this is at least what Alexa tells me about you – what a nonsense giving averages of so different visitors ;-)
although the profile isn’t so bad at al l…
CC-BY-NC Science Surf , accessed 29.08.2026
Encased in darkness
Your brain, after all, is encased in darkness and silence in the vault of the skull. Its only contact with the outside world is via the electrical signals exiting and entering along the super-highways of nerve bundles. Continue reading Encased in darkness
CC-BY-NC Science Surf , accessed 29.08.2026
Pandemy of vitamin D deficiency
Yes, we know “slow virus is good for your lab as it keeps your lab running” with similiar mechanisms are being found in many research areas. Best of all – declare everybody as diseased (or at least at risk) like seen Continue reading Pandemy of vitamin D deficiency
CC-BY-NC Science Surf , accessed 29.08.2026
Funny? Laughable? Ridiculous?
www.cell.com/current-biology shows humour
Human emotional expressions, such as laughter, are argued to have their origins in ancestral nonhuman primate displays. To test this hypothesis, the current work examined the acoustics of tickle-induced vocalizations from infant and juvenile orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees, and bonobos, as well as tickle-induced laughter produced by human infants.
CC-BY-NC Science Surf , accessed 29.08.2026
Clash between our genes & environment
Thenew book by Gibson “It Takes a Genome: How a Clash Between Our Genes and Modern Life Is Making Us Sick” raises some interesting points (from the Amazon review)
Our genome is out of equilibrium, both with itself and its environment. Simply put, our genes aren’t coping well with modern culture. Continue reading Clash between our genes & environment
CC-BY-NC Science Surf , accessed 29.08.2026
Ghost in your genes
was an earlier title of a BBC documentation about gene methylation. While running today an analysis of segregating methylation marks, I have major difficulties to find out the status of the human epigenome map. The Sanger site seems to be down for a long time, there aren’t any updates of the AHEAD consortium, the site of the Epigenetics Society is largely uniformative, methDB gives me “information about the research situation in France and why French scientists are in conflict with the current government”, an EU network excellence has only a fashionable website while another EU project is even not fashionable. Or do I miss something??
CC-BY-NC Science Surf , accessed 29.08.2026
Neverending story – vitamin D in pregnancy
A new study of 5 year old children relates their current allergy symptoms to LOW maternal intake of vitamin D from food (which is strange within the context of current cohort studies that show a INCREASED risk by vitamin D supplement use).
As this is a diabetes study, the sample is highly biased Continue reading Neverending story – vitamin D in pregnancy
CC-BY-NC Science Surf , accessed 29.08.2026
Mental accounting and (science) consumer choice
It would be interesting to follow up this historical (1571x cited) paper on mechanisms of consumer choice. Are there similar mechanisms in science consumation e.g. the price we are willing to pay after having read an abstract?
CC-BY-NC Science Surf , accessed 29.08.2026
Omics explosion
We have learned new genomics and metabolomics (etc not to confuse with economics!) while even complete websites are now dedicated to the omics explosion. What I do not understand is the increasing omics use in completely unrelated fields like humanomics – a good or bad omen?
CC-BY-NC Science Surf , accessed 29.08.2026
Stagnancy at terrific speed or the impact of impact
Besides another critical review of the impact game this month in LJ, I found a ever more devastating paper at the University of Konstanz – click for the Babelfish translation. Continue reading Stagnancy at terrific speed or the impact of impact
CC-BY-NC Science Surf , accessed 29.08.2026
What is the best logistic model?
I have never heard a formal lecture answering this question even after many years in epidemiology. It should be parsimonious of course to avoid too many missings but seems largely a subjective approach to keep or drop a variable. It was therefore quite helpful to find now an online lecture that exemplifies a sound approach – check out unc.edu/courses/2006spring. I already used anova to compare models (at least since my move from SAS to R) while using AIC is something that I am adding now to my toolbox. Continue reading What is the best logistic model?
CC-BY-NC Science Surf , accessed 29.08.2026
Forget about genes V
Life after GWAS comments
Allen Roses, director of the Deane Drug Discovery Institute at Duke University, noted that GWAS has “largely disappointed its most enthusiastic proponents Continue reading Forget about genes V
CC-BY-NC Science Surf , accessed 29.08.2026
Mac OS X running Sigmaplot
I haven’t found any replacement yet for Sigmaplot that is offered only as a native Windows application. Even buying a copy of Aabel didn’t bring me back the fast and intuitive plotting capabilities. Running Sigmaplot under Parallels is a pain using too much of the system ressources while Crossover failed to start up even after following these step-by-step instructions. Finally, with Crossover 8, it seems that a win98 bottle can run Sigmaplot 9!
CC-BY-NC Science Surf , accessed 29.08.2026
Quick Powerpoint preview on Mac OS X
Macosxhints provides a nice solution that I have only slightly edited here
|wj_ppt.txt|
et voilÃ
CC-BY-NC Science Surf , accessed 29.08.2026
Fat receptor leading to obesity?
I have recently argued that much of the”obesity epidemic (which even expands now due to the economic crisis) is being due to processed food that fools our sensory system. A new paper (doi:10.1089/omi.2008.0031) now gives me some more support
Taste perception plays a key role in determining individual food preferences and dietary habits. Individual differences in bitter, sweet, umami, sour, or salty taste perception may influence dietary habits, affecting nutritional status and nutrition-related chronic disease risk. In addition to these traditional taste modalities there is growing evidence that “fat taste†may represent a sixth modality. Continue reading Fat receptor leading to obesity?
CC-BY-NC Science Surf , accessed 29.08.2026