Assorted links: Protaxites, ciliate sex and publication tweets

Still procrastinating with Sunday Protist, which means I'm actually procrastinating with all the real work I should be doing right now...but here's some random stuff my internet wanderings have taken me to!

Giant columnar fungi(Protaxites) may have actually just been rolled mats of liverworts -- Catalogue of Organisms. Intriguing indeed!

Really nice article on ciliate sex by Olivia Judson. When I first read her dino article earlier, I was like "holy crap a science writer actually got the facts straight! o_O" And then I noticed she's a practicing biologist -- never mind the 'writer gets facts straight' headline. On the other hand, 'scientist can actually write' is in itself quite an impressive headline, so it's no less amazing!

#sci140: A paper in 140 characters (new publishing model). A bunch of geeks decide it's about time to put Twitter to good use -- can you summarise a classic paper (or your own) in 133 characters or less? (7 letters go to the hashtag)

Some of my favourites:

• SelectAgent #sci140 Salt of DNA structure= double helix. Strands anti-parallel; has implications. (PS Rosie didn't help)
• michaelgrr We did some messing about with wire and stuff, found double helix fits the Xray patterns of DNA. Rest is obvious. Suck that, Linus! #sci140
• IanMulvany #sci140 dog + bell + food = saliva. Repeat. Eventually dog + bell = saliva, where's my nobel prize?
• labgrrl Oops, Who would've thought that absolute power corrupts absolutely? (Zimbardo,1971) #sci140
• sciencebase: Dropped heavy and light ball at Pisa; saw landed at same time. Peer review problems now, especially after telescope incident. #sci140
• pssalgado cat in box + decay triggered poison. box closed: cat alive & dead. when box opened: cat live or dead #Schrodinger #sci140
• michiexile #sci140 Complete. Concise. Consistent. Pick two. - Gödel 1931
• aeporreca It’s impossible to determine whether a guy with an infinite piece of paper will ever stop doing maths. http://bit.ly/9qKV5E #sci140
• bparsia All your theorems are belong to us (Euclid, 300BC) #sci140
• axiomsofchoice p,q∈ℕ;p²=2q²⊧p∈2ℤ;gcd(p,q)=1⊧q∈2ℤ+1;∵4∣a²,a∈2ℤ⊧q∈2ℤ⊧⊥;∴√2∉ℚ;QED #sci140 http://ff.im/fFJeG
  

Btw, it's a competition. Get crackin'! (I don't have Twitter so I'll just watch...)

Assorted link roundup

Some links from my epic procrastination foray:

Since I'm supposed to be cramming studying for my developmental biol lab exam (early chick embryology) this Monday (8am, ewww), NOVA's Guess the Embryo was quite fun! And amazingly difficult too... (the bat develops quite cutely, for some reason.)

An interesting application of DNA barcoding: testing sushi meat

Science standup comedy, via MolBio. On that note, lab cartoons, also via MolBio.

Forgot where I found this (was quite a while ago), but How to write consistently boring scientific literature (Sand-Jensen 2007 Oikos; free access) has 10 simple rules to ensure your scientific work never falls into the hands (or mind) of others.

CG animation of Aspergillus conidiophores via MycoRant. Fungal fruiting bodies seem very graceful there!

10 days left for 2009 Open Lab submissions, due 01 December at midnight.

And I guess that's it for now. Should probably get back to drawing embryos over and over and over again. Also, why is mammalian developmental biology literature so bloody hard to read? Plant people are kind enough to provide sufficient background for everyone, even zoologists, to understand what's going on. The mammalian guys assume you know everything already. Hello, some of us actually work with different systems, y'know?

It's kinda fun to be thrown in at the deep end of a completely foreign field though. Too bad we're expected to focus on only one paper for the class presentation thing, and I like to skim over a small pile of reviews before narrowing in on one topic. That seems to be quite discouraged, considering the time alotted to this endeavour. Maybe that's why I seem to get along quite well with TC-S papers (aka Megamonumental Reviews of Life, the Universe and Everything). FUZZBRAIN PRIDE!

When I take over the world, undegrad is going to be run so differently. Also, microbiology and protistology would be the most well-funded fields. Disciplinary tribalism will be banned, and everyone will work together and learn from each other's fields, even arts and science. Engineers will be banished to a deserted island in the middle of the Pacific somewhere. The steady state for a sane social model will be found, and societies will be engineered towards it, somehow. (all previously invented utopias failed to be steady states; this one will be different. Mwahaha) LOLcats will be displayed proudly and ceilingcat will be worshipped on Caturdays, along with FSM and various protist and bacterial demi-gods. And there will be NO bloody sweet meat. Evar. Sweet meat is a freaking abomination - how the HELL can anyone in their right mind pour honey over a delicious beef steak? That's just horrible. A crime against culinary arts, a grotesque malfunction of the human culinome. Seriously, new -ome coinages cannot begin to compare with the abomination that is sweetened meat*.

*Exceptions include: apples and cranberries in duck, turkey et al. And NOTHING ELSE!

And finally, the theft of forceps from microscopists will be a capital offense. I NEED THOSE FORCEPS FOR MY WORK, YOU %$@&$s.

I think I'm ready to quit procrastinating for a while...