I Really Should Finish Packing

You know I'm not going to sleep tonight, don't you? If I'd known this, I would have slept until 11! But I have to take a smoke break then the laptop's right there on the sofa (I only smoke in the LR) and it's sooooo tempting. Next thing you know, my mind starts churning...

Nurse Pam had a great post the other day with several wonderful links. In the comments, I mentioned that I've heard or read of a number of species that model a gender-isolated social system. Many species have female-only colonies which only welcome males of the species during the mating season. Some of the females even display lesbian tendencies.

This got me to thinking and that's a dangerous thing. Since most mammals' primary sense is scent, I wonder if there are any examples of transgendered individuals in the animal kingdom. That led me to wonder, if there are, how they are perceived and accepted or rejected in the presence of a female/gender-isolated social construct. I wonder if anyone's ever studied this...

Oh, and speaking of science and research, I found a new site tonight via RedOrbit Blogwatch, a great site in its own right. It's basically a Wiki scientific research journal where people can post research articles and make them available to the world at large, free of charge! Open-access publishing. Is this a great concept or what? If you're a science or 'smarts' junkie like me, I recommend a visit. You can find it at Public Library of Science.

A final interesting science find this evening is context weblog, which is a little deeper than I can handle tonight but is bookmarked for future perusal. It's an examination of how culture is being created and evolving in a post-web world. Or, as they put it,

a new planetary culture emerge in the context of the digital information and connections. one culture that overcomes the old cultural dimensions clashes (science-art, universal-national, public-private, work-leisure, entertainment-education...).

context project is devoted to a net driven research and development on this new cultural context. the project's initiatives aims to appropriate and disseminate the emerging culture as a new 'art de vivre.'

Okay, I'll stop thinking and typing, shut up and get back to packing.

Technorati tags: feminism / health and science / lesbian / life