Tag Archives: Fun-+-nothing-else

Scientific spam

12.01.2007 admin

I am sending here a trackback to David who asked if a new series of spam email may be

nothing more than an intricate social engineering endeavour and that Iâ€™ve been duped into responding in this way.

I found me also answering an email where a 15 year old asked (after having smoked a few cigarettes) if she will now have an increased lung cancer risk. Only 10 minutes later at the coffee machine I heard that a dozen people had just answered exactly the same email. Think of it like an April Fool’s joke, yea, yea.

Joke, Philosophy

Do what you will this life’s a fiction and is made up of contradiction

7.01.2007 admin

If you also like William Blake’s poetry you might be interested in more quotes that have a true scientific background.

Joke, Philosophy

Celebrities on science

4.01.2007 admin

BBC reports about celebrities speaking on scientific issues – and comments by experts. I would like another BBC news feature about scientists speaking on scientific issues from different disciplines, for example famous molecular biologists about ethics.

Joke

New Edge questions online

2.01.2007 admin

Just a quick link to a new Edge series What are you optimistic about? Why? that is just online for 24 hours. (I have recently been teached on being only 1x negative on being 5x positive – this post counts for 5x :-)

Joke

What would you choose?

24.12.2006 admin

At the moment I am reading the biography of Otto Warburg eloquently written by Hans Krebs. Here is a nice story about the banking house M. M. Warburg in Hamburg: Aby Warburg renounced his right to share in the banking business on the condition that his brothers would pay the bills for all the books that he deemed necessary for his library. The brothers enormously underrated the magnitude of this financial obligation – Aby Warburg (1866-1929) assembled a unique art history library which is now at London University. Would you like to have a brother who is a banker or would you like to be a banker with such a brother?

Joke

BMJ Christmas edition

22.12.2006 admin

We are already waiting for the BMJ. This year

Physicians in opera: Stefan Willich about Le Nozze di Figaro
Sword swallowing and its side effects: Brian Witcombe’ s finding that sword swallowers run a higher risk of injury
Daisy the Doctor, Dr Dose, Dr Grizzly, Dr Amelia Bedelia, and colleagues: Monica Lalanda works on the image of doctors in children books: kind, professional, and reassuring
Phenotypic differences between male physicians, surgeons, and film stars – comparative study: Antoni Trillas rating of “good looking” men – the winner, sorry, are not the surgeons
From a 16th century monastery to a 21st century orthopaedic hospital: P (not Alberto) Tomba, worth a visit
and much more

Yea, yea.

Joke

Easter Eggs

29.11.2006 admin

In medieval ages messengers had tattoos under the scalp hair. Charles Dickens also described how women used to purl and to knit for hidden messages. Many software developers also insert messages or features in the code. The motivation may be to sign it or put some artistic touch on it – you will find a lot of websites out explaining the necessary keystrokes and web links.
I wonder if also other colleagues are hiding initials, words or messages in scientific papers? Unfortunately due to the online submission, publishers will now recognize faked references. What about using steganography to mark pictures or PDFs?

Joke

Without words

28.11.2006 admin

Addendum

what others write

Genetics, Joke

What people search for

28.11.2006 admin

“Dissecting the complex genetic basis of mate choice” is the lengthy title of a lengthy text that tells us

males produce complex signals and displays that can consist of a combination of acoustic, visual, chemical and behavioural phenotypes…

The authors come from a school of integrative biology. I wonder why they have missed the excellent work in humans on HLA, fertility and mate choice.
Having said that, I would even suggest a radical different approach by looking at “What people search for” – hopefully I get now also hits on my blog for Paris Hilton, Renee Zellweger, Britney Spears, Heidi Klum, Pamela Anderson, Jessica Simpson and Jennifer Lopez ;-) Dissecting the complex genetic basis of mate choice shouldnÂ´t be as complicated as you may imagine from this nature reviews genetics paper, yea, yea.

Joke, Software

email@nirvana.info

25.11.2006 admin

-moblog- Last week I asked an author for some additional information that was not available in his online supplement. He responded immediately, I saw the email arriving in Thunderbird, but when I wanted to read it a couple of hours later I couldn’t find it – neither in in the inbox, spam nor trash folder. Bugtraq has identical user reports – which makes me believe that also Activesync sometimes drops items form the todo list, mainly the important ones. Computer are only a higher ordering system for managing the chaos but there is no reason to believe in impeccability. Yea, yea.

Joke, Philosophy

World record

22.11.2006 admin

Just found this note at the bottom of a paper offered by Ingenta Connect:
The paper is the result of public funded research, written by researcher who is only partially paid for his work while both referees were not paid for their work. Yea, yea.

Joke, Software

Calibrate!

22.11.2006 admin

This is a quick link to Eye of Science, a website with impressing micro photographs. Calibrate your monitor first at sriker, then goto Eye of Science. Oliver Meckes is quoting Albert Einstein

People should be ashamed to use the wonders of science and technology if they donâ€™t know any more about it than a cow knows about the botany of the grass it relishes in eating.

Genetics, Joke, Video

Getting older – still the same?

16.11.2006 admin

Jonathan Keller is taking a picture every day since Oktober 1998. As seen on Youtube – with more series on the web. “Sie haben sich gar nicht verändert”. “Oh!”, sagte Herr Keuner und erbleichte (Bert Brecht).

Joke

On the limits of science

14.11.2006 admin

Have you ever heard of the Wikipedia Knowledge Dump? With the headline “WikiDumper: The Official Appreciation Page for the Best of the Wikipedia Rejects. One manâ€™s trash is another manâ€™s treasureâ€ Dr. Cliff Pickover collects the best entries. For example you can read about the Beard Theorem that suggests that the size of one’s beard has a direct correlation to the radicality of a person’s socialist views. The site is as good as the Ig Noble, yea, yea.

Joke, Philosophy

Sex, drugs and DNA: Science’s Taboos Confronted

11.11.2006 admin

Highly recommended by a friend, I have ordered “Sex, drugs and DNA” by Michael Stebbins. Also Publishers Weekly finds
Continue reading Sex, drugs and DNA: Science’s Taboos Confronted →