laelaps | October 8, 2008On October 8, 2007, Laelaps launched at its new home here on ScienceBlogs. 365 days; 1,326 posts; and 5,131 comments later, I am still at it and hope to continue writing here for some time to come.
I'll save the meta for later, though. Keep your eyes peeled for a big announcement here in the next 24 hours or so.
If you really can't take the suspense, why not check out the my DonorsChoose challenge and throw a few bucks to some teachers in need? Two of the challenges have only about a week left to raise money for their projects, so if you can donate, please do.
laelaps | October 8, 2008
I have been hacking away at the chapter on birds & dinosaurs for the last few days, but it is still overgrown with tangles of excess material. It stings to cut out some of the great quotes and concepts I stumbled upon during the course of my research, but 41 pages is about 15 too many for the chapter I have in mind.
The task at hand right now is one of editing. I need to inject a little more information about some of the arguments I employ, but my main task is to chuck out as much material as I possibly can without watering down what I am trying to describe. A lot of the excess material…
laelaps | October 8, 2008
The Boneyard #24 is now up over at The Other 95%, and the latest edition of the anthropology carnival Four Stone Hearth is up at Clashing Culture. Be sure to give both of them a look!
The 25th edition of the Boneyard will be up at The Big Dinosaur Lie next month.
laelaps | October 7, 2008
The Great Tyrannosaurus:
A Fossiliferous Fable
The Great Tyrannosaurus
Lived centuries ago;
Through marshes wet and porous
He rambled to and fro.
The most tremendous Lizard
That ever browsed on meat,
His length from A to Izzard
Was forty-seven feet.
The Great Tyrannosaurus
In habitude was not
What one would call decorous --
He ate an awful lot.
Lamellibranchs in sixes,
Iguanodons to spare
And Archaeopteryxes
Comprised his bill of fare.
The Great Tyrannosaurus
Of all the world was king;
With trumpetings sonorous
He swallowed everything.
When everything was swallowed
Beneath the azure…
laelaps | October 7, 2008
A hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius), photographed at the Philadelphia zoo.
laelaps | October 6, 2008Last Wednesday night I slogged my way through the city streets to attend the Blogging Science Pro Session at the Apple Store in Soho, NYC, (Jessica was lucky and got to visit the Evolution store beforehand), and I had a pretty good time. I was a little nervous and stuttered (my thoughts moved too fast for my mouth to accurately capture), but overall I think it went over well.
There has even been a little feedback by way of people who attended the talk, and I agree that I was a little disappointed that we (the panelists) were not able to really get into why science blogging is important during…
laelaps | October 6, 2008
The next edition of the paleo-themed blog carnival The Boneyard (#24) will be going up tomorrow at The Other 95%. Be sure to get your submissions in to me or Kevin sometime today if you want to be in it!
laelaps | October 5, 2008Truth is indeed stranger than fiction;
If I didn't know any better, I would have said that was Tina Fey doing an impersonation. That's sadly not the case. As reported in the Huffington Post, the quote was actually "There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women," (emphasis mine) and here's what Madeleine Albright had to say about Palin's misquote;
Though I am flattered that Governor Palin has chosen to cite me as a source of wisdom, what I said had nothing to do with politics. This is yet another example of McCain and Palin distorting the truth, and all the more…
laelaps | October 4, 2008It doesn't include any clips produced since the vp debate, but it is a pretty good countdown of Palin's "greatest hits" (with a guest appearance by an overprotective and embarrassed John McCain!);
laelaps | October 4, 2008
The skull of a wolf eel (Anarrhichthys ocellatus) from Orr's Circle of the Sciences.
For more weird fish, check out this post on Bioemphemera.
laelaps | October 3, 2008I'm a little bit behind starting up the DonorsChoose challenge, but I've finally got everything set up and ready to go. In case you haven't heard the buzz already, ScienceBloggers are banding together to raise money for classrooms across the United States so that elementary school children can get a good science education. If you'll look at the sidebar, you'll see a little module tracking my "Digging Deep for Science" Challenge, which will track the projects I want to help fund this month.
For my set of challenges I have decided to stick with a particular theme; anatomy. There are many…
laelaps | October 3, 2008
Profesor Paleozoic. From Buffalo Land.
Our leader, Professor Paleozoic, ordinarily existed in a sort of transition state between the primary and tertiary formations. He could tell cheese from chalk under the microscope, and show that one was full of the fossil and the other of the living evidences of animal life. A worthy man, vastly more troubled with rocks on the brain than "rocks" in the pocket. Learning had once come near making him mad, but from this sad fate he was happily saved by a somewhat Pickwickian blunder. While in Kansas, some years since, he penetrated a remote portion of…
laelaps | October 3, 2008
About two weeks ago I mentioned that, in conjunction with Expelled, a book called Fossil Hunter was released. I had not heard anything about it until I stumbled upon it by accident, but the book's synopsis did not give me much reason for hope;
Fossil Hunter is an Indiana Jones-style thriller that explores the Intelligent Design controversy from the points of view of two field scientists working in the strife-torn countries of Iran and Pakistan. When paleontologist Dr. Katie James leads an expedition to search for an ancient whale fossil rumored to be in the Iraqi desert, she has no idea her…
laelaps | October 3, 2008
A great blue heron (Ardea herodias), photographed at Cape May Point, New Jersey.
laelaps | October 2, 2008
Supposed human footprints from the "Old Red Sandstone" of Missouri. From Voices From the Rocks.
I mention these facts to show how easy it is for one to be led astray, when every possible phase of the subject is not carefully studied. Let us, therefore, attend strictly to detailing facts of observation, and they are sure to lead to a correct solution of all problems within the compass of the human mind. - Unknown author, from "Impressions of Human Feet in Sandstone," Proceedings of the Indiana Historical Society
Fossil footprint fraud isn't anything new. For nearly 200 years (if not longer…
laelaps | October 2, 2008
A Chinese alligator (Alligator sinensis), photographed at the Philadelphia zoo.