Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Having Fun on Valentine's Day, Scientifically

The Scientific Activist: Reporting from the Crossroads of Science and Politics: Having Fun on Valentine's Day, Scientifically I've noticed that a lot of blogs have posts about Valentine's day today. Here is my favourite so far, from the Scientific Activist (link above). As he says: "While others may send each other romantic valentines, scientists send each other valinetines, named after the illustrious molecule valine, one of the twenty amino acids that act as the building blocks for all of the diverse proteins in your body." There are a couple of cute poems and an invitation to submit your own, so if the idea appeals, take a visit. Nature erratum, which I call a "tribute blog" as it has nothing to do with Nature despite its slogan "the world's scientists on your desktop" (for Nature's, substitute science for scientists), features a textbook diagram of a human heart. Nature erratum is a nice site --gives a good sense of what it is like to be a junior life-scientist these days, but even if you are not in the profession, is a good read anyway. They haven't gone anywhere with their heart pic, though, other than crediting Elle, Vogue and Flare (sic) as well as Frank Netter's Atlas of Human Anatomy, 2nd edn.