It’s called Science Illustrated and should not be confused with a magazine that was published by McGraw-Hill from about 1946 to 1949 and sold for 25 cents an issue. The present incarnation of Science Illustrated is published by the Swedish Bonnier Group and is essentially a translation of a Scandinavian science magazine. Bonnier also publishes Popular Science in the United States, and the magazine is produced by the staff of Popular Science.
I really need more time to fill in a gap in my microbiology education: environmental microbiology. I run across papers all the time that are absolutely fascinating, and wish I had a free year to just take some additional coursework in this area. For instance, a paper in today’s Science magazine discusses how atmospheric bacteria result in the formation of snow.
More over at Aetiology.
[EDITED TO ADD: thanks! We reached 1000 survey responses in just about 10 hours’ time, so the survey is now closed…we really appreciate your participation!]
If so, we’d love to have your input at a quick survey looking more closely at science blog readers (and writers!):
This survey attempts to access the opinions of bloggers, blog-readers, and non-blog folk in regards to the impact of blogs on the outside world. The authors of the survey are completing an academic manuscript on the impact of science blogging and this survey will provide invaluable data to answer the following questions:
Who reads or writes blogs? What are the perceptions of blogging, and what are the views of those who read blogs? How do academics and others perceive science blogging? What, if any, influence does science blogging have on science in general?
Please consider participating in the survey as an act of ‘internet solidarity’! It will likely take 10 minutes, and a bit more if you are a blogger yourself. We thank you in advance.
An acquaintance of mine died last week, and I just found out about it. Alex, Irene Pepperberg’s African grey parrot, is dead at the age of 31. There’s no particular cause that has been identified for his death, and he was pretty much just approaching middle age for an African grey. Alex is best known for being the primary subject in Pepperberg’s research on animal cognition, and especially non-human cognitive psychology, explored through Alex’s ability to communicate through spoken English.
More on the Austringer.
Thanks to Bob O’H (hat tip) I have discovered that my book review of E.O. Wilson’s The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth has been published in Trends in Ecology and Evolution (TREE). Wilson attempts to set aside the evolution/creation issue to encourage evangelicals to join him in saving biodiversity. The review is currently the online-before-print version, I assume it will be in the May issue. The journal requires a subscription but I will post a bit below.
I have to add that I take a little extra pleasure in getting to correct Wilson, in my opinion the world’s leading living biologist, for mistakenly talking about the “spinning bacterial cilium” when he meant “bacterial flagellum.” OK, I am still a tiny ant compared to Wilson (and Wilson literally is a god among ants, so that is saying something), but hey, I am on a crusade about the flagellum thing.
After this storm cloud, there came another, which produced only little roses or wheels with six rounded semicircular teeth … which were quite transparent and quite flat … and formed as perfectly and symmetrically as one could possibly imagine. There followed, after this, a further quantity of such wheels joined two by two by an axle, or rather, since at the beginning these axles were quite thick, one could as well have described them as little crystal columns, decorated at each end with a six-petalled rose a little larger than their base. But after that there fell more delicate ones, and often the roses or stars at their ends were unequal. But then there fell shorter and progressively shorter ones until finally these stars completely joined, and fell as joined stars with twelve points or rays, rather long and perfectly symmetrical, in some all equal, in others alternately unequal. (1)
The beauty, symmetry and diversity of snow crystals have long fascinated scientists. Snow crystals come in endless variety of six-fold symmetric shapes, sometimes thinner than a sheet of paper and up to 3 millimeters across. How can they grow in a three dimensional bath and yet be thin? What natural processes could lead to great diversity of shapes that are complex yet symmetric? What keeps opposite sides of the growing crystal in step even as a unique shape is forming? And with slightly different temperature or humidity produces sensible hexagonal columns instead? Is there any rational explanation for the generation of these crystals out of thin air? Can you formulate a hypothesis that even has a chance?
Stanford University microbiologist Esther Miriam Zimmer Lederberg, a trailblazer for female scientists and the developer of laboratory techniques that helped a generation of researchers understand how genes function, has died at Stanford Hospital.
Professor Lederberg, who lived at Stanford, was 83 when she died Nov. 11 of pneumonia and congestive heart failure.
She discovered the lambda phage, a parasite of bacteria that became a key tool for the laboratory study of viruses and genetics, and was the co-developer with her husband [Nobel prize winner Joshua Lederberg] of replica plating, a technique for rapid screening of bacteria for desired mutations.
“She developed lab procedures that all of us have used in research,” said cancer researcher Stanley Falkow of the Stanford University School of Medicine.
She was also a pioneer of women’s rights, becoming a full professor at a time when women were rare on the faculties of Stanford and other major universities. “She was a real legend,” said Dr. Lucy Tompkins of Stanford.
(Continued at Aetiology)
We here at the Thumb are taking advantage of the long weekend to rest and recuperate: please don’t expect another review to be posted before Tuesday.
In the meantime, I’ve posted a review of modern cardiological techniques today. The backstory is that a few of the contributors to the Panda’s Thumb have, in their time, suffered chest pain or heart attacks. A question was recently asked about the difference between ballooning and stenting and, in an email of response, I ended up summarizing the history of invasive cardiology and thrombolytics in a brief essay. Below the fold, I post a version of that essay with hyperlinks to web resources where you can learn more about cardiology.
Best wishes for a great weekend from The Panda’s Thumb crew!
On August 24, the International Astronomical Union is going to vote on a proposal (here is the official resolution) to define the term “planet” such that Pluto stays in, and three bodies get added. This would require the re-writing of textbooks and make millions of first-graders learn 12 planets instead of nine. The planet status of Pluto has long provoked heated and fairly pointless and silly debate, much of it by people who are only vaguely familiar with astronomy but feel strongly about the definition of planet, a tradition which I fully intend to continue here.
The last known living acquaintance of Charles Darwin, Harriet the Galapagos Tortoise, died recently after a short illness. She was only 176. Some IDists are so desperate for good news – and evidently so superstitious – they are hopefully interpreting Harriet’s passing as an omen (see “A presage of another death?”). Others might note that the fact that Darwin’s pet tortoise was an international celebrity, whose death was widely mourned, is not exactly encouraging news for the evolution-deniers out there.
Over at the American Museum of Natural History is an online exhibit on Darwin, that features a Galapagos tortoise webcam! It’s rather soothing, the tortoises aren’t very speedy. (Hat tip to Margaret)
Tangled Bank #39 is now available at The Questionable Authority. Enjoy.
Today, Panda’s Thumb has experienced its highest traffic yet. While the daily hits were growing quite solidly, PT managed to attract over 10,000 visits with over 14,000 page views. [oops make that 11,500 and 16,000. At this rate PT is 3 days away from a million visits]
Congratulations to a fantastic team. Check out the stats for This Month
Reed Cartwright provide the following graphics
This is off topic, but over on my personal blog I have some low-resolution before and after pictures from New Orleans. The flooding, even at the very low resolution of these images, is simply mindnumbing.
My heart, and I’m sure the heart of everyone here, goes out to all those impacted by this tragedy. People will need lots of time, lots of effort, and lots of assistance before they can begin to recover from this disaster.
This is only peripherally on topic here, and I am plugging my own blog again, but over at The Questionable Authority, I have a couple of pictures that go a long way toward answering that classic presidential question: “Why isn’t our children learning?“
I wrote this a few years ago, long before Panda’s Thumb. Considering the occasion, I’m posting it here for PT browsers. Have a good Father’s Day! - Dave Thomas
“Father’s Day” by David E. Thomas
Last Sunday [June 20, 1999] was the worst Father’s Day I’ve ever had, because my father didn’t live to see it. He was doing fine just last Thursday, when I made one of my customary stops at his dinosaur studio to swap articles and shoot the breeze. We chuckled at how Bill Buckley had been taken in by a hoax involving postal taxes on internet mail. We looked at pop’s latest sculpture, of the pharaoh Akhenaten, and Dad gleamed as he described his plan to use radiant quartz crystals for the eyes. I gave him an article comparing the democratic spirit of ‘Star Trek’ to the feudal dictatorships (both malevolent and benevolent) of ‘Star Wars.’ We talked over a couple of other things, and then I was on my way. Dad called me at work a couple of hours later to say how much he had enjoyed the Star Wars/Star Trek article. That was the last time we talked.
I got a call from my mom at about 7 that night. In a shaking voice, she said that there were six people working on dad, and he wasn’t responding. After I made it through 40 minutes of driving rain to the house, and then (following a note’s instructions) to hospital, I learned the worst. Even though the medics were there in just minutes, there was nothing they could do.
In the days since then, as Father’s Day approached, I gave some good hard thought to what this day means to me now. And this Father’s Day was, in fact, a really good day for me. Because, on reflection, I can honestly say that my dad is the best dad in the world. The best dad ever. For real.
