Blogs
Barbara Ferreira starts off the week on ‘Blue Monday’, apparently the most depressing day of the year, with a post about laughing. It explains how laughing your socks off could potentially encourage the immune system, help the heart, and even aid fertility:
Scientific evidence that comedy can strengthen the immune system dates back to 1985. A study published that year showed that the levels of salivary immunoglobulin A — a immune-system protein that is one of our bodies’ standard defenses against infection — increased after individuals watched a humorous video. Research done in 2003 pointed to an “apparent relationship” between laughter and another component of the immune system, the natural killer cells. These cells play an important rule in freeing the body from viruses and tumors so an increase in their activity through laughter could help the body fight diseases
This week has also seen the revival of Vishal Kalel’s blog with another humorous post to lift the post-holiday blues; If spammers turn scientific! In his popular entry, he comically discusses the fear that spammers may start to target scientific audiences using the appropriate terminology. However, we do hope scientists are clever enough not to get fooled by these particularly enticing promises:
From – Prof. Dr. Lucy
Hello dear Prof. Dr. xxx
How are you doing today, I saw your profile on science journal website. Your publications are really awesome.. I am having good results but need your help in analysing them. Can we meet sometime to discuss the data (intimate things?) and get to know more about each other?. Are you doing some experiments these days. I wish we can discuss your new results and see if they can be published in high impact factor journal since I have some contacts over there. Call me on xx xxx xxx or drop an email to lucy@xyz.com
Being a scientist…
In another thought-provoking post, Linda Lin considers the huge dedication required in writing her thesis and how numerous, time-consuming tasks have to be performed to produce just one simple answer. While Jim Caryl on a similar line of thought, discusses the problems associated with writer’s block, in his post On getting work past your editor.
The question of the week goes to Richard Williams who asks What are Graduations for? A growing comment thread offers numerous explanations to this query.
Scientific Papers…
GrrlScientist discusses a rather sensitive subject that fishermen refer to as the serine problem. When adult salmon enter fresh water, they rely primarily upon their sense of smell to locate their birth streams where they will breed. But this is disrupted by the smell of serine – and who has the highest serine levels in the skin? The adult white human male.
Elsewhere on Nature Network, other stimulating debates have been introduced. Bob O’Hara has been considering experimentation in the reviewing process in his post, More Ideas about Ideas in Ecology and Evolution. While Nicolau Werneck has been evaluating how different countries compare to each other in scientific publications with regards to volume and ‘quality’:
And finally …..
I am sure we all would like to know how homeopathic remedies work. Viktor Poor amusingly demonstrates in his weekly comic strip how water memory performs as a cure:
