Category Archives: Joke

Genetics, Joke

What people search for

“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 shouldn´t be as complicated as you may imagine from this nature reviews genetics paper, yea, yea.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf 28.11.2006, access 23.10.2025
Joke, Software

email@nirvana.info

-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.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf 25.11.2006, access 23.10.2025
Joke, Software

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.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf 22.11.2006, access 23.10.2025
Joke

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.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf 14.11.2006, access 23.10.2025
Genetics, Joke, Philosophy

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.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf 30.10.2006, access 23.10.2025
Joke, Philosophy

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.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf 28.10.2006, access 23.10.2025
Joke

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.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf 6.10.2006, access 23.10.2025