"It is - still - the best zoological blog out there, period"
With six years of tedious phd work on theropod dinosaurs behind him, Darren Naish stares longingly from his office window at the birds outside and wonders: why did I bother? He pursues exotic lizards and feral cats across the British countryside, occasionally prizes the skeletal jaws from hedgehog corpses, and aims to publish his technical work on obscure Cretaceous dinosaurs. He remains desperately in quest of an academic job that'll last more than a month, and - with a background in TV research, e-learning development, academic editing, popular writing, teaching, landscape gardening, parenting and the wonderful world of retail - he still holds out hope of becoming a dedicated academic. He can be contacted intermittently at eotyrannus (at) gmail dot com. For more biographical info go here.
You've read the blog, now buy the books....
January 31, 2008
Category: crurotarsans
So, what exactly do scientists do when they feel that colleagues have behaved unethically? That's a good question and the answer is by no means clear...
Posted by Darren Naish at 1:00 AM • 30 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
January 30, 2008
Category: herpetology
The spikes on the back of the skull are also cool. Also emphasized here is how close the eyes are to the snout, and - if you imagine the skull without all the soft tissue in the way - how long and tall the back of the skull is, particularly the sagittal crest...
Posted by Darren Naish at 7:16 AM • 14 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
January 28, 2008
Category: ornithology
Keeping promises isn't always easy, but - following what is hopefully a forgiveable hiatus - here we get back to that short series on obscure island-dwelling, recently extinct animals. It started with a map of the Caribbean. Then we...
Posted by Darren Naish at 4:00 AM • 50 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
January 26, 2008
Yeah, they can often argue that they have teaching to deal with, but I don't see them staying up until 3 or 4 in the morning to get their papers written. In fact, just what the bloody hell do other academics do with their time?
Posted by Darren Naish at 6:33 AM • 14 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
January 24, 2008
I could finally get into the habit of swanning around London's West End, rubbing shoulders with Kate Moss and going to all the showbiz parties, snorting cocaine and so on. I blew what money I made on lap-dancing and expensive dinners. But it wasn't to last...
Posted by Darren Naish at 4:56 PM • 23 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
January 22, 2008
Category: ornithology
Time to resort to posting images, with minimal use of text, once more. Previously we had giraffes vs planes: these pictures - which are widely available on the web and unfortunately don't come with any details* - pretty much...
Posted by Darren Naish at 6:12 PM • 17 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
January 21, 2008
Given that I have a particular liking of obscure species, I had to take this on, and indeed you might argue that I had a responsibility to do so, given that virtually nothing non-technical has been written about many of the species concerned.
Posted by Darren Naish at 12:49 PM • 9 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
January 18, 2008
Those of you with particularly good memories might recall the little references I've been making here and there to a 'big, personally-relevant publication', and those asides to new papers about pleurodires and enantiornithines. Following horrific delays (caused by amphibians,...
Posted by Darren Naish at 5:11 PM • 15 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
January 17, 2008
Or - alternative title to this article - 'It will be the best conference of all time' (no hyperbole at all). Do you like dinosaurs? Are you particularly interested in our changing ideas about dinosaurs, about key discoveries and...
Posted by Darren Naish at 4:57 AM • 17 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
January 15, 2008
It seems that this story is already all over the internet - I would have posted on it sooner this morning but was busy with amphibians! Anyway... back in 2005 Mary Schweitzer and colleagues dropped a bombshell into the...
Posted by Darren Naish at 7:09 AM • 37 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
