A Librarian's View of ScienceOnline

To contact us Click HERE
I've submitted a photograph to #scio12 science-art show.  I wanted to convey something about science, which is tough since what I most like to photograph is flowers and cats. Ok, I could have argued that they were science photos, but I thought it was a stretch.
I thought more about it and decided to take photos of some of the books I've acquired (for myself or for my library) as a result of ScienceOnline past & current.  Here, therefore, is my view of ScienceOnline:

The books are, from top to bottom:

• Graedon, J., & Graedon, T. (2011). The people's pharmacy quick & handy home remedies. Washington, DC: National Geographic.
• Zimmer, C. (2011). A planet of viruses. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Skloot, R. (2010). The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks. New York: Crown Publishers.
• Dunn, R. R. (2011). The wild life of our bodies: Predators, parasites, and partners that shape who we are today. New York: Harper.
• McKenna, M. (2010). Superbug: The fatal menace of MRSA. New York: Free Press.
• Linden, T. (2011). The New York times reader: Health and medicine. Washington, D.C: CQ Press.
• Tucker, H. (2011). Blood work: A tale of medicine and murder in the scientific revolution. New York: W.W. Norton.
• Mooney, C., & Kirshenbaum, S. (2009). Unscientific America: How scientific illiteracy threatens our future. New York: Basic Books.
• Specter, M. (2009). Denialism: How irrational thinking hinders scientific progress, harms the planet, and threatens our lives. New York: Penguin Press.
• Meredith, D. (2010). Explaining research: How to reach key audiences to advance your work. New York, N.Y: Oxford University Press.

You can check out (literally and figuratively) these books on my WorldCat list of ScienceOnline Books.

Field trip to Durham's @LifeandScience museum! #scio12

To contact us Click HERE
I was thrilled to go on a behind the scenes tour of Durham's fabulous Museum of Life and Science at last week's ScienceOnline conference. Here is an annotated visual tour of the trip, with photos taken by several of us on the tour. I used Storify to curate the images, which were posted on Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube (the bear video is awesome; especially the last 10-20 seconds).

Thanks especially to Keeper Mikey for the tour!

Chocolate Mooncakes (Gluten-free). Or, Recipes on the Blog!

To contact us Click HERE
I've been cooking & posting photos / recipes to my Facebook page for a while now. That turns out to be satisfying because my friends post comments ... but ultimately is unsatisfying because I can't easily refer people to my baked kale recipe or my spicy Thai slaw recipe.
I got a suggestion (or two) to start a blog ... but hey, I already have a blog, and it's not being used. So ... I'm planning to post some recipes here, in addition to the occasional post about teaching or librarianing or cognitive sciencing.

Chocolate Mooncakes

First up: Chocolate Mooncakes (Gluten Free). or, Black bean, gluten-free brownies. I wanted a relatively healthy and wheat-free baked good to take to various holiday events -- but it had to taste good first. So I scoured the interwebs for black bean brownie recipes & settled on Eat Good 4 Life: Dark chocolate and black bean brownies.
The recipe calls for many of the usual brownie ingredients, such as eggs, sugar, and vanilla.
Variations: I am not a big brownie baker, so I was less familiar with the chocolate aspect. The recipe calls for dark cocoa powder, but since I didn't know if I was going to like these (and thus make them again), I didn't want to buy a lot of cocoa powder. So I bought a single-serving packet of sipping cocoa. I used Whole Foods semi-sweet chocolate chips for the toppings. I also substituted (and toasted) pecans instead of chopped walnuts, just because I'm in the south.
I was flummoxed at the notion of buying instant coffee -- all I could think of was Sanka, and I didn't know where I might big a jar of Sanka these days. While I didn't look hard, I still didn't find any instant coffee, and so I thought I would do without. Then I remembered that Starbucks is making instant coffee, so I bought a three-pack of their coffee-flavored instant coffee.  (I didn't buy their flavored mochas, nor their Christmas blend.)
The cool thing about this recipe, and this is not a variation, but is, imho, A Good Thing, is the use of a can of black beans instead of flour. The texture is not quite brownie-like, but as my friend Tomasa said, is more like a Chinese mooncake. Actually, according to Wikipedia, this is nothing like a typical Chinese mooncake, but it's more like a mooncake than a brownie, so I'm sticking with the name.
If you're gluten-free, or just want to try a brownie variation, I recommend these.

Celebrate Petfinder's Birthday by Sending in Your Adoption Story!

To contact us Click HERE


March 15, 2011 will be Petfinder.com's 15th birthday! This revolutionary website has not only helped unite hundreds of thousands of homeless pets with their adoptive parents, it also tirelessly works to educate and entertain the public with their blog, message boards, library of articles on pet health, behavior, training, and much more. To celebrate this exciting milestone, Petfinder.com is staging a takeover of the Internet on March 15. This will entail a massive awareness explosion about adoption and shelter animals by numerous participating pet-centric blogs.

In honor of this momentous occasion, here at The Rabbit Advocate, I am hosting a rabbit adoption story contest. Send in a picture and story (up to 100 words) of how you and your bunny friend found each other and I will post a winner here on March 15th. Let's all get to writing!

The Easter Bunny Isn't Real

To contact us Click HERE

I know all of us bunnyparents look forward to the Easter holiday season and the sudden availability of all imaginable rabbit-shaped objects that comes along with it. But while we’re enjoying the bunny cards and figurines, we need to realize that Easter is also a terrible time for many rabbits. Year after year, unsuspecting parents buy real baby bunnies to put in their children’s Easter baskets alongside jelly beans and chocolate eggs. Weeks later, these rabbits are dumped at shelters or (even worse) released into the wild, when the family slowly realizes that rabbits are not perfectly behaved inanimate objects.

As you and I know, rabbits are not toys, and they’re certainly not appropriate gifts for young children. Help spread the word to people in your area by writing in to your local newspaper, putting up posters at obliging shops/malls/grocery stores/veterinary clinics, or simply talking to friends and family about the commitment involved in owning a rabbit. Shelter and rescue volunteers have already begun spreading the word all over the country and I urge you to reach out and educate your local town or city about choosing toy rabbits for Easter, and adopting real rabbits for life.



While Peanut (left) and Jimmy may look like toys, these 3 lb. dwarf Hotots are real-life bunny brothers, adopted for life by Caroline and Matt in Boston, MA.

To read more about a national Easter awareness initiative, check out the House Rabbit Society’s Make Mine Chocolate campaign.

Celebrate Petfinder's Birthday by Sending in Your Adoption Story!

To contact us Click HERE


March 15, 2011 will be Petfinder.com's 15th birthday! This revolutionary website has not only helped unite hundreds of thousands of homeless pets with their adoptive parents, it also tirelessly works to educate and entertain the public with their blog, message boards, library of articles on pet health, behavior, training, and much more. To celebrate this exciting milestone, Petfinder.com is staging a takeover of the Internet on March 15. This will entail a massive awareness explosion about adoption and shelter animals by numerous participating pet-centric blogs.

In honor of this momentous occasion, here at The Rabbit Advocate, I am hosting a rabbit adoption story contest. Send in a picture and story (up to 100 words) of how you and your bunny friend found each other and I will post a winner here on March 15th. Let's all get to writing!

The Easter Bunny Isn't Real

To contact us Click HERE

I know all of us bunnyparents look forward to the Easter holiday season and the sudden availability of all imaginable rabbit-shaped objects that comes along with it. But while we’re enjoying the bunny cards and figurines, we need to realize that Easter is also a terrible time for many rabbits. Year after year, unsuspecting parents buy real baby bunnies to put in their children’s Easter baskets alongside jelly beans and chocolate eggs. Weeks later, these rabbits are dumped at shelters or (even worse) released into the wild, when the family slowly realizes that rabbits are not perfectly behaved inanimate objects.

As you and I know, rabbits are not toys, and they’re certainly not appropriate gifts for young children. Help spread the word to people in your area by writing in to your local newspaper, putting up posters at obliging shops/malls/grocery stores/veterinary clinics, or simply talking to friends and family about the commitment involved in owning a rabbit. Shelter and rescue volunteers have already begun spreading the word all over the country and I urge you to reach out and educate your local town or city about choosing toy rabbits for Easter, and adopting real rabbits for life.



While Peanut (left) and Jimmy may look like toys, these 3 lb. dwarf Hotots are real-life bunny brothers, adopted for life by Caroline and Matt in Boston, MA.

To read more about a national Easter awareness initiative, check out the House Rabbit Society’s Make Mine Chocolate campaign.