Building blogs of Science

Open Science Sunday — 15.11.09

Fabiana Kubke • Nov 15, 2009

• general science,
• open access,
• opinion,
• public

An article entitled University Public-Access Mandates are Good for Science by David Shulenburger was published in PLoS Biology this week. It is a great read, and a topic I feel passionate about. As the article states: “Not many taxpayers know what university faculty are doing. In fact, not many university administrators or even other faculty know [...] … Read More

Making science culturally appropriate

Fabiana Kubke • Nov 12, 2009

• Centre for Brain Research,
• Neuroscience,
• opinion,
• public

I would imagine that being able to work with human brain tissue would be difficult enough, but doing so in New Zealand has its added hurdles. As a foreigner, I was not initially aware of the cultural implications of being able to source and work with human brain tissue. Some issues surrounding the use of human [...] … Read More

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[Open] Science Sunday — 8.11.09

Fabiana Kubke • Nov 08, 2009

• humour,
• Neuroscience,
• Psychology

Random samples of my reading list brought to you through the magic of the internet, bloggers and Open Access If you ever wondered what makes a scientists a scientist, you are not alone. And at The Onion News, a new report just in: “Scientists dissect coworker to find out more about scientists” addresses precisely this. There is a [...] … Read More

Google, Waves and Fireflies

Fabiana Kubke • Nov 06, 2009

• behaviour,
• biology,
• neuroethology

I just learned through “The Complete Guide to GoogleWave” (HT @BoraZ) that Google Wave takes its name after the way that characters in the TV series Firefly/Serenity communicated with each other through ‘waves’. Which reminded me of the fireflies in Elkmont in the Smoky Mountains National Park. When I was a post-doc in the US, I [...] … Read More

How do birds sense the Earth’s magnetic field?

Fabiana Kubke • Nov 03, 2009

• chemistry,
• evolution,
• Marsden,
• neuroethology,
• Neuroscience,
• review

If there is a physical property in the world that provides useful information, chances are that at least some animals will have evolved a sensory system to exploit it. The Earth’s magnetic field is no exception: it provides useful and reliable information to navigate the globe. There has been extensive research into whether and how [...] … Read More

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[Open] Science Sunday — 1-11-09

Fabiana Kubke • Nov 01, 2009

• methods,
• Neuroscience,
• news,
• open access,
• opinion,
• recommendation

Random samples of my reading list brought to you through the magic of the internet, bloggers and Open Access. This has been a busy week, but I managed to get some reading in anyway. A nice piece of news is that it looks like Canada’s Science Media Centre is ready to go, adding to the family of SMCs. [...] … Read More

How is human noise affecting the environment?

Fabiana Kubke • Oct 29, 2009

• behaviour,
• biology,
• general science,
• hearing

There is no question that human activities create noise pollution, and that we humans find some of these noises rather stressful: There is nothing like a quiet afternoon in Snell’s Beach being interrupted by the blazing noise of motor boats in the water. But how this noise affect other animals is the issue brought up [...] … Read More

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[Open] Science Sunday — 25.10.09

Fabiana Kubke • Oct 25, 2009

• biology,
• general science,
• Neuroscience,
• open access,
• physics

Random samples of my reading list brought to you through the magic of the internet, bloggers and Open Access. Sean Carroll, from Cosmic Variance looks into the Big Bang Theory and the new blog about the science behind this TV sitcom (The Big Blog Theory). The Society for Neuroscience just held its annual meeting in Chicago, and this [...] … Read More

On the instinct in the cockroach

Fabiana Kubke • Oct 23, 2009

• behaviour,
• biology,
• general science

There is the data, and then there is the interpretation of the data. They are not the same thing, although this line gets blurred too often. Many years ago Andy Moiseff, a colleague of mine, showed me a ‘Letters to The Editor’, published in 1887 in Science. (G Hay. Instinct in the cochroach. Science Vol IX [...] … Read More

Marsden 2009-III: Last but not least….

Fabiana Kubke • Oct 20, 2009

• behaviour,
• biology,
• Funding,
• general science,
• Marsden,
• Neuroscience,
• news,
• public

These are the last three neuroscience projects funded by the Marsden Fund of the Royal Society on their last round that I will talk about. For a full list of recipients you can visit their site. Maurice Curtis from the University of Auckland will examine the source of the stem cells that make up [...] … Read More