SCQ tells us how to write a paper! If only I’d learned useful stuff like this in grad school, I’d have already appeared on a History Channel documentary about The Da Vinci Code, spewing some sort of bombast about Merovingian mitochondrial DNA. Ah, the road not taken. . .
TEN BASIC HEURISTIC PRINCIPLES FOR ACADEMIC TEXT CRAFTING, OR HOW TO PUBLISH A PAPER IN A PEER-REVIEWED JOURNAL
2 comments April 30th, 2007
Proteus Mag is a new, well-designed quarterly art magazine - download and browse the premiere issue here.
While I think Proteus is gorgeous, it does make me feel my age. A few years ago, a full-color independent pub of this length would have been practically impossible to get off the ground. I helped launch a much shorter mag in 2000, and it was rough finding the funding for two colors, much less four colors. But in the age of abundant bandwidth, an entire issue is available as a high-res pdf download, emancipated from lossy printing and tedious distribution snafus. Yay for viral indy mags.
Proteus is taking submissions for the next issue: check here.
Add comment April 30th, 2007
Jessica Fisher named Yale younger poet (Yale Bulletin)
Poet Jessica Fisher’s first book, Frail-Craft (Amazon) (Yale Press), has just been released as a paperback in the Yale Series of Younger Poets. This is quite an honor, and it couldn’t happen to a more gracious person.
The poems in Frail-Craft are deceptively quick to read. But they aren’t simple so much as lucid. Each one is a dream-like doubling of awareness: intense emotions and disorienting transitions are embraced without resistance, while simultaneously dissected objectively, rationally. The poetic voice is intelligent, with a nimble sense of humor - yet the poems unfold without strain or excessive self-consciousness. A lovely, lyrical book, Frail-Craft is the first collection for some time to leave me wanting to re-read it immediately (and I did).
“The Promise of Nostos”
Jessica Fisher, Frail-CraftThe sea is not bent on circularity: it says Here is an island,
anchor here.
But because love waits, the broken hull
is soon patched, a torn sail sewn to hold the wind,
and then once again they set course. The uncalled for jubilance
at departure, feigned tears, the make-believe dream
where so-and-so appeared to say fly away home.
They do not leave for home. They do not leave to return,
despite their promises. They leave to leave, and if I love them
it’s because they come hungry as a dream, and like a dream
their stay distills a life, or what a life could be—
Additional link: “The Right to Pleasure” (at Poetry Daily).
Fisher will be reading her poetry in Berkeley, CA on May 17.
Add comment April 28th, 2007
This is the coolest science toy I’ve found on the web in some time. It’s a visual tour of sizes, from macroscopic to microscopic - be prepared to spend some time with it, and don’t be afraid to click around. In fact, you may just want to open it in a background window and let it unspool slowly across your desktop (hey, Nikon - make this into a screensaver, will ya?)
My only criticism is the regrettable lack of microscopic objects - why aren’t DNA, a cell, a protein, a tardigrade on the list?
(And for that matter, where’s the giant squid? They have a whale, after all. . . )
Thanks to inkycircus for pointing it out.
Add comment April 27th, 2007
Yahoo and Gracenote have teamed up to create a searchable database of official song lyrics.
I’m shocked that this took so long. Clarifying song lyrics was one of the first satisfying uses I found for the internet. It’s immensely frustrating when you aren’t sure what an artist is saying, and are too poor to buy the album (or your favorite artist is so excessively, proudly artistic, when you do buy the album, you find the liner notes consist of baby photos and haiku). I never thought the Clash was “rockin’ the cat box,” but I have been guilty of appalling lyrical misconceptions, and sometimes third-party lyrics appear to have been posted by people more confused than I am.
To test this new database, I settled on the three songs that pretty much define my state of mind at the moment. It’s disappointing that my psyche can be captured in pop song lyrics - I would rather nothing less complex than a sonnet, or at least a villanelle, would do. But since it can, here are my three:
She said I think I’ll go to Boston
I think I’ll start a new life
I think I’ll start it over
where no one knows my name
-”Boston“, Augustana. This is annoying: it’s actually one of the top ten lyric downloads at Yahoo today. I am so unoriginal! I will stifle my urge to point out that I was listening to this song and putting it on mix cds a year ago, before it got heavy airplay and a piano-smashing video on VH1. Oops, I guess I didn’t actually stifle that urge, did I?
You’ll rescue me, right?
In the exact same way they never did
I’ll be happy, right?
When your healing powers kick inYou’ll complete me, right?
Then my life can finally begin
I’ll be worthy, right?
Only when you realize the gem I am
-”Precious Illusions“, Alanis Morrissette. A good test because it was popular a few years back. Has Yahoo made the effort to fill in the back catalogs of major artists? Apparently yes. I can now rest assured my whining is accurate.
Bible and beads
stacks of degrees
Reaching forever
So you take all the things that you felt then and never did show
With a picture in your head of somebody that you never did know
Put ‘em all in a box and you leave ‘em down Cinnamon Road
All the money in the world ain’t never gonna let you go
-”Cinnamon Road”, Shawn Colvin. Predictably, this song’s not in the database, despite being a newer release, by an artist that did have a bona fide hit a few years back (”Sunny Came Home”). If Shawn Colvin is too obscure for Yahoo to include all her songs, I shudder to think of an adjective befitting most of my music library. . .
Hopefully they’ll grow the database; for now, consider it a sort of beta version.
Add comment April 27th, 2007
ExplodingBowler1
Martin Waugh, 2006
Martin Waugh, kayaker and Portland (Oregon) resident, has a thing for water. He uses high-speed photography to capture images of water droplets. The resulting brightly colored organic forms, like the piece above, are reminiscent of oceanic invertebrates — or Chihuly sculptures.
Cadmium Red Persian Pair with Black Lip Wraps
Dale Chihuly, 1990
1 comment April 24th, 2007
Via biosingularity, four excellent short stem cell videos from YouTube. If you teach the stem cell topic, this could be quite useful to you in class! The portrayal of the morula - blastocyst stages and the differences in gene expression in the early embryo is very effective, although you’ll have to define some of the terms (like “trophectodermal”) in advance to avoid glazed eyes.
Now that I think about it, are there any biology profs who don’t teach the stem cell topic? It must be pretty pervasive by now. Back in 2002, I had to create a class on stem cells from scratch, and it was considered somewhat “out there.” It was also hard to find accurate teaching materials that didn’t dumb it down obscenely. Fortunately, the political controversy on this topic and resulting hype have translated into better educational tools.
One of the four videos (head to Biosingularity for links to the other three):
Add comment April 23rd, 2007
Neurophilosophy does bioephemera the honor of a tag with the Thinking Blog meme! Ironically, I’ve been traveling for the past two weeks, and (since an hour’s work on a post about framing science disappeared irrevocably into the aether of unreliable hotel wi-fi) I haven’t posted much of anything, that would make anyone think!
So which blogs make me think? It’s hard to pick only five. Many (like Neurophilosophy) have already been tagged. Some high-volume blogs, like 3quarksdaily, make me think so hard it hurts - but should that be rewarded?
As far as I know, these blogs have not been tagged yet; apologies if they are. They’re also relatively manageable feeds - so you have time to think about each post without rushing. I think that’s a big plus.
Saint Gasoline
Hungry Hyaena
Sciencesque
Bibliodyssey (some of us think in pictures)
The Examining Room of Dr. Charles
I’d like to tag more, but them’s the rules!
For those blogs I tagged, the participation rules are here, on the original post at the Thinking Blog.
2 comments April 23rd, 2007
In the New Dating Scene, the Attraction Is a Beautiful Mind (WaPo)
via Simplistic Art
1 comment April 22nd, 2007
I first encountered a reference to Smiley aromatherapy products in Jane magazine, which raves in typical Jane-ish style:
Tech-y jargon aside, the scientists behind this blew right on past aromatherapy by isolating scentless molecules that react in your brain to “activate happiness” - then they threw them in yummy-smelling body stuff.
To me, it sounded like the Smiley “scientists” blew right on past science. So I checked out the website, www.happytherapy.com. According to the site (a native english speaker needs to join the staff, pronto):
In order to have everyone smile, even the most stubborn, smiley entrusted science with the composition of an olfactive substance with euphoriant bio-mechanics. It is in nature that the components of this psycho-active cocktail were drawn. Thanks to research undertaken worldwide by scientists on the tangible benefits of aromatherapy, Smiley isolated the ingredients recognized for their stimulating capacities and assembled them for the first time in a perfume.
Smiley contains monoaminated alkaloids having a pharmacodynamic action called phenylethylamine and theobromine. Phenylethylamine is to passion what endorphin is to love. It sets off a feeling of joy, excitement and euphoria. Theobromine blocks the receivers of adrenalin and thus decreases the effects of stress by a comfortable feeling of wellbeing. These two cardiotonics associated together dope vitality and sets up the moral. It’s that simple! What were we waiting for to flood these beneficial molecules on everyone?
Good question.
Basically, they claim the happy-making effects of the products are mediated by PEA and theobromine. So why not just eat some chocolate? Theobromine, a cousin of caffeine, is found almost exclusively in chocolate (although chocolate is commonly thought to be full of caffeine, milk chocolate actually has little caffeine relative to theobromine). PEA, a naturally occurring neurotransmitter in our brains, is also found in chocolate. Although the evidence isn’t overwhelming, some people think cravings for chocolate may be a form of self-medication for slight depression.
But chocolate is a complex cocktail. In addition to PEA and theobromine, it also has anandamide, various alkaloids, and tyramine. There’s a lot going on in a chocoholic’s brain, and it’s unclear if the same effects would result from the lotions, self-tanners, deodorants, and perfumes in the smiley line. Can PEA and theobromine be absorbed cutaneously at effective levels? I have no clue (according to wikipedia, PEA is actually a skin irritant with a fishy odor. . . ).
And the texture and flavor of chocolate add significantly to the pleasure of eating it. I had a mindbogglingly good chocolate mousse on Friday and I was in seventh heaven; the nutella wrapped in pizza dough that followed was a major let-down. Both chemically chocolate, but hardly equal in pleasure.
Incidentally, since theobromine is what makes chocolate toxic to dogs (they metabolize it more slowly than we do), dog owners should keep these products safely in the medicine cabinet. Or just eat some chocolate instead. I think I will.
PS. Update: Retrospectacle has a post on caffeinated soap - a similar idea. Supposedly it works, but I don’t think I’ll be trying it.
2 comments April 22nd, 2007
Mammoth skeleton sets auction record - Boston.com
On Monday, a rare Siberian mammoth skeleton sold for nearly half a million dollars at auction. The skeleton was inexplicably named “The President.”
A number of other curiosity-cabinet staples, like a bezoar, also sold, racking up a total of $1.5 million. The auction is a sign of increasing interest in natural history collectibles. Scientists complain such specimens shouldn’t be sold to private collectors, where they become inaccessible to researchers, but at these prices museums can’t compete. And as with early 20th century art, it seems provenance problems follow skyrocketing prices. A Russian official has challenged the origin of auctioned fossils.
PS. The first line of the Wikipedia article I linked for bezoar is perfectly indicative of the Wikipedia accessibility problem:
“A bezoar or enterolith is a sort of calculus or concretion, a stone found in the intestines of mostly ruminant animal.”
Oh, of course. I’m sure everyone gets it now. It’s something to do with math!
2 comments April 17th, 2007
Portrait of Benjamin H. Rand
Thomas Eakins, 1874
This time around, there wasn’t much controversy.
The Philadelphia medical school that sold Thomas Eakins’ The Gross Clinic has now sold a second Eakins from its collection, Portrait of Benjamin H. Rand. The painting was sold to the Crystal Bridges Museum of Bentonville, AK (NYT report). The still-unbuilt museum was thwarted in its bid to buy The Gross Clinic by a consortium of local groups determined to see the historic painting stay in Philadelphia. Apparently Crystal Bridges really wanted an Eakins, and settled for the lesser-known Portrait.
What makes these sales sad is that the paintings are not merely owned by Thomas Jefferson University, they’re part of its history. Eakins studied there; both paintings depict faculty at the university’s medical school. Like a modest home that appreciates beyond its retired owners’ dreams, becoming an unwelcome tax burden, the Eakins paintings have become too valuable to keep. In selling them, and in planning to sell its third and last Eakins, the university claims to be raising desperately needed funds for educational purposes - implying that art isn’t educational, or that it is proportionately less educational than medical equipment. It’s unfortunate that they have to choose.
Add comment April 14th, 2007
Cognitive Daily has a funny post on “how NOT to write a science book.”
Incidentally, for those of you who avoid science books precisely because of the problems Dave bemoans, consider trying the Best Science Writing and Best Science and Nature Writing series. They’re collections of the best science-related essays from publications like the New Yorker, Wired, etc., and they’re generally excellent tutorials on how TO write science.
Add comment April 14th, 2007
A very nice video of childbirth by the animators at Nucleus Medical Art. It shows the way the baby turns as it exits the mother’s pelvis. I would, however, watch it with the sound off, since - at least for me - classical music doesn’t make it any less painful, and just seems a little weird.
Via biosingularity
Add comment April 13th, 2007
So Odd a Mixture: Along the Autistic Spectrum in ‘Pride and Prejudice’:
Perhaps it is high-functioning autism or Asperger’s Syndrome that provides an explanation for some characters’ awkward behaviour at crowded balls, their frequent silences or their tendency to lapse into monologues rather than truly converse with others.
Ok, I think this is a serious claim that Mr. Darcy has Asperger’s.
Excuse me, but when did personality become pathology? There’s nothing clinically wrong with Darcy - he just doesn’t like frivolous balls populated with airheads, and if he’s slightly self-occupied, it’s probably because he’s the cleverest one around. Who wouldn’t lapse into a silence or a monologue when forced to make conversation with Bingley?
According to a Yahoo story, the author also thinks Lydia has ADD.
Via Serendipities
2 comments April 9th, 2007
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