I think the fine folks at NCBI ROFL covered this one recently, but it’s too good not to share. Have you ever been in a terrible mood, and someone tells you to smile? It usually doesn’t make your mood any better to be TOLD to smile, but what if you actually DO smile? Does […]
Last night, while doing the classic late night science (timepoints happen to us all), I saw a conversation around the topic of getting a PhD…to become a science writer. It turned out that the conversation was based around this post over at SciLogs, where Jalees wrote that getting a PhD, in order to become a […]
Since writing about a pharmacology crowdfund, which raised money to look at localization of amphetamine inside neurons (and which got funded!), I have received emails asking me to “advertise” other crowdfunds. I decided to use this latest opportunity to ask the willing scientists some questions about how, exactly, they came across crowdfunding, whether it was […]
At SciAm Blogs today, I’m proud to present the first Scicurious Guest Writer, Nicole Baganz. She’s writing about the possible link between sickness behavior and mental illness. In the case of infection, sickness behavior is a normal response to halt the spread of the bug and help the organism get better. In the absence of […]
From SciAm Blogs: I would like to announce the beginning of my own Scicurious Guest Writing series! If you are a young (or old!) scientist, interested in trying science writing, and wanting to find out how to begin, this is for you! I would like to lend some of my “expertise” (well, at least I’ve […]
Sci is at SciAm Blogs today, talking about a study about stress. It turns out, just basic acute stress can be fine, but SEVERE stress? Well that just makes it all worse. Head over and check it out!
I’m sure you all have heard “Beer before liquor, never sicker. Liquor before beer, everything clear”? Whether or not it’s true (and honestly, it’s not true), most people talk about differences in alcoholic drinks. Some people love wine, some people get horrible wine headaches. Some people are happy with beer, others find it makes them […]
I felt very inspired looking at the recent post from Jeremy Yoder, ‘Knowing what I know now‘. Well, first it reminded me of this: Though of course this is the BEST song of that title: But then it made me think of all the things that I WISH I’d known in grad school, the things […]
Or rather, not nematode “lovin’” but definitely nematode mating! Last week I talked about the new oxytocin analogue in C. elegans: nematocin, and its role in learning and memory. Today we have a paper from the very same issue of Science, looking at nematocin and its role in mating behavior. Because molecules this conserved in […]
Instead of Friday Weird Science this week, Sci is playing host to the Giant’s Shoulders carnival, the carnival on the history of science. And there’s plenty of weird and wild science in there! Everything from flesh eating mammoths to corpse stealing! Head over and check it out.