-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.
Category Archives: Joke
World record
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.
Calibrate!
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 don’t know any more about it than a cow knows about the botany of the grass it relishes in eating.
Getting older – still the same?
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).
On the limits of science
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 man’s trash is another man’s treasure†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.
Sex, drugs and DNA: Science’s Taboos Confronted
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
Ethnographic studies at Oktoberfest
Having many years of experience with ethnographic studies at Oktoberfest München, I am fascinated by a new Cell paper that shows distinct behavioral responses to ethanol. This is something that I alread assumed (although I did not known about this particular RhoGAP18B isoform only about ADH deficiency). Will the knowledge of more and more mutations in the lifestyle area raise ethical problems? Yea, yea.
More doctors smoke Camel
Not so long time ago many doctors smoked while it still hurts the self esteem of many epidemiologists that Doll and Hill have not been adequately honored for describing the association of smoking and lung cancer. Yea, yea.
Switch your mobile off please
False Memory
The German magazine Spiegel has a nice paper about the false memory debate and the “implanted” memory of events that never happened. They cite Hans Markowitsch from Bielefeld that the autobiographical memory is not very good in recalling past events, being much much more adapted to orientation of current and future events. Has anyone examined blogs and if their content can be recalled by the author? Nai, nai.
Random medical news
I am somewhat uninformed about clinical science but found this vein viewer impressive as well as the self assembling surgical knots, yea, yea.
And the winner is…
Don´t miss the Ig Noble Ceremony. For example:
- Why woodpeckers don’t get headaches
- An electromechanical teenager repellant
- Calculating the number of photographs you must take to (almost) ensure
that nobody in a group photo will have their eyes closed - Consequences of erudite vernacular utilized irrespective of necessity:
problems with using long words needlessly - Termination of intractable hiccups with digital rectal massage
- …
yea, yea.
Father son relationships
This year Noble prize in physiology and medicine honored for the 6th time a famous son of a famous father (the Kornbergs). We have a saying that the apple does not fall so far way. Yea, yea.
List of faux pas
I can´t resist posting this: the English Wikipedia has a list of faux-pas what to to and what not to do when you are travelling, yea, yea!
Merlin
Merlin by Goncalo Abecasis is probably the most widely used linkage program. By using sparse tree approach it is extremely fast. I only wonder why its name is not Excalibur (the name of the famous sword that helped Artus to marry Guineva, to banish the Saxons and eventually becoming king of Brittania). Goncalo moved to the US – are you still working on that? Yea, yea.