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The Evil Monkey has a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from a southeastern U.S. university. After a postdoctoral nightmare of Inquisitorial proportions, he is currently working in a laboratory and an adjunct assistant professor at a nearby state university.
Scicurious is a graduate student wrestling with a PhD in Physiology at a southern institution. She is a nerd, a geek, and also a dork. And yes, that really is her brain.
NotoriousLTP is an MD-PhD student in New York City. After finishing (hopefully soon) his PhD in behavioral neuroscience, he will re-enter the fun vortex that is medical education.
Disclaimer: The opinions on this blog do not represent any organization to which we may belong, or employers, or basically anybody but us. So there.
March 5, 2010
Category:
ResearchBlogging Awards 2010
Neurotopia has been nominated for best neuroscience blog! And the voting's now open! So head on over and VOTE (I think you have to register first)! There are some great blogs up there in a lot of really great categories!! So let the voting commence, and may the best science blogs win crazy amounts of boasting rights.
Posted by Scicurious at 1:13 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Friday Weird Science
Sci came across this abstract via NCBI ROFL, the aggregation site with some truly hilarious studies on it, many of them worthy Friday Weird Science materials. And of course this one is EXTRA worthy. It's from the Journal of Medical Hypotheses. Wither Weird Science, Medical Hypotheses, but for thee?
So, coming up into this next week, Sci is proud to announce an awesome series of guest posts. Seeing as we spent the last three weeks or so on female reproduction, it seems only fair to represent the other side of the coin, and so, for this next week, we'll be covering the basics of male reproduction, courtesy of the awesome and brilliant Ambivalent Academic.
And what a way to get into it...
Kumar and Kumara. "Swinging high and low: Why do the testes hang at different levels? A theory on surface area and thermoregulation" Medical Hypotheses, 2008.
Posted by Scicurious at 12:48 AM • 19 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 4, 2010
Category: Basic Science Posts
Hello and welcome to this hopefully last installment (before I get to the paper that I want to cover about female reproduction, which may not be able to happen for a bit) on female reproduction!. Previous sets have covered the anatomy, the menstrual cycle, the effects of oral contraceptives, and fertilization and implantation. Now, we get to pregnancy.
And dangit, I used up all my good pics in the last post. Lessee...
(I hear a lot of mothers-to-be feel like this)
So let's get started!
Can't never get enough of them hormones!!
Posted by Scicurious at 12:18 AM • 9 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 3, 2010
Category: Synaptic Misfires
Sci is working on about 3.5 hours of sleep right now. This makes her extremely punchy and odd. and possibly slightly crazy. And thus, she may not have been able to help herself in seminar today, and let out a very unlady-like snort in response to the following:
Introducer guy: I am happy to introduce Dr. Super Impressive Dude, Professor Emer-ITIS at Super Hot Uni...
"Emer-ITIS"?
I suppose Introducer Guy had only ever seen it written. The usual pronunciation is "Professor e-MER-itus", which is super super distinguished professor who has a happy, happy position and paycheck for life. Usually older, white, and male.
Sadly, the poor Introducer guy made this kind of adorable gaffe in front of about 100 people, one of whom was a very punchy and sleep-deprived Sci, who can't get over how hilarious this is. She has since been running around, asking everyone what kind of disease people think "emer-ITIS" is. Nominations so far:
Emer-ITIS (n):
1) A disease that results from too much tenure
2) The result of one too many MRIs.
3) When professors love science too much
4) An inflammation of the tenure (Sci's personal favorite)
5) When your deadwood falls off
And now she asks the internets: what is your definition of "emer-itis"? Make Sci laugh this day!
Posted by Scicurious at 3:28 PM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 2, 2010
Category:
The first Open Lab 2009 review is up over at Sciblogs! Sci was amused that the reviewer notes that editor (editress? editrix?) is listed by her pseud, but agrees that it's all part of the blog experience. :)
The reviewer, Grant Jacobs, follows with a hopefully representative list of some of the posts in the book, calling Dr. Jekyll's Breatstatistics "delightfully tongue in cheek", calls Ambivalent Academic's dissection of academia "wonderful", and calls the writing overall "great"! However, I have to quibble with his description of our beer post, Good head, as being quintessentially male. Sci herself learned a LOT from that post which she intends to use in her future pours, and which she has already shared with her friends of both sexes, to their interest and delight ("really? Cool! Let's get another beer and try this...").
Sci is sorry for the lack of physical science that Jacobs notes, but we work with what we have, and in general the submissions for biology and neuroscience FAR outnumbered those of physics, astronomy, etc (for a full list of 2009 submissions, see here). So next year, y'all are just going to have to submit more physics!! And math, we could use some more math...
But you won't know what is lacking, and what is not, unless you buy it yourself!
Posted by Scicurious at 12:23 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 1, 2010
Category: Activism
The website Speaking of Research, a site devoted to spreading accurate information about the uses and benefits of animal research, has put part of my previous post on their site (no worries, they had permission). They have also put up a great aggregate of the recent posts from the science blogging community on animal research. Sci thinks it's very sad that all of this had to arise from the nasty things that happened after a previously successful debate, but she is also glad that such things are being discussed openly, and is thrilled to receive so much support for her work and the care with which she treats her animals. So check out Speaking of Research, and make sure to keep an eye on Adventures in Ethics and Science, where Janet is continuing to talk about animal rights violence and alternatives.
Posted by Scicurious at 10:27 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Basic Science Posts
And we're back with part 4 of Sci's brand spanking new series on female reproduction!! This one's going to be a whopper, fertilization and pregnancy is a lot to cover, and so it will be very basic and divided into two posts, though less basic than the "baby in your tummy" bit that Sci learned when she was small.
(Sci had this book when she was small. It made her very popular with the local kids, and I still giggle every time I think of the part where they tell you that an orgasm is a like a big, wonderful sneeze.)
So here we go, basic fertilization and early pregnancy, starting with your friend, the sperm:
And ending up with one of these:
(All together now...1...2...3...AWWWWWWW)
Here we go.
Posted by Scicurious at 12:09 AM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
February 27, 2010
Category:
So the first ever Research Blogging Award Nominees are up! There are some great nominees up there for lots of topics, but Sci doesn't want to tell you who to vote for because that would be biased and evil.
Oh, I'll do it once.
Vote for me!!
Research Blogging Awards 2010 Finalist
Neurotopia is nominated in the neuroscience category (I can't believe we weren't nominated for funniest...maybe next year. I can be funnier!!! *does dance*), and we're up against some pretty stiff competition! So even if we don't win, I can say it's great to be nominated with such prestigious neuroblogs!!!
Makes Sci feel famous.
Posted by Scicurious at 12:37 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
February 26, 2010
Category: Friday Weird Science
Many of you may have heard from your doctor that doing Kegels is a good thing. It's certainly good for keeping your pelvic floor strong, to prevent problems like uterine prolapse following birth. It's also very good for keeping your bladder good and functional later in life. So do your Kegels, ladies.
However, Sci has always heard through the grapevine that Kegels were also good for...other things.
Well, are they?
Lowenstein et al. "Can stronger pelvic muscle floor improve sexual function?" International Urogynecology Journal Including Pelvic Floor Dysfunction, 2010.
(BEST MASHUP EVER. I always knew Raphael was a Samantha.)
Posted by Scicurious at 12:22 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
