grrlscientist | May 23, 2006After paging through a typical field guide to the birds of North America, most people become intimidated by the many hundreds of bird species that are pictured. When one considers the myriad different plumages for juvenile, immature and adult birds, males versus females, and seasonal plumage differences, the possibilities increase into the thousands. Suddenly, a pleasant and relaxing morning spent identifying a few birds becomes stressful, daunting, impossible. In fact, faced with such a task, it is easier to give up before even getting started. This is where Pete Dunne's Essential Field…
grrlscientist | May 22, 2006This is the list of all entries received so far, in reverse chronological order, that I will use to choose the winner of Pete Dunne's book. If I don't have you listed here, please email your entry or post it to comments here;
Natalie
Kathy
Rolan
Entries submitted in the comments section
grrlscientist | May 22, 2006And yet another entry ... this is fun! I wish I could host such a fun contest every week! Below the fold is another entry that you'll enjoy;
Crows/Ravens - General Nuisance
Starlings - Major Disaster
Hawks/Owls - Rat Patrol
Swallows - Roof Rats
Natalie
grrlscientist | May 22, 2006Hello [GrrlScientist]
The book would be nice but seeing people's original and not-so-original names is fun! Here are mine, some original, most not;
Common Loonie (Common Loon)
Peanut Butter Grebe (I abbreviate as PB Grebe, hence the translation)
Canoodle Goose (Canada Goose)
Necklace Goose (Brant)
Whistle Duck (Wood Duck)
Fish Hawk (Osprey)
Motorcyle Bird (Ruffed Grouse)
Chicago Quail (California Quail)
Cooties and Cootlets (American Coot and babies)
Screechy Screechy Bird (Killdeer)
Tippy Bird (Spotted Sandpiper)
Unidentified Gulls -- sung to the Beach Boys tune "I wish they were all…
grrlscientist | May 22, 2006Yes, a few blog carnivals were recently published that you should check out. First, the Carnival of Children's Literature, 4th edition, has a mountain of contributions, ranging from commentary to book reviews, and at least a few of those should appeal to you.
The Literature carnival, 12th edition, also has a wide variety of contributions for you to read, including two from me.
grrlscientist | May 22, 2006tags: dinosaur, fossil, Children's Museum of Indianapolis, pachycephalosaur, Dracorex hogwartsia, Harry Potter
.
Dracorex hogwartsia,
a newly discovered member of the pachycephalosaur family of dinosaurs.
Image: Drawing by paleontologist Robert Bakker, provided by the Children's Museum of Indianapolis.
It was only a few years ago when JK Rowling was just another single mother who was on the dole, sitting in a coffee shop, scribbling stories on napkins and spare pieces of paper, and now, she is the richest woman in the UK and has a dinosaur named in honor of her imaginary world. Heyyy,…
grrlscientist | May 22, 2006Bob Levy, whose book, Club George, I recently reviewed here, very kindly agreed to participate in an email interview with me that I could publish here. It took me a little while to follow up on it, but thanks to the magic of email, and to Bob's quick response, the interview is below, for you to enjoy. It also includes some cool new news that no one (to the best of my knowledge) has revealed before!
[Note: minor editorial changes were made in square brackets to improve clarity]
Do you consider yourself to be a bird watcher or do you instead think of yourself as someone who enjoys the company…
grrlscientist | May 22, 2006
Nesting Pacific loon, Gavia pacifica.
Photograph by PicsMan.
Birds in Science
Two carefully planned sets of experiments to be published on Friday in the top-tier peer-reviewed journal, Science, show intelligent birds and great apes can plan into the future in a way that transcends simple food caching, as squirrels, foxes and other animals do. "Together with recent evidence from scrub jays, our results suggest that future planning is not a uniquely human ability, thus contradicting the notion that it emerged in hominids only within the past 2.5 to 1.6 million years," wrote Nicholas Mulcahy…
grrlscientist | May 21, 2006Many suggestions for the "Nickname that Bird" contest have been submitted via reader comments where everyone can read them. However, I have also received some entries via email, so I am posting them here (below the fold, last names and contact info removed) so everyone can enjoy them. Don't forget; you still have some time to get your entries in! The deadline is midnight on tomorrow, 22 May. The winner receives a free hardcover copy of Pete Dunne's Essential Field Guide Companion, a $30 value.
Three nicknames that spring to mind almost immediately are:
Bufflehead, which I call the ghost duck…
grrlscientist | May 20, 2006Honestly, how can the current administration ignore evidence such as this??
This amusing photograph has been recently making the rounds in email, so of course, I am happy to share it with you here. Although, if I had made this image, I would not have used the word "proof" in the caption since science discovers new knowledge, it does not prove anything; mathematics does, though.
Thanks, Dawn!
tags: humor, politics, global warming
grrlscientist | May 20, 2006
Your Observation Skills Get An A-
Hardly anything gets by you...
You have a great memory and eagle eyes
How Observant Are You?
This quiz is kinda fun .. what was your score? Which questions did you miss?
I missed one question; How many channels on a VHF TV dial? Since I have never owned a TV, it was easy to miss this question.
I was most surprised that I knew the answer to the paper clip question.
tags: online quiz
grrlscientist | May 19, 2006Every week, Seed asks us a question, Ask a ScienceBlogger, and they will link to our responses in a "blog carnival" on the following Wednesday. Our responses are limited to 300 words or less.
Question: If you could shake the public and make them understand one scientific idea, what would it be?
I am not too keen to shake anyone, but I do think a lot of problems could be solved if the public understood what the scientific method is.
Basically, scientists use the scientific method to construct a reality-based representation of the universe that is not clouded with wishful thinking. The…
grrlscientist | May 18, 2006A vaccine that triggers immunity against those viruses that cause most cervical cancers was found to be safe and effective and should be approved soon, a federal panel recommended today. The pharmaceutical company that developed this vaccine, Merck, said the vaccine could reduce global deaths from the second leading cause of cancer in young women by more than two-thirds.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory committee voted 13-0 on five separate occasions to endorse the Merck vaccine, Gardasil. The FDA rarely ignores its panels' recommendations when making its final decisions. The…
grrlscientist | May 18, 2006The second installment of Ask a Science Blogger has been published. Surprisingly, this week's question seems to have generated a fair amount of discussion, even though I had thought the response was a foregone conclusion.
grrlscientist | May 18, 2006
This is a hilarious parody of the movie, The Ten Commandments. I wish this was a real film, I'd be certain to attend the pre-release screening! [1:18]
Thanks, Dawn!
tags: parody, humor, Ten Commandments, film
grrlscientist | May 17, 2006tags: human genome project, chromosome 1, medicine, molecular biology
Scientists have reached a landmark point in one of the world's most important scientific projects by sequencing the last chromosome in the human genome, the so-called "book of life". [Image: False-color photograph showing human chromosomes, with the Chromosome 1 pair highlighted in blue. Indigo Instruments / Wellcome Trust Sanger Center]
Packed with 3,141 genes and linked to 350 illnesses including cancer, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, the important but mysterious chromosome number 1 comprises eight percent of the…
grrlscientist | May 17, 2006Here is yet another story of utter ridiculousness, this time from a St. Louis (Missouri) suburb; an unmarried couple with three children are being threatened with eviction due to a dumbass ordinance that prohibits more than three people from living together unless they are related by "blood, marriage or adoption."
"I'm just shocked," said Olivia Shelltrack, the unwed mother of three. "I really thought this [the city council's decision] would all be over, and we could go on with our lives."
Hrm. I suppose it would be alright if this couple (and their kids) lived together without getting…
grrlscientist | May 17, 2006The Carnival of Job Hunting, issue 1, is now available for your reading pleasure. Please go there to cheer on the pre-homeless!
(sorry; that comment was inspired by the WaPo pre-pregnancy article that I linked to earlier).
grrlscientist | May 17, 2006I just learned that new federal guidelines recommend that all human female Americans between their first menstrual period and menopause should be treated as pre-pregnant, regardless of their future reproductive plans.
Does this sound rather like .. er, The Handmaid's Tale to you?
It certainly does to me!
According to this Washington Post article, what does it mean to be a member of the pre-pregnant? This means that, among other things, all "pre-pregnant" women should take folic acid supplements, refrain from smoking and using alcohol, avoid contact with cat feces and lead-based paint,…
grrlscientist | May 16, 2006When confronted with job ads like this, is it any wonder that people give up on their job searches?
Highly competitive postdoctoral position available in the Department of Evolutionary Biology at [name elided]. Applicant must hold a PhD in molecular biology or evolutionary biology with a cumulative grad and undergrad GPA of 4.0. Graduates of MIT or Stanford preferred. Minimum ten years' postdoc experience required, the candidate must also possess an IQ of 160, perfect spelling and grammar, and be prepared to write a 150-page "demo" grant application describing why you want to work for us.…