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 
Unless you've been hiding under a rock, you'll know that 2008 is Year of the Frog (more here), and that several projects - including Amphibian Ark and EDGE - are working to try and save endangered frog and toad species before they become extinct. We need to do all we can to continue to drum up interest in the conservation effort that many of us are now involved in. Quest, a science show at KQED (the PBS station in San Francisco), has just produced a new video concentrating on the decline of Californian Yellow-legged frogs R. boylii (aka Foothill yellow-legged frog, and it's - apparently - not R. boylei as often stated) and Red-legged frogs R. aurora draytonii: you can watch it here (with extras), or right here, right now...
PS - remember to sign the online Amphibian Ark petition!
PPS - am obviously back from the conference. More on that soon. Giant pterosaurs, Gerhard Heilmann's angels, the 1916 sinking of the SS Mount Temple, Dynamosaurus, Gideon Mantell's baryonychines, Piltdown man and Arthur Conan Doyle's dinosaurs, and much more. Where else could you hear the line ".. from the north came the furry tyrannosaurs"?
Comments
Interesting video.
Sorry I didnt make it to the conference - I wanted to go :(
Posted by: neil | May 10, 2008 11:44 AM
I'm excited to hear what progress Darren Tanke has made on the Mount Temple. I haven't heard about it in almost 2 year :(
Posted by: Traumador the Tyrannosaur | May 10, 2008 7:40 PM
Defenders of Wildlife's magazine "Defenders" has a cover article "Slipping Away" about the plight of amphibians: http://tinyurl.com/5ttod4
See also the Zoo Atlanta research program at: http://www.zooatlanta.org/research_reptile_research.htm
Posted by: Mary | May 11, 2008 6:56 PM