months of the year daylight saving. It has just become too much for the environment to cope with.

It is so logical, for six months of the year we have an extra hour each day of that hot afternoon sun.

I read somewhere that scientific studies had shown there is a lot less moisture in the atmosphere which means we get less rain.

I believe this one hour extra sun is slowly evaporating all the moisture out of everything. Why can't the government get the CSIRO to do studies on this, of better still, get rid of daylight savings.

They have to do something before it is too late.

CHRIS HILL, Albury

... And that's why we need science communicators!
This has also been reported in Failblog and somewhere in the smh.

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Samsung Flappable AMOLED Display

Samsung shows new flexible AMOLED display that is so thin (0.05mm) that it actually flaps in the wind!

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Proposition 8: Politics, Science and
Constitutional Bigotry

Appalled.That?s the nicest word I can think of to define my feelings about the vote for California?s Proposition 8, which bans marriage between homosexual humans.As has been discussed all over the digital tubes since last night?s election, the turn against gay marriage was largely funded by the hate and bigotry of the Mormons. I can?t [...]

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Social Networking... for Scientists!

We all love Facebook (or MySpace), but it's not exactly the most professional forum. Isn't there a better way for scientists to communicate their research and network?

The short answer is "Yes."

The long answer is "Yes, it's called ."

The brainchild of self-taught web guru and PhD student Brian Krueger, LabSpaces.Net is a social networking site dedicated to scientists. It's designed to "spread science news, maintain and create friendships, and harbor collaboration through the internet." The site is specially geared to serve researchers and labs as a community for communication in the sciences.

With a news feed, blogs, and messaging system it has everything you could want in social networking - and then some, just for us science nerds. LabSpaces makes it easy to set up a profile for your lab, linking to your labs' members and publications. You can also upload and search a Protocol Database to share and find methods. Krueger intends to add Classifieds, Personals, an Event Calendar, Video Conferencing, and an easy way to share powerpoints or poster presentations in the near future. And, of course, he's open to suggestions, if there is anything you feel is missing.

Of course there is one thing missing from the site - scientists! It's pretty new, so it needs the word spread amongst the scientific community. After all, what good is a networking site without anyone to network with? Go check it out and see what you think - and, join, if you so desire. I think it's a great idea, but it needs more people to make it really work. So if you like it, pass the news along!

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-for-scientists.html