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March 26, 2008
Anyhoo... The week before we left for Atlanta, Heather and I stayed with my parents, who drove back up to PA to help us load our moving truck. The day before we got there, it snowed about a foot, making it impossible to even get the Subarus up there, much less the truck. We had to hire someone to…
March 24, 2008
As you may have already guessed, things are beginning to normalize. We just finished moving in the rest of the furniture to our new place this past weekend, a cute little house in Midtown Atlanta. From our street you can see downtown, which is beautiful at night. Apparently, the previous owner's…
March 21, 2008
There's a neat study being published today in Science discussing the reproductive potential of ecological systems 570 mya. The findings are based on the new discovery of a "tube-like" organism (so say the PRs) called Funisia dorothea, which apparently was able to reproduce sexually and lived in a…
March 19, 2008
I heard this morning on the news that Sir Arthur C. Clarke has passed. NPR did a nice piece on him, if a bit focused on 2001: A Space Odyssey. Clarke was a big influence on me and my interest in science and science fiction, and I thought it would be nice to have a permanent memorial of sorts,…
February 26, 2008
Before I get started, I want to assure those 10 people that still check TVG for updates that this is still a blog, and I do intend to pick up where I left off months ago. I got a phone call about four weeks ago from a family friend offering me a position as a tech writer in Atlanta. I interviewed…
January 29, 2008
Brian's got a great post about Sarah Boxer's editorial in the NY Review of Books the other day, using this quote as a jump off point: Bloggers are golden when they're at the bottom of the heap, kicking up. Give them a salary, a book contract, or a press credential, though, and it just isn't the…
January 28, 2008
Man am I not on top of things. EDGE released its list of evolutionarily distinct and Globally Endangered amphibians last week, and I just read the press release with the top 10 (actually nine, but it says 10) on the list. If you want a brief explanation about how EDGE prioritizes conservation, I…
January 23, 2008
I just read a great editorial from E-Commerce Times discussing the grossly inflated advertising claims from businesses scrambling to embrace, at the very least, the imagery associated with the recent push in the environmental movement. ...this of course calls to mind the super-green-men of the new…
January 21, 2008
On my way from an interview the other day, on my way home, I was winding up a mountain in a little town called Windber when the tree line broke to my right, revealing a panoramic, and quite startling sight. Spread out against the sky, like a patient etherised upon a table, so to speak, was a huge…
January 15, 2008
This is the kind of crap I get in my email: I blog about ecology therefore I'm one of the morons that watches this sensationalized garbage and considers it a "teaching tool".
January 15, 2008
It always comes back around... The 13th edition of Oekologie is available today at The Infinite Sphere. Beautiful work as always Jen. I'd like to thank all the hosts, participants and other bloggers who have helped us get this far. Let's see another year of great ecology posts. We need hosts for…
January 14, 2008
This week we have our first avian reference, a strange genus of heron. In WoW, Nyctanessa is a level 44 demonology lock from the guild "42". There is only one other toon with the name, a 38 undead lock with the traditional spelling, but three others with the alternative genus name of Nyticorax (…
January 14, 2008
There's still time to get your submissions in for tomorrow's Oekologie. Help us celebrate one full year! We're looking for hosts as well. Shoot me an e-mail if you're interested.
January 9, 2008
Help us celebrate, if you would. Oekologie started one year ago on January 15 at The Infinite Sphere, and Jen will be hosting again this January 15 for the anniversary edition. Send us your latest and greatest posts about ecology and let's get another year under our belts. If you're interested in…
January 9, 2008
Man that's an ugly title. Not much time to post today (until later perhaps) but I did come across an interesting study that improves on geographically-driven predictions of adaptations to climate change. I blogged about a paper on British butterflies earlier this year that studied how much each…
January 7, 2008
I had the chance to cover some winter activities for PA state parks last week, which meant I had the fortune of a couple of visits for photos and interviews. As I browsed around online and in the park offices and exhibits for info, I couldn't escape references to either the Civilian Conservation…
January 4, 2008
I wrote this on nearly the same day last year, and since I've been reading some Asimov lately, thought I would repost. The dates have been changed for relevance. On January 2, 2008, Isaac Asimov would have been 88 years old. Simultaneously, on the second, I turned 29 (edited). Asimov died of AIDS…
December 31, 2007
Here's an interesting story from Northern Arizona U. A researcher named Brian McRae, a recent forestry graduate who used to be an electrical engineer, used his knowledge of circuit theory to craft a new model for gene flow through landscape corridors: McRae had been struggling with how to predict…
December 31, 2007
It's quite simple really. Just leave out the details: The near extinction of the western barred bandicoot has led to the identification of a novel virus exhibiting characteristics of two ancient virus families. The western barred bandicoot (WWB), an Australian marsupial once commonly found across…
December 31, 2007
Just got the e-mail. The carnival of environmental education has a new website and a new email address and they're looking for posts. Shoot em one at thelimb [at] mac.com or by using this form.
December 24, 2007
To put it mildly, the cards are stacked against the blue crab population in the Chesapeake Bay area. In the past 60 years, the human population of the area has jumped from 3.7 million to almost 18 million and, subsequently, farming and industry has exploded (it is often joked that everyone on the…
December 21, 2007
I had to visit an elementary school for a story the other day and had to wait a bit for my interview, so I started walking around the halls, looking at what the kids had been up to in class. There were the requisite scaled models of Native American abodes, teepees and wigwams, complete with…
December 20, 2007
Damn snow is good for something I guess. With Oscar around I wonder if my frozen friend will have any arms when I get home.
December 19, 2007
The University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science recently published an article discussing some progress in blue crab research and conservation, and mentioned a related report: The Chesapeake Bay blue crab population has stabilized, but at historically low levels according to a recent…
December 17, 2007
There's been a big windfarm project in the works for Shaffer Mountain in PA, which has met with some of the strongest resistance in the area, including an entire resistance organized by a gentleman named Jack Buchan, a resident of the area. From what I've seen, Buchan and other members of Sensible…
December 17, 2007
Matt's had it up since Thursday and I've been away... Anyway, enjoy another great edition.
December 14, 2007
Get your submissions in now for Oekologie #12, to be hosted at Behavioral Ecology Blog tomorrow!
December 12, 2007
This week I did a little search for Lycaon, one of the many suggestions given to me in the comments of the introductory post. This one came from Brian from Laelaps, who had a brief affair with World of Warcraft that his computer did not particularly like. Lycaon is a popular name. There are 77…
December 10, 2007
If you travel I-68 and any of the joining roads in the near future, you will almost certainly see creeping flat beds hauling gargantuan turbines, blades and other pieces of future wind towersup the mountain to join those already adorning the Western MD/PA ridgelines. One or two car escorts follow…
December 5, 2007
My fiance's art show was a huge hit. Her and the other artists had a great turnout despite the chilly Friday night, well over 100 visitors. I basically didn't see her for the two weeks prior as she prepared for the show, painting, scraping and filling walls in the gallery, building a base for and…