Stories by Jason G. Goldman

A handful of random musings on life as a grad student, spanning two countries, three states, and six or seven timezones, lasting about half an hour.

“The males often prefer eating to mating.” Apparently, giant panda dudes (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) in captivity would rather sit around and munch on bamboo than get it on with the females.

I am quite full from the last minute Fourth of July dinner that my brother and I threw together – featuring grilled chicken-apple sausages, roasted pork tenderloin with lemon-pepper dry rub, and chocolate peanut butter cookies.

Every celebration deserves some muppets.

Looks like Drugmonkey has re-instated the who are you and why are you looking at me meme. Having only participated as a reader of Scienceblogs the last few years, I’m excited to be on the other side of the table this time.

There was so much good stuff this past week or two. Here’s a round-up: Dave Munger’s column in Seed Magazine, regarding self-report data, features the blogcast I did with Travis a few weeks ago.

Upon waking up this morning, my sciblings and I discovered that many of us had become zombies. What else could I do but capitalize on an internet meme, in between snacking on brains and flesh?

Imagine with me, for a moment, that the zombie invasion has begun. You try to escape, but the zombies are just too much to handle. You can’t run fast enough.

There are some great questions coming in to Ask a Scienceblogger! If you (or your kids?) have a question you want answered by a scienceblogger drop by Page 3.14 (the blog of the SB overlordz) and leave your question in the comments on this post.

Sapri Li Ahuva (Tell me, beloved) by one of my fave Israeli singers, Dindin Aviv. For those who don’t understand Hebrew, here is a transliteration (courtesy hebrewsongs.com): Tell me beloved, with your beautiful eyes What does your heart desire?

One of my scientific heroes, Richard Feynman, explains confusion and stupidity: Albert Einstein said: “If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn’t be called Research.” If you’re going to be doing research, you better be comfortable with feeling stupid.

Here are my ResearchBlogging Editor’s Selections for this week. Today’s selections will appear in haiku form. How hungry are you?

Fellow primate enthusiast Eric M. Johnson celebrates the one year blogoversary of the Scienceblogs incarnation of The Primate Diaries, today.

The science-loving band OK Go (whose newest video messes with time perception) has another hilarious video out there. Not a music video, mind you.

She: “What are you writing about?” Me: “Cognition in cold-blooded animals.” She: “Hot.” Most people who study cognition focus on mammals or birds.

Figure 1: Mountain lion kitten. From my good friends at LAist: Since 2002, biologists having been tracking and studying the movements of mountain lions in the Santa Monica Mountains, Simi Hills and Santa Susana Mountains to better understand how they live surrounded by development.

Drove down PCH with a friend on Friday night blasting this song just as the moon was rising above the horizon. Fantastic. Alejandro – Lady Gaga

Here at Thoughtful Animal headquarters, we’re starting a new series of seven-question interviews with people who are doing or have done animal research of all kinds – biomedical, behavioral, cognitive, and so forth.

Do cats have self recognition? This video suggests they might not, at least in terms of passing the mirror recognition task. But, well, this isn’t really the mirror recognition task.

You can have a pet domesticated fox of your very own – from the Russian fox farm I’ve previously written about – for the low low price of just $5,950.

Last week, I asked on twitter, and then on the blog, about peoples’ preferences for listening to music while doing various types of sciencey work, and conducted an informal survey.

The awesome videos just keep on coming. Check out this one from National Geographic. A juvenile chimp and her mother set out to do some fishing for termites in Congo’s Goualougo Triangle, but the juvenile spots something interesting – an apparently not-so-well hidden camera – and investigates.

Well, sort of. Ready for the new SETI blog here at Scienceblogs? They launched today. I don’t know if we have to look to the skies to find aliens.

This is just cool. No behavior, no cognition, no neuroscience. Just animal awesomeness. Amazing time-lapse video of a twelve-foot spider crab molting.