I was initially not going to do a year in review, but all the cool kids are doing it, so why not? It was an eventful year, after all. The launch of this network was the #1 event of the year for me. But I also traveled a lot – every month (or so) to [...]

I posted 15 times in December (this is 16th). That is, on A Blog Around The Clock only (not counting the posts on The Network Central, The SA Incubator, Video of the Week, Image of the Week, or editing Guest Blog and Expeditions). A couple of brand new posts: The New Meanings of How and [...]

ScienceOnline2012 is only about three weeks away! The Program is set in stone, including the Blitz talks. The main hotel is full, but there is still room in the overflow hotel. Save space (and your own money) by finding a room-mate, and/or carpooling. Aside from the main Program, there will be many additional events and [...]

Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) released his “Wastebook” a week ago – a list of 100 government-funded projects that are supposedly a waste of money. Every campaign season, quite predictably, someone from the GOP makes a document like this, listing examples of spending that, in their view, represents the most egregious excesses of governmental spending. Counting [...]

I originally posted this on April 13th, 2010. Whenever I read a paper from Karl-Arne Stokkan’s lab, and I have read every one of them, no matter how dense the scientese language I always start imagining them running around the cold, dark Arctic, wielding enormous butterfly nets, looking for and catching reindeer (or ptarmigans, whichever [...]

Originally posted on July 17, 2006. David Ng asked a question: Are there any children’s books that are dear to you, either as a child or a parent, and especially ones that perhaps strike a chord with those from a science sensibility? Just curious really. And it doesn’t have to be a picture book, doesn’t [...]

If you ask a biologist for an explanation for a trait of an organism, you will get different answers depending on what kind of biologist you asked. One biologist will give you an explanation in terms of molecules, cells, tissues, organs, organ systems and the organism as a whole, explaining how that trait develops in [...]

Originally published on June 30, 2009. Chad Orzel wrote a neat history of (or should we say ‘evolution of’) clocks, as in “timekeeping instruments”. He points out the biological clocks are “…sort of messy application, from the standpoint of physics…” and he is right – for us biologists, messier the better. We wallow in mess, [...]

First published on January 28, 2007 Considering I’ve been writing textbook-like tutorials on chronobiology for quite a while now, trying always to write as simply and clearly as possible, and even wrote a Basic Concepts And Terms post, I am surprised that I never actually defined the term “biological clock” itself before, despite using it [...]

Everything important in our bodies cycles. Including liver enzymes. Including alcohol dehydrogenase (though DUI laws do not take this into consideration). This data-set is from an old study (Wilson R, Newman E and Newman H. 1956. Diurnal Variation in Rate of Alcohol Metabolism. J Appl Physiol 8 556-558.), back from the times when it was [...]