Building blogs of Science

Brain day, bigger, longer, uncut

Fabiana Kubke • Mar 20, 2010

• behaviour,
• brain awareness week,
• Centre for Brain Research,
• education,
• general science,
• Neuroscience,
• public

If you have been paying attention, you might have been hearing a rise in stories related to brains in the media (I will be blogging about some of them soon). This is because this has been Brain Awareness Week. My first (ever) post on a blog (now defunct and reborn here) was indeed one describing [...] … Read More

Congratulations Fellow Sciblings

Fabiana Kubke • Feb 26, 2010

• news,
• opinion,
• public,
• research blogging

Congratulations to our fellow Sciblings who made it to the finals for the Research Blogging Awards 2010. Misc.ience (by Aimee Whitcroft) was nominated for best blog in Chemistry, Physics or Astronomy. The Atavism (by David Winter) was nominated for best lay-level blog. Congratulations to you both (and if I have failed in identifying a sciblogger, [...] … Read More

Getting up to speed with sound localisation

Fabiana Kubke • Feb 25, 2010

• behaviour,
• biology,
• hearing,
• Neuroscience,
• research blogging,
• review,
• sound localization

Funny how we are really good, for the most part, at knowing where sounds are coming from. And it is funny since the ear provides the brain with no direct information about the actual relationship in space of different sound sources. Instead, the brain makes use of what happens to the sound as it reaches [...] … Read More

Open [Science] Sunday — 14.2.10

Fabiana Kubke • Feb 14, 2010

• kiwi foo,
• open science,
• opinion,
• public,
• scibarcamp

What happens when you put around 200 motivated people in a room and let them decide what to talk about? Well, if that happens in Warkworth, New Zealand, then it is Kiwi Foo Camp. Structured as an unconference, the group introduces itself to each other start talking and, one by one, session themes are proposed [...] … Read More

Ed Rubel: The 21st century, a new era for hearing habilitation

Fabiana Kubke • Feb 10, 2010

• biology,
• Ed Rubel,
• general science,
• hearing,
• hearing loss,
• methods,
• Neuroscience,
• open access,
• public

It wasn’t easy to get Professor Ed Rubel down to New Zealand due to his busy schedule, but finally, and thanks to support from the University of Auckland School of Medical Sciences, we did. Yesterday, Prof Rubel delivered a public talk at the Med School: “The 21st Century: A New Era for Hearing Habilitation”. Ed Rubel has [...] … Read More

Open [Education] Sunday — 07.02.10

Fabiana Kubke • Feb 07, 2010

• albany high school,
• creative commons,
• education,
• Linux.conf.au 2010,
• open access,
• open education,
• open science,
• openwetware,
• opinion,
• public,
• wikieducator

One of the miniconferences I attended while at Linux.conf.au 2010 was on education. There I heard a presentation by Mark Osborne, the Deputy Principal from Albany Senior High School. This is the first large scale open source school, and the news have not gone unnoticed (see here and here, for example). There are several advantages [...] … Read More

[Open] Science Sunday — 31.1.10

Fabiana Kubke • Jan 31, 2010

• Linux.conf.au 2010,
• open education,
• open science,
• public,
• research blogging,
• Science Online 2010

January has indeed been a month full of events. After attending Science Online 2010 and Linux.conf.au 2010, I am finally back onto my almost normal routine. Science Online 2010 was a great experience, albeit difficulties with flight changes that made me miss the last morning of the meeting. It was great to put some human faces [...] … Read More

Thinking about education

Fabiana Kubke • Dec 26, 2009

• education,
• general science,
• opinion

I have been putting more thought into education this year than I have in a long time. Part of it was stimulated by discussions held at kiwi foo camp, and part of it by some discussions held with my colleagues over courses we taught together. The common thread around both of them was how the [...] … Read More

The ever-changing world of dendritic spines

Fabiana Kubke • Dec 18, 2009

• behaviour,
• Learning,
• methods,
• Neuroscience,
• research blogging,
• review,
• synapses

Santiago Ramón y Cajal originally described spines in the dendrites of neurons in the cerebellum back in the late 19th century, but it wasn’t until the mid 1950’s with the development of the electron microscope that these structures were shown to be synaptic structures. Although it has been known that the number of dendritic spines [...] … Read More

The Hippocratic Oath and its younger relatives

Fabiana Kubke • Dec 15, 2009

• Hippocratic Oath,
• opinion

I came across this blog post by Alex Madrigal on Wired Science the other day: ‘Should earth scientists take a Hippocratic Oath’? In his post he argues that such an oath would “[…] provide a set of agreed-upon ethical norms for geoscientists, at a time when they are increasingly being called upon to pass judgment on [...] … Read More