We are moving…

Following the example of the Rabbit, I may soon be moving to WordPress, importing all my old post and such over there.

The reason, quite simply, is the lack of pre-made 3-columns templates on Blogger.

I know I could modify myself the html to allow for that, but I can’t be arsed. After all, that’s the age of internet 2.0, we users are not supposed to know what html is, exactly like you don’t need to know electronics to operate a TV. And since I am no enginneer and want a wide-screen blog in these times of wide-everything, I am getting a new one exactly how I would get a new TV.

It’s as simple as that.

So, you will temporarily be able to find me at: http://gufodotto.wordpress.com

Upload your blogrolls then…

Luca

PS: I will possibly use the opportunity to start another, science-only related blog. I haven’t decided yet what its name is going to be, but I will try to write down a diary of what my work is about… Let’s see how it shapes up…

Michael Pollan has a blog, too!

One of my favourite writers/journalists has a blog, about good agriculture and good food.

Check it out: On The Table

and make sure you read how agricultural policies of developed states influence the things we eat.

It’s a pity he does not update it more often…

Have an Ice Day!!!

Pseudomonas syringae is an extremely interesting bacterium, which I discovered reading Olivia Judson’s latest post on cloud-dwelling bacteria.

Usually, plants growing in cold regions use special chemicals as anti-freeze. This bacterium, though, secretes Ice Nucleation-active proteins to make ice crystals grow at temperatures as high as -2C. The crystals cause damage to cell walls of plants, and the bacterium vacuums up the nutrients released.

So, they use ice crystals as straw, although the name “syringae” doesn’t come from there. Rather, it comes from the plants they were isolated from at first:

It is named after the lilac tree (Syringa vulgaris), from which it was first isolated^[2]

(from the wikipedia)

and always on the theme of vampires from the cold, the new Penny Arcade strip is out!

Double blind scientific review

John Denney over at Evilutionary Biologist makes an interesting point: How often and how much knowing the reputation of the author of a paper influences the opinion we get from reading it?

The discussion was sparked by a piece on the journal Nature.

Would it not be better if the review process was double blinded, as it happens in the case of clinical trials of new drugs?

I do happen to think it is a good idea too.

It is certainly possible to guess who the author of the paper is from the subject, his writing style and (possibly) the amount of self-citations(!).

But one more hurdle to accepting a paper as a gold nugget just because it’s been crapped up (down) by Dr Eminent can’t hurt, can he?

I am personally in the middle of the final touches to my paper before submission – and I think that another good point of it is that reviewers who will happen to read it (if it gets accepted for review, that is) will not know my name so they will not black list me for future collaborations.

Oh, come on, a bit of self-confidence, Dr Fenu…

Do supermarkets make our lives better?

The BBC radio program “World Have Your Say” points to an opinion piece by food critic Jay Rayner discussing whether or not supermaret are a good or evil force in our fight for better, affordable food.

I have to admit that I quite like his position, founding it well reasoned and far from the anti-supermarket crowd rants…

Yes, supermarket “are bloody convenient“, as he points out. But they are not the “the dismal and anonymous places” they are made out to be… The people working in there are just, well, people, and they are as likely to behave nicely or badly with their customers as any other “small-retailer” who has been put out of business by them.

Also, I may add, from my personal experience, in Italy the small distribution is suffering now the revenge of customers who until now were forced to pay extortion prices for goods often 1/3rd cheaper in the supermarket.

And as Jay thoughtfully points out, all those chef recommending exotic ingredients would not be able to offer recipes for less than 5 pounds if it weren’t for the big scale economies that allow big chain to sell these foods at a lower price.

There certainly is a lot to be done to force supermarket to pay an honest price to farmers… But as long as people pushes them to have cheaper and cheaper food, they’re going to attempt anything they can to provide them with it. Once people will start demanding high quality food, we will see a shift in the chains’ modus operandi. Not one second before.

Ankylosaurs’ week is almost over…

Darren Naish has kept his promise to publish one wonderful post x day about Ankylosaurs for a whole week!!! There’s only one day left but may be he’ll skip to rest…

Go and read them all right now, cause they’re worth it…

I personally loved Ankilosaurs when I was a child and used to play with it and beat the crap out of a plastic T-Rex with his knobby, armored tail.

Incidentally, my little brother used to keep the model dinosaurs in between cattle and poultry in his plastic little farm… Do you think he knew that chicken and T-Rex were, after all, very close genetically?

Gufodotto’s Shared Items

Look up there…

Since I often comment about news I read on the i.net, and now I don’t get much time to wrte on them, I put up a new feed burner with a few of those I think it would be nice to share with you. It’s all thanks to google’s reader, which I restarted using since my blogroll was getting too long to keep a daily eye on all of them…

On the diary side of my life, I managed to start correcting the paper and hopefully will get it done by the end of the week. If I can get away from the internet, that is…

New Blog on the block

I just discovered Desktop Tales, a blog (in Italian) where marco publishes, among other things, the comic strip with the same name, featuring a Mac and PC commenting current news from the computer world and not.

I loved it, so I thought you may want to have a look too.

Thanks to [Emo] for spreading the news.

Old Blog Out, New Blog In

Ho cambiato il mio blog rool, non quello degli amici ma quello dei blog da seguire.

Sparisce GalacticaBlog, che da tempo non seguivo, fondamentalmente xke’ l’autore e’ un fascista (ah ah) appassionato di una serie che fascista non e’ ma che da tempo non mi piace piu’.

Ed arriva Verso Itaca, che invece ho scoperto x caso (seguendo link da uno dei blog amici) e che penso rivisitero’ in seguito. x cui, benvenuto ne mio blog roll (che per il momento rolla ben poco)

Daphne has a blog!!!

Full of pretty sketches!!! Go and check it out!!!

http://daphne-daphn3.blogspot.com/