I mentioned in an earlier post the experiments of BF Skinner on pigeons. As I said then, the core of his research was experimenting with learning in animals and the extent to which certain behaviours could be “conditioned”. Now, scientists are constantly asked for examples of applications of their research. Indeed, it is becoming increasingly difficult to obtain funding for projects that do not have some form of tangible output. Faced with this question, Skinner came up with an innovative application of pigeon learning which became known as “Project Pigeon” (or “Project Orcon” for “organic control”).
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Category: Science
Odonate of the week: Coenagrion puella
This week’s odonate of the week is Coenagrion puella. This is a European species that is very close to my heart. I worked on it during my PhD at the University of Liverpool and it has treated me well by producing some nice publications over the years.
A Canadian perspective on clinical trial registration
When pharmaceutical companies wish to market a drug, there is a legislative requirement that they first demonstrate efficacy and safety. The pharmaceutical companies do this by contracting out clinical trials. The history of these trials is one of refinement over time with the most recent trials meeting rigorous requirements for blinding (i.e. neither the participants nor the experimenters know who’s getting what kind of treatment) and randomisation (i.e. random allocation of participants to the different treatments).
I was listening to an old Skeptics Guide to the Universe (SGU) podcast from October 13th 2010 which featured an interview with Ben Goldacre, a psychiatrist, medical writer and author of the excellent blog/column/book Bad Science. He made an argument that resonated so strongly that I have to reproduce it in its entirety:
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In search of Nessy
I discussed the application of “climate space envelope models” (also known as “species distribution models” or “ecological niche models”) to Sasquatch in an earlier post. While I was writing that post I was racking my brain trying to remember a scientific paper on the Loch Ness Monster… I distinctly remembered hearing about it in an undergraduate course but didn’t have any record of it in my notes. The good news is I found the paper! In fact, I found several!
Ants: predators and prey
I recently came across this neat video of an ant colony dismantling a dead gecko.
Science meets science fiction (and fans)
While some people were off enjoying the sights and sounds of Las Vegas at TAM9, myself and three other members of the Committee for the Advancement of Scientific Skepticism (which bears the much-needed acronym of CASS) were in Toronto having our own little skeptical conference. This is my brief summary of the talks.
In search of Sasquatch
I have been involved in “climate space modelling” for a few years now. This is an approach that uses observations of a given species to determine the range of environmental variables under which it will occur. Once you know what the limits of its tolerance are, you can predict where the species will occur. For example, let’s say that a damselfly (of course I’m using a hypothetical damselfly) can live at temperature of between 10 and 20 degrees and precipitation has to be between 200mm and 500mm per year. Warmer, wetter, cooler or drier than that and it can’t survive. We can use these limits to predict (i) where the species currently exists but has not been recorded, and (ii) where the species might exist in the future as the climate changes.
Hello (again) world!
Having abandoned my plans of maintaining a blog almost 18 months ago, I now find myself posting far too many thoughts on Facebook and Google+. As a result, I’m going to give the blog a go again on a new (and, I think, prettier) platform. I only posted a few times on my old blog and I will repost those entries here over the next few days to preserve them for posterity(?). I also had a few “guest spots” elsewhere. If you want to read a bit about what I’ve been up to, here are some links to my previous guest blog posts:
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Katatrepsis 