- November 10, 2009
- 12:05 PM
- 691 views
Ten statisticians every psychologist should know about
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
As psychology students past and present will be only too aware, statistics are a key part of every psychology undergrad course and they also appear in nearly every published journal article. And yet have we ever stopped to recognise the statisticians who have brought us these wonderful mathematical tools? As psychologist Daniel Wright puts it: "Statistical techniques are often taught as if they were brought down from some statistical mount only to magically appear in [the software package] SPSS......... Read more »
Daniel B Wright. (2009) Ten Statisticians and Their Impacts for Psychologists. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 4(6), 587-597. info:/
- November 10, 2009
- 11:30 AM
- 588 views
Wiring Up Rugged Bacteria for Biosensing
by Michael Long in Phased
Lo Gorton (Lund University, Sweden) and coworkers have developed a prototype biosensor based on hardy bacteria. This news feature was written on November 10, 2009.... Read more »
Coman, V., Gustavsson, T., Finkelsteinas, A., von Wachenfeldt, C., Hägerhäll, C., & Gorton, L. (2009) Electrical Wiring of Live, Metabolically Enhanced Bacillus subtilis Cells with Flexible Osmium-Redox Polymers. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 131(44), 16171-16176. DOI: 10.1021/ja905442a
- November 10, 2009
- 09:00 AM
- 1,420 views
Rethinking cancer screening?
by Orac in Respectful Insolence
Here we go again.
I see that the kerfuffle over screening for cancer has erupted again to the point where it's found its way out of the rarified air of specialty journals to general medical journals and hence into the mainstream press. This is something that seems to pop up every so often, much to the consternation of lay people and primary care doctors alike, often trumpeted with breathless headlines along the lines of "What if everything you knew about screening was wrong?
It isn't, but some........ Read more »
Esserman, L., Shieh, Y., & Thompson, I. (2009) Rethinking Screening for Breast Cancer and Prostate Cancer. JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association, 302(15), 1685-1692. DOI: 10.1001/jama.2009.1498
- November 10, 2009
- 07:00 AM
- 656 views
The permeability of the urban landscape to wildlife movement
by Rob Goldstein in Conservation Maven
A new study looks at roads, bridges, train tracks, and rivers as potential barriers to wildlife mobility. The researchers wanted to figure out what factors make these features more or less permeable to the movement of birds...... Read more »
Tremblay, M., & St. Clair, C. (2009) Factors affecting the permeability of transportation and riparian corridors to the movements of songbirds in an urban landscape. Journal of Applied Ecology. DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2664.2009.01717.x
- November 10, 2009
- 06:12 AM
- 696 views
Adaptations for the visual assessment of formidability: Part I
by Michael Meadon in Ionian Enchantment
In the last couple of years there has been an explosion in research on faces and what can be inferred from them. It turns out, for example, that you can predict electoral outcomes from rapid and unreflective facial judgments, that women can (partially) determine a man's level of interest in infants from his face alone, that the facial expression of fear enhances sensory acquisition, and much, much else. A particularly interesting addition to this literature is Aaron Sell et. al.'s pape........ Read more »
Sell, A., Cosmides, L., Tooby, J., Sznycer, D., von Rueden, C., & Gurven, M. (2009) Human adaptations for the visual assessment of strength and fighting ability from the body and face. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 276(1656), 575-584. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2008.1177
- November 10, 2009
- 05:30 AM
- 533 views
Big Milk farms out PhDs to do their dirty work.
by Yoni Freedhoff in Weighty Matters
Big Milk's onslaught of advertisements designed to look like newspaper articles continued last week with this full page feature in Canwest papers.I'm sure the Dairy Farmers of Canada were thrilled with Dr. Brian Roy, director of the Centre for Muscle Metabolism and Biophysics at Brock University, who happily perpetuated a dairy myth - that it magically helps with weight loss. Dr. Roy was quoted as saying, "While it may seem surprising, milk can even help people lose weight. Studies report calci........ Read more »
Barr SI. (2003) Increased dairy product or calcium intake: is body weight or composition affected in humans?. The Journal of nutrition, 133(1). PMID: 12514301
Snijder, M., van Dam, R., Stehouwer, C., Hiddink, G., Heine, R., & Dekker, J. (2008) A Prospective Study of Dairy Consumption in Relation to Changes in Metabolic Risk Factors: The Hoorn Study. Obesity, 16(3), 706-709. DOI: 10.1038/oby.2007.93
- November 10, 2009
- 03:29 AM
- 2,210 views
it’s a comet! it’s a meteor! no, it’s a piece of rna!
by Greg Fish in weird things
What do you get when you take pyrimidine molecules, freeze them in a vacuum to -340°F, then expose them to ultraviolet radiation you’d find in space? Think about it for a second. If you took a few extra credits in a college biology class, you may remember that your DNA contains purines and their chemical [...]... Read more »
Nuevo, M., Milam, S., Sandford, S., Elsila, J., & Dworkin, J. (2009) Formation of Uracil from the Ultraviolet Photo-Irradiation of Pyrimidine in Pure H O Ices . Astrobiology, 9(7), 683-695. DOI: 10.1089/ast.2008.0324
- November 10, 2009
- 01:35 AM
- 1,158 views
Susceptibility of sharks, rays and chimaeras to global extinction
by CJA Bradshaw in ConservationBytes
Quite some time ago my colleague and (now former) postdoctoral fellow, Iain Field, and I sat down to examine in gory detail the extent of the threat to global populations of sharks, rays and chimaeras (chondrichthyans). I don’t think we quite realised the mammoth task we had set ourselves. Several years and nearly a hundred [...]... Read more »
I.C. Field, M.G. Meekan, R.C. Buckworth, & C.J.A. Bradshaw. (2009) Susceptibility of Sharks, Rays and Chimaeras to Global Extinction. Advances in Marine Biology, 275-363. info:/10.1016/S0065-2881(09)56004-X
- November 10, 2009
- 12:36 AM
- 864 views
Fire Ecology and Cutthroat Ecosystem Engineering, Part 2
by Johnny in Ecographica
The phrase ‘ecosystem engineer’ refers broadly to the ability of an organism to change or modify the physical characteristics of its surroundings. When these environmental modifications resultantly impact the fitness of the engineering organism itself, the feedbacks created can be thought of as functioning like an extended phenotype. In other words, the feedbacks generated between the engineer and the ecosystem contribute to the reproductive success of the organism, and often (directly or in........ Read more »
Beckage, B., Platt, W., & Gross, L. (2009) Vegetation, Fire, and Feedbacks: A Disturbance‐Mediated Model of Savannas. The American Naturalist, 174(6), 805-818. DOI: 10.1086/648458
- November 9, 2009
- 07:09 PM
- 759 views
Insect pollination long before flowering plants
by Thomas Kluyver in Thomas' Plant-Related Blog
The first flowering plants evolved more than a hundred million years ago, while dinosaurs were still on the scene. Since then, they’ve come to dominate the world, largely outcompeting the plants that were there before, such as conifers, cycads, and ginkgoes. With some exceptions (particularly the taiga, the coniferous forests of Russia and Canada), the [...]... Read more »
Ren, D., Labandeira, C., Santiago-Blay, J., Rasnitsyn, A., Shih, C., Bashkuev, A., Logan, M., Hotton, C., & Dilcher, D. (2009) A Probable Pollination Mode Before Angiosperms: Eurasian, Long-Proboscid Scorpionflies. Science, 326(5954), 840-847. DOI: 10.1126/science.1178338
Ollerton, J., & Coulthard, E. (2009) Evolution of Animal Pollination. Science, 326(5954), 808-809. DOI: 10.1126/science.1181154
- November 9, 2009
- 05:35 PM
- 668 views
You Today, Someone Else Tomorrow
by Daniel Hawes in Ingenious Monkey | 20-two-5
As a recent study shows, there are much greater similarities between decisions we make for our future-self and other people, than for future-self and current-self. Temporal inconsistencies in our choice behavior may be linked to this phenomenon...... Read more »
Pronin E, Olivola CY, & Kennedy KA. (2008) Doing unto future selves as you would do unto others: psychological distance and decision making. Personality and social psychology bulletin, 34(2), 224-36. PMID: 18156588
- November 9, 2009
- 04:31 PM
- 1,254 views
Hormones are a real turn-on for velvet bellies!
by Christie Wilcox in Observations of a Nerd
Living in a world of sunshine and electricity, we tend to take light for granted. Heck, we complain when clouds diminish our bright sunny rays. But dip just beneath the surface of the ocean and light becomes a rare commodity. More than half of the light that penetrates the ocean surface is absorbed in the first three feet. As you go deeper, different colors disappear. Red is the first to go, followed by yellow and green, until you're truly immersed in murky blue. At about 200 m deep, there is so........ Read more »
Claes, J., & Mallefet, J. (2009) Hormonal control of luminescence from lantern shark (Etmopterus spinax) photophores. Journal of Experimental Biology, 212(22), 3684-3692. DOI: 10.1242/jeb.034363
- November 9, 2009
- 01:34 PM
- 744 views
Self regulation – what it is and what to do
by Adiemusfree in Healthskills: Skills for Healthy Living
So, if self regulation is about exerting control over thoughts, feelings, actions and physiology, how does it work?
When I skipped through some Google references last night (o font of all knowledge!) I found a good number of sites referring to self regulation and children – but not nearly as many relating to adults, or the [...]... Read more »
Solberg Nes, L., Roach, A., & Segerstrom, S. (2009) Executive Functions, Self-Regulation, and Chronic Pain: A Review. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 37(2), 173-183. DOI: 10.1007/s12160-009-9096-5
- November 9, 2009
- 12:31 PM
- 1,403 views
Q: How do you sex a Smilodon? (A: Very carefully)
A very lion-like Smilodon, from Ernest Ingersoll's The Life of Animals (1907).
For decades after its discovery the saber-toothed cat Smilodon fatalis was depicted as little more than a lion with a short tail and long fangs. Given its size and habits as a large carnivore the connection appeared to make sense, but recent studies have suggested that Smilodon was quite different from the "king of the beasts." Not only did Smilodon have a face that probably would have looked a bit saggy when co........ Read more »
Meachen-Samuels, J., & Binder, W. (2009) Sexual dimorphism and ontogenetic growth in the American lion and sabertoothed cat from Rancho La Brea. Journal of Zoology. DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-7998.2009.00659.x
- November 9, 2009
- 11:30 AM
- 1,541 views
Reciprocity and the Anthropology of Organ Transplants
by Eric Michael Johnson in The Primate Diaries
Reciprocity is an intrinsic feature of human beings as well as most species of ape. Chimpanzees and bonobos regularly engage in granting gifts of food and expect a return on their generosity (those who don't reciprocate are less likely to receive such gifts in the future) (de Waal and Brosnan 2006). This "tit-for-tat" basis of exchange exists in all human societies and becomes ritualized based on the cultural norms that are present. One of the most well known descriptions of reciprocity among........ Read more »
Margaret Lock. (2002) Twice Dead: Organ Transplants and the Reinvention of Death. California Series in Public Anthropology, no. 1. . info:/
- November 9, 2009
- 11:05 AM
- 975 views
Pollination before flowers
by Jeremy Yoder in Denim and Tweed
Which came first, the pollinator or the pollinated? An article in this week's Science suggests that a diverse group of insects may have been drinking nectar and pollinating plants millions of years before the appearance of modern flowering plants [$-a].
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Panorpis communis, a modern scorpionfly species, and a sketch of anc........ Read more »
Ollerton, J., & Coulthard, E. (2009) Evolution of animal pollination. Science, 326(5954), 808-9. DOI: 10.1126/science.1181154
Ren, D., Labandeira, C., Santiago-Blay, J., Rasnitsyn, A., Shih, C., Bashkuev, A., Logan, M., Hotton, C., & Dilcher, D. (2009) A probable pollination mode before angiosperms: Eurasian, long-proboscid scorpionflies. Science, 326(5954), 840-7. DOI: 10.1126/science.1178338
- November 9, 2009
- 10:14 AM
- 1,158 views
Emergent linkages in seemingly unconnected food chains
by Marc Cadotte in The EEB and flow
Food webs are notoriously complex, and a difficult aspect of ecology is to offer a priori model-derived predictions of food web processes. There are some ecologists, such Neo Martinez and Jordi Bascompte, who have advanced our understanding of the general mechanisms of food web properties and dynamics through tools such as network theory. Such advanced approaches rely on direct interactions among species, or at least indirect interactions that are mediated through changes in abundance of differe........ Read more »
Prasad, R., & Snyder, W. (2009) A non-trophic interaction chain links predators in different spatial niches. Oecologia. DOI: 10.1007/s00442-009-1486-7
- November 9, 2009
- 10:10 AM
- 588 views
Want To Be More Physically Active? Quit Your Job!
by Travis Saunders, MSc in Obesity Panacea
On numerous occasions Travis and I have written on the independent benefits of maintaining an active lifestyle (view my recent lecture on the topic) as well as the dangers of increased sedentary time, such as sitting.
A new study by McCrady and Levine published online in the journal Obesity investigates the role your job might have in making you sedentary.
... Read more »
McCrady, S., & Levine, J. (2009) Sedentariness at Work: How Much Do We Really Sit?. Obesity, 17(11), 2103-2105. DOI: 10.1038/oby.2009.117
- November 9, 2009
- 09:30 AM
- 1,632 views
Leaf beetle protects itself with a mobile home made of faeces
by Ed Yong in Not Exactly Rocket Science
The female case-bearing leaf beetle Neochlamisus platani tries to give her children a head-start in life, but most mothers might not be keen on how she does it - encasing her young in an armoured shell made of her own faeces. After she lays her eggs, she seals each one in a bell-shaped case. When the larva hatches, it performs some renovations, cutting a hole in the roof and enlarge the structure with their own poo. By sticking its head and legs out, it converts its excremental maisonette into a........ Read more »
Brown, C., & Funk, D. (2009) Antipredatory properties of an animal architecture: how complex faecal cases thwart arthropod attack. Animal Behaviour. DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2009.10.010
- November 9, 2009
- 08:57 AM
- 1,300 views
Clozapine - Antipsychotic Polypharmacy, Part 1
by j7uy5 in The Corpus Callosum
The article I am discussing in
this post is the 2008 Heinz Lehmann Award paper, published in the
open-access Canadian journal, Journal of Psychiatry &
Neuroscience. It really covers two topics: translational
research, and antipsychotic polypharmacy in which one of the
antipsychotic medications is clozapine.
Translational
research is research that is intended to advance the process of
translating basic science into clinically useful knowledge. Clozapine
is the most effecti........ Read more »
William G. Honer, MD, Ric M. Procyshyn, PhD, Eric Y.H. Chen, MD, G. William MacEwan, MD, & Alasdair M. Barr, PhD. (2009) A translational research approach to poor treatment response in patients with schizophrenia: clozapine–antipsychotic polypharmacy. J Psychiatry Neurosci, 39(6), 433-442. info:/
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