PLEASE UPDATE LINKS AND FEEDS

Please update links and feeds to:

BLOG: http://blog.behavioralecology.net
RSS FEED: http://feeds.feedburner.com/behavioralecology

Thanks (Most of you have already done this)

I have the 1785th most influential science blog...

More commentary to follow...

Should I make the switch to a wordpress blog?

Anybody have anything bad to say about Wordpress? Are there better options out there? Advise please!

Vampire Power Loss

Damn, I always get sucked into posting these things from Treehugger... Their posts are right on and provide so much useful information.. So:

Do YOU know what vampire power loss is?

Now we all know that electronic devices vary in their energy efficiency. Some things just cost more to run. Did you know that in addition to their energy consumption while being used, most devices suck electricity when even when they are off.. Completly off...

Here is a nice chart listing the vampirey attributes of devices that we all (er, many of us have). I always wanted to have a plasma screen TV, but man, they are real vampires..


Great news is that there are devices (special garlic scented power strips) that kil vampires dead. Like a steak through the heart- use they to reclaim your devices (and save a ton of $$$ too).

UC Berkeley Job Announcement: Experimental Population Genetics

THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY

Department of Integrative Biology

Faculty Position in Experimental Population Genetics

Position ID #1213

The Department of Integrative Biology at the University of California, Berkeley, is seeking a scientist for a tenure-track position (Assistant Professor) in experimental population genetics.
We seek a colleague to join a department with a strong multidisciplinary emphasis and to help the Berkeley campus strengthen its program in evolutionary biology and population genetics. We seek applicants with a Ph.D. or equivalent advanced degree and an exceptional research record in experimental studies with plants, animals or microbes of phenotypic variation, adaptation, reproductive isolation, coevolution or other areas of evolutionary genetics. Candidates will be required to contribute to our undergraduate and graduate teaching programs in population genetics, general genetics, and evolutionary biology.

Interested applicants should send their CV, including a bibliography of published work, a brief description of research accomplishments and objectives, a statement of teaching interests, selected reprints, and arrange to have three letters of reference sent to:


Chair, Experimental Population Genetics Search Committee
Department of Integrative Biology
3060 Valley Life Sciences Building
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720-3140 USA

or electronically to: http://gold.ls.berkeley.edu:80/sReg.php?i=96 (electronic submission of PDF files preferred)

Applications and supporting letters must be received electronically or postmarked by December 31, 2007. Review of application will begin January 2, 2008.

Applicants should refer their reviewers to the UC Berkeley Statement of Confidentiality at http://apo.chance.berkeley.edu/evalltr.html.

The University of California is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer.

Oekologie #12

Welcome everybody to the 12th installment of Oekologie- a blog carnival dedicated to the sciences of ecology and the environment. This months edition is loaded with great posts from a diverse set of bloggers.. So here we go!

Jeremy starts us off with a post that describes the latest scare tactic to be implemented in religious circles.. Read it in his post entitled: The Embrace of Environmentalism Will Be the Doom of Traditional Religion over at his blog, The Voltage Gate.

Next Doris Chua presents Environment and Our Health at Doris Chua: Organics & Your Health. It's a nice reminder that aside from the fact that smog stinks- it's bad for your health, too (reminder: it's effects are felt by all animals- i.e. not just humans- see photo at left)

GrrlScientist sent me a couple of posts this month. 1st it's Birder's Conservation Handbook which is a book review of the Birder's Conservation Handbook: 100 North American Birds At Risk, by Jeffrey Wells. Next, she blogs about The Lovebirds in a post entitled Lovebird Behavior: Nature or Nurture?. Do they live up to their word???

Greg Laden, who has (I think) replaced PZ and Bora in rate of blog posts suggests to us Macaque Mothers Favor Their Sons and Extended Male Growth in Robust Australopithecus. Both are posted over at his excellent ScienceBlog: Greg Laden's Blog.

Laurent presents When leaves aspire to be flowers (a way cool story about a dioecious palm tree) and Rock pink rocks! A tale of two sexes « Seeds Aside (what the hell is a gynomonoecious-gynodioecious plant?) both posted at Seeds Aside.

Ed Yong gives us a topic that is near to my heart (and home, too) in a post entitled Solving the San Francisco plankton mystery posted at Not Exactly Rocket Science. It's a nicely written blog about a peer-reviewed paper on recent changes in the Bay.

Dave Bonta presents Two Plummer's Hollow breeding birds included in Watchlist 2007 posted at Plummer's Hollow, Pennsylvania.

Can being in nature make us feel better? Pat Doyle thinks so, and tells us why in her post, How We Can Find Healing in Nature posted at Barton Pond Feng Shui.

Ian Welsh must be a policy guy, and presents some thoughts on enviro-policy in his post How To Do Stupid Smart: The Center for American Progress Shows the Way posted at The Agonist.

John presents a pretty depressing story that remind us of the effects we have on birds (we are killing them) in his post: Seabirds Dying in the North Sea over at A DC Birding Blog.

At 10,000 Birds, there is a post about the CBC... (No Hockey Night in Canada here folks) Do you know what the Center for Biological Diversity is? No? Well go find out! Also Over at 10,000 Birds there is a neat post about the "Great Auk".

Whoops, I almost forgot... Jeremy form the Voltage Gate sent a second, and highly recommended post about the effects of wind power and it's effects on animals.. You should really see read it!

OK.. last but not least- don't forget that this is the holiday season.... please people remember the impacts of out materialism. In case you need a reminder... Go visit Treehugger and especially a post entitled: Forest Ethics' "Naughty and Nice" List of Treekillers
See you next month lucky issue #13 over at The Infinite Sphere

Seven Random and Weird Things Meme

I was tagged last week by Greg, who has some interesting commentary on weirdness... 1st off, I am shocked and offended by this tag... That he would even consider it a possibility of my being weird....

The rules

1. Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 random and or weird things about yourself.
3. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
4. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

My 7 random facts

1. I completed a year of medical school in Bolivia… this somehow qualified me to try and pierce my girlfriends belly button (It was not successful)
2. I have virtually no knowledge of modern pop-culture.
3. I don’t kill things… anything. This includes bugs and other small things found inside my apartment.
4. Despite #4, one of my favorite things to eat is Filet Mignon cooked medium rare.
5. If I was forced to be religious, I would choose Buddhism. It’s focus on being nice and peaceful appeals greatly, and is in stark contrast to the Judeo-Christian/Catholic practice.
6. I was traumatized as a child when I witnessed my cat attacking and eating my pet turtle dove that was given to me by my kindergarten teacher.
7. I am a proud father of 5, and married to a beautiful woman!

I tag:

Shalini
PZ
Bora
Anne-Marie
bug_girl
Kate
Mike

Oekologie to be hosted here

Please submit links to me via email, or via the official blog carnival submission form by Friday (12/14/07) in the AM.

*Almost* Too Sick to Laugh At,

From Craigslist Missed Connections page in NYC. [Link]

Reply to: pers-505858701@craigslist.org
Date: 2007-12-11, 11:56AM EST


You took a dump in my mouth at The Monster on Sunday.

Wanna do it again?

...I don't feel a need to describe either one of us. If you shit in a guys mouth at The Monster on Sunday then you're you and I'm me.

• it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

PostingID: 505858701

Think it's real? I'd never doubt the absolute depravity of Craigslist posters I guess...

I've intentionally left the email in the copied message just in case...

Sears supports deforestation?

From Treehugger

Human copulatory plug clogs shower drain

Proof:

I wonder how many "plugs" this took??

Child Pornography: No common sense required

My Father used to say that you didn't have to be bright to be a criminal- I guess he was right! From CNN

Federal authorities believe Crane has been engaging in sex acts with young
girls at his home and in his truck since at least 1999.

"The complaint indicates that Crane paid the girls based on the sex act
they allowed him to perform and for getting other girls to engage in sex acts
with him," he said. "We want to identify the other victims shown in the
photographs and any additional girls who were sexually exploited."

An employee of a photo processing company alerted Atlanta police about Crane in 2000, saying he was concerned about photos he developed for him.

The pictures, including images of the 11 girls believed to be between the
ages of 12 and 15, were given to police between 2000 and 2002 by the photo
processing company, Nahmias said. They were not turned over to federal
authorities, however, until last month.

In 2003, Crane's wife, Atlanta police Sgt. Tanya Crane, "allegedly got a call
from an unidentified person at APD headquarters that APD had photographs of her
husband engaged in sexually explicit conduct with young girls," said the
statement from Nahmias' office.

"Crane's wife said she found some explicit photographs in her house and
burned the photographs and negatives."

RE: Evidence that Satoshi Kanazawa knows nothing about evolution

Remember this Evol. Psych guy from London School of Economics that was the author of the widely criticized peer-reviewed paper entitled Beautiful Parents Have More Daughters: A Further Implication of the Generalized Trivers-Willard Hypothesis. this is one in a long series of papers by kanazawa and Alan Miller that rely heavily on trends, anecdote, and untested theories. This is (generally speaking) not how science should be done...

1st off, there seem to be major flaws with the paper, both in terms of methodology, interpretation, and framework. The paper seems to illustrate all that is currently bad with the discipline of Evolutionary Psychology. there was a large, mostly negative (sceptical) response from the blogosphere, But rest assured that the strongest criticisms are cast forth by this; Letter to the editors regarding some papers of Dr. Satoshi Kanazawa, by Andrew Gelman

turns out, that the paper in question turned into a book, and kanazawa has been giving interviews to support it... here is the link to the interview itself

ok, so a part of teh interview really struck me as evidence that SK really has no idea what he is talking about- at least in terms of evolutionary theory.. But don't take my word- see for yourself.. here is an excerpt:

DC: Evolutionary psychology portrays us as having impulses that took form
long ago, in a very pre-modern context (say, 10,000 years ago), and now these
impulses are sometimes rather ill-adapted to our contemporary world. For
example, in a food-scarce environment, we became programmed to eat whenever we can; now, with food abounding in many parts of the world, this impulse creates
the conditions for an obesity epidemic. Given that our world will likely
continue changing at a rapid pace, are we doomed to have our impulses constantly
playing catch up with our environment, and does that potentially doom us as a
species?

SK: In fact, we're not playing catch up; we're stuck. For any evolutionary
change to take place, the environment has to remain more or less constant for
many generations, so that evolution can select the traits that are adaptive and
eliminate those that are not. When the environment undergoes rapid change within
the space of a generation or two, as it has been for the last couple of
millennia, if not more, then evolution can't happen because nature can't
determine which traits to select and which to eliminate. So they remain at a
standstill. Our brain (and the rest of our body) are essentially frozen in time
— stuck in the Stone Age.

Huh??? The wrongness of this statement coming from an apparently educated man supposedly trained in evolutionary theory seriously concerns me..