grrlscientist

tags: 4th of July, humor, firecrackers, streaming video This is what many politically conservative, rural, beer swilling, smoking, gun toting Americans (alias "rednecks") do on the anniversary of this nation's independence: they spend their hard-earned money on diluted blobs of dynamite so they can…

tags: politics, pollution, hunger, global warming, environmental destruction, biofuels, overpopulation, birth control, soylent green Image: Matt Groening (The Simpson's). A friend sent a link to an interesting article that was published today in the Guardian. This article reveals that the…

tags: West 34th street Penn Station subway art, Circus of Garden Delights, subway art, NYC through my eye, photography, NYC This is the last artwork from this station that I will show you -- tomorrow I will feature a new (to you) subway station! Circus of Garden Delights. West 34th Street/Penn…

tags: researchblogging.org, endangered species, estimating extinction risk, demographic heterogeneity, demographic stochasticity, environmental stochasticity, Mechanistic stochastic models, Brett Melbourne The endangered pelagic thresher shark, Alopias pelagicus. More than half of the world's…

tags: Norway Maple Tree, Acer platanoides, tree bark, Image of the Day Bark of the Norway maple tree, Acer platanoides. Image: GrrlScientist 2008 [larger view].

I have made several trips to my councilperson's office regarding my weird rent increase so far. These fruitless subway trips are becoming costly! I made my first trip on Monday, but instead of seeing me, they made me sign up for an appointment for today -- why didn't they just have me make an…

tags: Just say Yes, humor, telemarketers, streaming video Since I am a Seattle native, and since Seattle is the home of the grunge rock band, Nirvana, some of my readers are trying to use to get me in a London sort of spirit. In this case, a reader sent me this video of the Nirvana's hit song, "…

tags: researchblogging.org, open access, publishing, life science research, Declan Butler Image: Orphan. Wow, have you read Declan Butler's nasty little hatchet job that was just published in Nature about the Public Library of Science (PLoS)? My jaw hit the top of the table in my little coffee…

tags: West 34th street Penn Station subway art, Circus of Garden Delights, subway art, NYC through my eye, photography, NYC Circus of Garden Delights. West 34th Street/Penn Station Subway tile mosaic art #4 as seen at NYC's West 34th Street stop at 8th for the A, C and E trains. Artist: Eric…

tags: Pin Oak Tree, Quercus palustris, tree bark, Image of the Day Bark of the pin oak tree, Quercus palustris. Image: GrrlScientist 2008 [larger view].

tags: researchblogging.org, global warming, climate variation, climate change, penguins, El Nino, marine zoning, P. Dee Boersma Adélie penguins, Pygoscelis adeliae, and chicks. (a) Adélie penguin chicks may get covered in snow during storms, but beneath the snow their down is warm and dry. (b)…

tags: Just say Yes, humor, telemarketers, streaming video Just a little fun for all those people who are tired of being tortured by telemarketers [1:20]

tags: West 34th street Penn Station subway art, Circus of Garden Delights, subway art, NYC through my eye, photography, NYC Circus of Garden Delights. West 34th Street/Penn Station Subway tile mosaic art #3 [Detail #2] as seen at NYC's West 34th Street stop at 8th for the A, C and E trains.…

I just had to let you know a few details about my London visit. First, my renewed passport arrived in snailmail, with no problems at all! The new passport is quite fancy, by the way, with all sorts of aphorisms about democracy and how wonderful it is printed at the top of each page. Too bad they…

tags: natural selection, evolution, Alfred Russel Wallace, Charles Darwin, Darwin Year, Linnean Society of London Image: Gary Larson. This morning, I was pleased to hear National Public Radio was celebrating the 150th birthday of Natural Selection, the mechanism whereby evolution occurs. One…

tags: Green-naped Rainbow lory, Trichoglossus haematodus haematodus, birds, Image of the Day Last in a series of ten images of lories by this photographer. A playful group of green-naped subspecies of the Rainbow lory, Trichoglossus haematodus haematodus. There are 15 subspecies of rainbow…

tags: Underwater Astonishments, marine biology, evolution, streaming video David Gallo shows jaw-dropping footage of amazing sea creatures, including a shape-shifting cuttlefish, a pair of fighting squid, and a mesmerizing gallery of bioluminescent fish that light up the blackest depths of the…

tags: Seed Media Group, ScienceBlogs, ScienceBlogs.de I have been made privy to a special 1 July 2008 press release from Seed Media Group, the parent organization for ScienceBlogs, which hosts my blog. The news is good. In short, Seed Media Group announced that ScienceBlogs, the internet's largest…

tags: West 34th street Penn Station subway art, Circus of Garden Delights, subway art, NYC through my eye, photography, NYC Circus of Garden Delights. West 34th Street/Penn Station Subway tile mosaic art #3 [Detail #1] as seen at NYC's West 34th Street stop at 8th for the A, C and E trains.…

tags: smuggling parrots, poaching parrots, ProFauna Indonesia, endangered species, conservation, politics Indonesians protest the illegal wildlife trade. Image: ProFauna Indonesia. You know that I am passionate about the parrots of the south Pacific Ocean -- I devoted my life to researching…

I called the landlord's office (again) last Friday to find out what this "rent increase" is about, and the people in the landlord's office had no ideas. As most of you know, I have been trying to find out about this "rent increase" for the past three months, by writing and calling my landlord, but…

tags: Blue Mountain Rainbow Lory, Swainson's Rainbow Lory, Trichoglossus haematodus moluccanus, birds, Image of the Day Eighth in a series of lory images by this photographer. Rainbow Lory, Trichoglossus haematodus moluccanus. This subspecies of rainbow lory is also found in Australia, along…

My friend and colleague, Carl Zimmer, has some news that he is going to tell us about today at 5pm ET, so be sure to pop in to his blog at that time to see what's happening.

tags: Birds in the News, BirdNews, ornithology, birds, avian, newsletter Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Regulus calendula, with insect egg or pupa in its beak. Image: Dave Rintoul, KSU [larger view]. News of Birds in Science A fascinating paper was just published by some of my colleagues in the top-tier…

tags: Ovulation, medicine, technology, streaming video Recently, human ovulation was captured on video for the first time ever. Two researchers, Stephan Gordts and Ivo Brosens of the Leuven Institute for Fertility & Embryology in Belgium, performed transvaginal laparoscopy, which involves…

tags: West 34th street Penn Station subway art, Circus of Garden Delights, subway art, NYC through my eye, photography, NYC Circus of Garden Delights. West 34th Street/Penn Station Subway tile mosaic art #3 as seen at NYC's West 34th Street stop at 8th for the A, C and E trains. Artist: Eric…

One of the world's largest intact forest ecosystems -- the breeding grounds for many of the world's warblers, ducks and other migratory birds -- is in big trouble. Oil and gas, timber, mining, and other industries are destroying vital habitat for birds and other wildlife in Canada's boreal forest.…

tags: Moluccan Lory, Red Lory, Eos bornea, birds, Image of the Day Seventh in a series of images of lories by this photographer. Red Lory, also known as the Moluccan Lory, Eos bornea. There are two subspecies on several closely clustered islands in Indonesia's Moluccas. Image: John Del Rio […

tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, natural history books, ecology books "One cannot have too many good bird books" --Ralph Hoffmann, Birds of the Pacific States (1927). Here's this week's issue of the Birdbooker Report by Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, which lists ecology, environment, natural…

tags: Return To Warden's Grove, ornithology, birds, field research, biology dissertation, Christopher Norment, book review Throughout my life, certain people have had the audacity to lecture me about how a scientific education and a scientific life forever destroys a person's ability to appreciate…