tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-85589972245834971182011-07-07T22:06:09.241-04:00Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.comBlogger581100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-56705747385280099642009-01-07T19:42:00.009-05:002009-01-07T20:21:24.970-05:00

This is awesomeOne summer years back I worked in a plant genetics lab doing something not completely unlike this to isolate DNA. I guess the main difference would be in the purity and integrity of the DNA collected - you certainly couldn't use this method to get analyzable samples. The kits we used in that lab contained lots of buffer solutions, enzymes, and other chemicals to break down the cell

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com38tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-61316190954566372872009-01-06T18:15:00.009-05:002009-01-06T19:06:15.198-05:00

2009 is here, big and bold. An alliance of scientific organizations has declared this the Year of Science. The ScienceInsider blog (which I would recommend for science policy news) of the AAAS has more information. The Coalition on the Public Understanding of Science is spearheading the outreach, organizing programs at science conferences, new websites for teachers, and other public programs.

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-88113595536566387872008-12-11T22:52:00.006-05:002008-12-11T23:11:45.850-05:00

My lone class this term was a seminar of the psychology of emotions. We discussed classic and modern literature on evolutionary and mechanistic perspectives of emotions, mood, and feelings. Randy Nesse, a UM psychiatrist and researcher, was our instructor. It was a great class, full of students from varied departments and psychological areas. One of our final assignments was a book review. I read

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-20067999637632909812008-11-14T20:21:00.007-05:002008-12-11T23:19:40.902-05:00

Tomorrow, I'm off to Washington, D.C. for the annual Society for Neuroscience meeting. This conference is huge - 30,000+ attendees. My lab has a few posters, listed here. I hope to post highlights of interesting stuff I see, maybe even some photos. I went to SfN two years ago, and one of the greatest parts is the vendor exhibit. They reserve one hangar-size room for biotech, imaging, publishing,

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-80796530198042617622008-11-12T13:35:00.009-05:002008-11-12T14:56:14.633-05:00

Sunday I wrote about the need for government to embrace science once again for prudent policy, and for scientists and lay persons to stand up in science advocacy. In today's issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, there is a special commentary from Dr. David P. Friedman, a professor of Physiology and Pharmacology at Wake Forest University. He is last year's winner of the Society for Neuroscience's

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-80756603227060360202008-11-09T23:32:00.012-05:002008-11-10T01:28:50.297-05:00

Science's influence on society is immeasurable. Medicine, technology, engineering, telecommunications, and education, owe their modern existence to systematic observation and experimentation - the scientific method. Whether or not you care at all about it, science has had a direct and profound impact on your quality of life, health, communication, and entertainment. For these reasons, and

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-48362898418799920502008-11-06T11:33:00.008-05:002008-11-06T18:20:28.043-05:00

After an busy week, in school and in politics, I return with some interesting figures of the breakdown of Tuesday's voting. The New York Times has an interactive electoral map that compares voting patterns this year with the previous four presidential elections. As you might expect, compared to 2004, the country swung heavily Democratic, even within states McCain won. In this picture, blue areas

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-15106630041645094042008-10-21T19:58:00.005-04:002008-10-21T20:18:00.490-04:00

via Ph.D Comics

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-27146657450310785732008-09-29T22:11:00.005-04:002008-09-30T09:35:18.521-04:00

I promise I'll start posting more than links. Until then, here are some interesting ones.Snow on Mars!Why calories taste good. Rainbow compression wave from a jet caught on film.Why can't we divide by zero?A syllabus from one of the late David Foster Wallace's Pomona College classes. Lighting up the brain to illuminate its secrets. Are disposals green? Related - this site shows water consumption

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-86027139218803512942008-09-16T19:09:00.003-04:002008-09-16T19:20:18.538-04:00

Below is a video of James Watson and E.O. Wilson being interviewed by Charlie Rose. They discuss the influence of Charles Darwin on biology. Watson is a wanker, but his contribution to science is great, so I can listen to his perspective on that.

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-76651352779254772502008-09-09T09:32:00.004-04:002008-09-09T10:26:22.335-04:00

The semester has started. I'm (more) busy again. Tuesday is my one day without any scheduled obligations, so I'll take the opportunity to pass along some Internet fodder.WATER BEARS FROM OUTER SPACE!NASA chief Mike Griffin laments Bush administration dissin' his space missions.Stem cells for the troops.Harvard biologists get closer to building synthetic life.Ten things you didn't know about the

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-26725754691787372802008-09-02T18:03:00.010-04:002008-09-02T18:54:07.435-04:00

Spore, the latest game from Sims/SimCity creator Will Wright, comes out this Friday. The Creature Creator for the game has been out for a couple months, and over three million creatures have been created (one of mine is here). Today's NY Times science section has an article about the game that nicely summarizes Will Wright's creative intention - to make a fun game loosely based on evolutionary

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-67618366197288183652008-08-26T08:17:00.008-04:002008-09-10T11:58:49.719-04:00

For your perusal:Awesome space pictures from the Chandra Observatory.Large-scale x-ray photography by Nick Veasey.It's possible for humans to run faster than Usain Bolt, but his performance at the Beijing Olympics broke the mathematical model that has fit sprinters for 100 years. Researchers using Google Earth have determined that cows tend to align their bodies with the North-South axis of the

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-83308178653468266672008-08-22T17:16:00.013-04:002008-08-22T18:11:01.322-04:00

This article from the Boston Globe on opening up science* pointed me to some really exciting online resources that are free and open for anyone to access. Most interesting is the Journal of Visualized Experiments (JOVE). This site publishes videos of experimental protocols submitted by researchers. Each is reviewed by a panel of experts, so quality and relevance are ensured. The videos range from

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-83241548089276963952008-08-20T17:21:00.008-04:002008-08-20T19:43:49.083-04:00

Busy day, so here is something fluffy to distract me (and you, potentially). I came across this food meme earlier. Are you an experienced eater? The foods I've eaten are below, bolded.1. Venison2. Nettle tea - No, but I've seen Survivorman make it.3. Huevos rancheros4. Steak tartare 5. Crocodile - Alligator, once6. Black pudding - Somehow I missed this one in London.7. Cheese fondue 8. Carp 9.

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-21345935192283846782008-08-19T09:21:00.007-04:002008-09-10T11:59:07.695-04:00

For your perusal.Inside brain surgeryWild dolphins tail walkFace your MangaThe neuroscience behind magic tricks (may post more about this later)NSFW chimpanzee video of, erm, tool useFinding NYC bagels in BeijingFree 3D modeling program Google Sketchup (may also post on this more later)Brief discussion of free will vs. determinism (again, more later)Russian Proton rocket launches big satellite

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-29491981967194381462008-08-13T14:27:00.002-04:002008-08-13T14:30:29.384-04:00

In case you hadn't heard, the Olympics are in full swing. I can't seem to turn the television on without seeing Bob Costas's rigorously-coifed head. My recent post on cloning has gotten me thinking generally about bioethics, a topic with clear relevance to sporting events. Last week's issue of Nature has an editorial about drug testing and the anti-doping industry. It's interesting, because they

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-87522402507133294962008-08-10T15:58:00.005-04:002008-08-18T22:19:07.169-04:00

Check out this cool internet meme timeline. It's interactive! Zoom down to the month scale to see them all. After the jump.This makes me nostalgic for those *simpler* days when I had to sign into AOL with my 56.6K dial-up modem to see the internet. My family was a little late to adopt internet usage, our first serious computer purchase was around 1996, if memory serves. I definitely remember the

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-6408250077754105532008-08-09T21:48:00.000-04:002008-08-09T21:50:03.411-04:00

South Korean researchers at Seoul National University and RNL Bio have produced the first commercial dog clones, a litter of five pitbull puppies. The customer is a Californian woman who lost her dog Booger two years ago. Skin cells from Booger's ear were used to produce the cloned embryos, which were then gestated in surrogate dogs. Pet cloning is prohibitively expensive, upwards of 50-100K per

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-17946861934684614662008-08-07T22:55:00.003-04:002008-08-07T23:17:07.104-04:00

Jason Bond, a biologist who recently named a spider species after Neil Young, has named a new spider after Steven Colbert. This adds to the list of things already bearing Colbert's name, including a bald eagle from the San Francisco Zoo. Colbert reacts, talks to Bond in the hilarious video clip below. Here's another awesome trapdoor spider video.

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-945195837910591742008-08-07T10:38:00.003-04:002008-08-07T10:49:48.959-04:00

In a small attempt to make this page a little easier to read, if not a little more structurally sophisticated, I've added a Blogger hack that limits the amount of a post that show up on the main page. Now, if you come directly to the main page, and not from an RSS reader, you will see truncated posts. This cleans up the main page and it should load faster (I don't really know if page loading is

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-63993195817555349882008-08-06T10:40:00.003-04:002008-08-06T23:38:54.231-04:00

It's pretty well known that yawning is contagious. If you see someone yawn, you are more likely to yawn. This phenomena is poorly understood, but it's thought to have developed as a result of increased primate nonverbal communication - signaling boredom or tiredness. It also may underly empathy; autistic children, who exhibit blunted social awareness and empathy, do not experience contagious

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-11260379898338647122008-08-05T18:25:00.002-04:002008-08-06T23:39:09.154-04:00

I just discovered Wordle, a Java applet that creates word clouds out of text. The frequency with which a given word appears is represented by its size in the cloud, so you can look for patterns or themes in a block of text that might not be obvious when presented in a normal format. You can create your own at the site, adding text or links to a webpage or del.ici.ous site tags. The clouds can be

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-30315274343175543302008-08-04T21:15:00.006-04:002008-08-06T23:40:05.071-04:00

According to this article from the BBC, the flat-earth community is alive and well these days in the 21st century. It's the 50th anniversary of the founding of NASA, an event that has sparked renewed interest in conspiracy theories about faked moon landings and fake, spherical pictures of the earth taken from space. One notable organization is the Flat Earth Society, whose motto "Deprogramming

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-65665934092512123552008-08-04T10:35:00.012-04:002008-08-04T17:57:51.966-04:00

Book The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow. Mlodinow is a Caltech physicist and author of several popular science books, notably, Feynman's Rainbow and (with Steven Hawking) A Briefer History of Time. This new book explores probability in everyday life, emphasizing how humans misunderstand randomness. We (read: primates) are especially evolved to form patterns

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-441772005848915392008-07-21T19:47:00.010-04:002008-07-21T20:51:10.115-04:00

Last Friday I turned 24 years old (nearly a quarter century!), and I ventured away from Ann Arbor for some fun with family and friends. I was given several nice gifts, but I want to highlight two that satisfy some of my greatest interests: technology and coffee.First, the Flip Mino, a miniature camcorder. It's about the size of a pack of cigarettes and holds up to an hour of video. The best part

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-306658455607272512008-07-14T23:17:00.013-04:002008-07-21T20:49:22.245-04:00

This piece from Wired reeks of that pop-science sensationalism that I often find hard to stomach, but it's a cool idea, and they have flashy graphics! Wired is like the US Weekly (OK, maybe more like People) of science/tech magazines; it focuses on science that's hot, in the Paris Hilton sort of way (Last minute edit: NO, Paris Hilton is not hot, this is referring to her common catchphrase "

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-531664053868155992008-07-05T20:58:00.010-04:002008-08-06T23:41:01.521-04:00

I'm reading Soul Made Flesh: The Discovery of the Brain--and How it Changed the World (buy it from Amazon), by Carl Zimmer. Zimmer is a science journalist and author, featured often in the New York Times and other newspapers, Discover, Scientific American, and other publications. He also has a blog, The Loom, and has written several books on eclectic science topics. Soul Made Flesh is an account

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-82738922579524474182008-06-25T16:06:00.004-04:002008-06-25T19:02:05.649-04:00

I'm really interested in what the Mars Phoenix lander is doing. You probably heard that it recently discovered water ice, a huge finding that lends a lot of credence to the theory that Mars used to be much more like the earth - warmer, wetter, greener - and potentially habitable for life. The news about ice was first announced on Twitter. The lander has its own account, and the posts are written

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-33767191923290887832008-06-18T20:34:00.003-04:002008-06-19T11:04:00.765-04:00

I just downloaded the Spore Creature Creator, a limited version of the game that will come out later this year. There is a free trial version, which is what I got, and a $9.99 full version, which I will probably get later. Okay, so, this game was MADE for me. The only part of the Sims that I ever really liked was building/outfitting houses. Maybe it reminds me of earlier times, when I seriously

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-3363620434543457582008-06-16T17:09:00.006-04:002008-06-16T18:11:58.331-04:00

(Photo from LA Times)Very sad news, Stan Winston, designer/creator of the practical effects and makeup in movies such as Aliens, Terminator, Jurassic Park, Predator, Edward Scissorhands, and Batman Returns died of cancer yesterday. His last completed film was this year's Ironman, and he was next slated to work on Terminator 4 and James Cameron's Avatar. It's amazing that one person was

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-30142529549936208572008-06-12T12:59:00.012-04:002008-06-12T21:14:17.253-04:00

I wish I had known they were photographing, would have stood outside my apartment to be immortalized in Google Maps. So, a brief tour of Ann Arbor.My street, the one I live onI work in the big brick building, same street as before. My sphere of influence is rather small.The Brown Jug. For my program, this is sort of The Max, or The Bronze.Tree-lined block. Most look like this.Main Street. Usually

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-17312344890004623342008-06-11T20:18:00.008-04:002008-06-12T08:56:24.191-04:00

Long day, busy organizing for an experiment that starts tomorrow morning. It was also hot. When I got home, two surprises awaited me. One was my latest Netflix movie, I Am Legend. I never got around to seeing it in theaters, even though I wanted to, and now I know a lot of spoilers about the plot, but I'm still interested. One question does remain, however. Does Will Smith say "welcome to earth!"

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-66553601082818774362008-06-08T03:13:00.006-04:002008-06-08T04:07:43.757-04:00

Chicago was a blast. I explored the city on foot and by subway, taking pictures all the way. Many more pictures on Flickr.There were a few good science talks, but I spent most of my time away from the conference, eating, walking, enjoying Dunkin Donuts and museums. The Field Museum, Shedd Aquarium, and Art Institute of Chicago offered a nice diversion from the formal structure of the conference.

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-48428115362377153042008-05-25T01:39:00.009-04:002008-05-25T10:21:47.941-04:00

Beware, if you find yourself in Indonesia (or Chicago) one day. The Shedd Aquarium has this notorious monitor lizard.

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-3972864502269411602008-05-22T08:28:00.005-04:002008-05-22T09:10:25.738-04:00

I'm traveling to Chicago this weekend to attend a conference with some grad-student friends. Chicago is one of my favorite cities, so it should be a good time. I'll post about it while I'm there, hopefully with some decent pictures. In preparing for the trip, I searched Google Maps for my hotel's location. Has anyone noticed they have added Wikipedia to the maps of most areas of the country? If

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-81075524250275976582008-05-16T13:17:00.008-04:002008-05-16T19:23:28.113-04:00

Airing on public television his fall. Mario Batali and Gwyneth Paltrow travel and cook Spanish food. They are friends? It appears so, because, at one point, she calls him "Batals." They are totally BFFs. Willie Nelson music and Michael Stipe from R.E.M makes an appearance. Bizarre, sure, but this looks sort of interesting. It also features Mark Bittman, a food guy for the New York Times.

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-46415756508614465872008-05-15T09:37:00.008-04:002008-05-17T12:52:42.669-04:00

Sensory tables are often used in elementary schools to provide children, especially those with developmental disabilities like autism, something to play with and focus on. The're filled with things like small blocks, stones, sand, popcorn, buttons - great for providing tactile stimulation. That's nice, and I'd sure like to have one, but it's sort of a stone-age solution. The sensory table of the

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-15031586276514028952008-04-29T10:30:00.004-04:002008-05-05T00:19:28.146-04:00

It's been a while, I've been distracted with end of term. That's all over now. I plan to post thoughts on my first year of graduate school later. For now, a silly story.A University of Michigan professor of archaeology recently took his 7-year-old son to a Detroit Tiger's game. The boy was thirsty, so dad bought him a lemonade. Oops, it was alcoholic - a Mike's Hard Lemonade. In the ninth inning,

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-37970369837403859302008-04-09T21:49:00.005-04:002008-04-09T23:21:53.929-04:00

Finals are approaching. I studied all day and rewarded myself.Otherwise busy with more end of term nonsense. Frak! Undergraduate interviews, experiment planning, conference scheduling, advisory-committee forming, meetings...Some quick notes.Today is the 76th birthday of Cheeta (aka Jiggs), the oldest non-human primate. Cheeta appeared in some of the Tarzan movies, Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-44114791940957074142008-04-01T15:38:00.006-04:002008-04-01T21:08:10.752-04:00

I didn't get the NSF fellowship. No, it wasn't some demented April-Fool's joke, I tripled checked the list for my name. Today I've oscillated between vague annoyance and bitter resentment, but thankfully this has little bearing on my future in graduate school. Contrary to popular belief, life is not all about the Benjamins. I also maintain eligibility for the fellowship this fall, so I can

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-21871492944702066902008-03-24T20:30:00.009-04:002008-03-24T22:05:03.003-04:00

On this day in which the American death count in Iraq passed 4,000, I offer a visual distraction. Check out this video from Harvard and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. It's a handsome depiction of some basic cellular processes.In reality, the action of these molecules isn't so graceful; at that atomic level, movement is messy, frenetic, and quite random. An accurate depiction would have

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-4396002149542283582008-03-22T15:35:00.006-04:002008-03-23T15:49:18.629-04:00

Some collector has purchased a cornflake shaped like Illinois on eBay for $1,350! You read that right. No, it doesn't resemble the Virgin Mary or Hanna Montana, but a state.I find this sort of behavior stupid on principle, but in this case it is especially inane because the cornflake doesn't look that much like Illinois.Eh? I don't get it. If you flipped it over, it could pass for Michigan, or

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-51625721169197686892008-03-22T13:44:00.007-04:002008-03-24T20:55:09.810-04:00

My group has whittled down a list of cheeses for use in our MDS project. (Our group name? Culture Club. Another of my suggestions.)We picked the above based on three dimensions - milk source, region, and texture. These won't be made explicit when the tasting occurs, but we're hoping they are pulled out in the analysis. So theoretically, parmigiano and pecorino will cluster based on texture and

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-83542804183490544402008-03-19T21:56:00.016-04:002008-03-24T20:55:52.895-04:00

Walking through campus the other day I came across something unexpected. The path ahead was awash in six inches of water. Ann Arbor has a problem with residual snowmelt. Anytime a foot of the stuff falls, the city is all over it with plows, salt trucks, and snowblowers. Once that snow melts, however, the infrastructure falls apart. Puddles, muddy puddles, are everywhere. This makes my journey

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-46559068483351874102008-03-11T19:58:00.004-04:002008-03-11T20:50:09.014-04:00

I was recently asked to contribute to a discussion group on Nature Network, this social network site for scientists/enthusiasts run by the Nature Publishing Group. I picked a cool article about drug craving. My post is here.Social networking is everywhere. The nice thing about a site like that is that you can talk about research with some anonymity and no social repercussions. If you look like an

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-80820514742054068022008-03-04T22:04:00.015-05:002008-03-06T22:48:25.266-05:00

In a New York Times group blog, Jeff Tweedy, of Wilco, has an account of his lifelong experience with migraines. He describes growing up with depression and panic attacks that, he feels, produced anxiety so strong that migraines developed. As a result, he also became addicted to pain medications.A lot of people equate migraines and strong headaches. That's just wrong, migraines are often totally

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-3706987099781502482008-03-03T21:30:00.006-05:002008-03-06T22:10:03.923-05:00

This post at the Columbia statistics blog shows the relationship between the number of Walmarts and Starbucks per million people for each state. This is interesting (but so not surprising) to me because West Virginia has the fourth most Walmarts (approximately 60 per million people) and the second fewest Starbucks (less than 20 per million people). West Virginia's population is roughly 1.8

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-88141309138288159952008-03-03T19:07:00.008-05:002008-03-06T22:10:54.865-05:00

I've neglected this blog venture for a long time, largely because I haven't felt that my early life in Ann Arbor is interesting. I plan to post more about more things. If they are interesting, great, if not, still okay.Big news in people-I-know-who-are-moving-to-Asia world. Jarrod is all of a sudden in Shenyang, China. This life-altering development occurred over a span of eight days, with no

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-54424970073267815522007-11-05T19:59:00.001-05:002007-11-05T20:06:10.576-05:00

Today I submitted an application to the National Science Foundation for a Graduate Research Fellowship. It provides a tuition waiver, a $30,000/year stipend, and an international travel fund for three years. That's a big deal, so it is very competitive; fewer than 10% of applications receive funding. I've been working on the essays over the past few weeks, so I feel pretty good about them.I still

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-41628390261317960372007-10-05T22:06:00.002-04:002008-06-24T18:01:03.181-04:00

In college, I spent a year in a lab researching effects of caffeine in rats. I also helped write the manuscript based on that work. It was fun, and good experience. Now, we are in the throes of the publication process. The manuscript has been submitted, returned, revised, and is now ready for resubmission. Early next week, the graduate student I worked with will send it on to the journal

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-8835422338457162992007-09-22T21:59:00.000-04:002007-09-23T15:36:06.481-04:00

Researchers at the American Museum of Natural History have discovered evidence that velociraptor (Velociraptor mongoliensis) had feathers. Velociraptors, as you may know, were made popular by Jurassic Park and its sequels. The size and cognitive ability of raptors was greatly exaggerated in the movies (to my dismay), and their presentation was very lizard like. This partly reflected the

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-81776028522055503362007-09-10T10:20:00.000-04:002007-09-10T10:56:39.806-04:00

Theo Jansen is a kinetic sculptor. He creates moving skeletal structures out of very light materials. Once placed in an open area and given a push, the animari walk along, powered by the wind.I haven't seen a video of one of these structures stopping, so if you are ever on a beach in the Netherlands, look out.

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-28976577878520463812007-09-06T22:19:00.000-04:002007-09-06T22:37:25.576-04:00

After five days to acclimate to Ann Arbor, I officially started graduate school this past Tuesday. So far, my week has consisted of running around the psychology building locating classrooms, labs, offices, and the keys to open them. Nothing notable has happened, though I did get to mount rat-brain slices today. It will be even more satisfying when they are my rats.For the next several days, I

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-46891379774187386052007-07-17T19:39:00.000-04:002007-07-17T20:27:39.126-04:00

Well, sort of.He's Dr. Thomas Carew, chair of the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior at the University of California-Irvine. I met him during an interview with the program last February. Dr. Carew was formerly the chair of the psychology department at Yale and even more formerly the student of esteemed neuroscientist (and Nobel Prize winner) Eric Kandel. Dr. Carew flew in the face of the

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-87730753148943930232007-07-10T09:41:00.001-04:002008-03-12T22:36:55.848-04:00

Researchers have discovered a baby mammoth in the permafrost of northern Siberia. The body remains almost completely intact, with even its eyes and some hair preserved. With such a complete specimen, some scientists are going to attempt to extract DNA. The ultimate goal is to create new mammoths or mammoth-elephant hybrids through cross-fertilization and nuclear cloning techniques.Of course,

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-31629276055723941482007-07-09T16:32:00.000-04:002007-07-09T18:30:44.356-04:00

Yesterday, seven new wonders of the world were announced, following a popular vote online. Over 90 million people provided nominations, and the chosen monuments were: The Great Wall, ChinaPetra, Jordan (which you may recognize from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade)Christ Redeemer, Brazil (statue)The Taj Mahal, IndiaThe Roman Colosseum, ItalyMachu Picchu, PeruThe Pyramid at Chichen Itza, Mexico

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558997224583497118.post-35337067737693544982007-07-09T09:47:00.001-04:002007-07-09T10:12:29.289-04:00

Hello and welcome,After mulling over the idea for some time now, I have decided to start a blog.I am a recent graduate of West Virginia University, where I studied biology and psychology with minors in philosophy and communications. In a little over a month, I will begin graduate school in the Biopsychology Ph.D. program at the University of Michigan. After school, I plan to conduct research,

Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07023684249397968956noreply@blogger.com2