laelaps | September 3, 2008I have been meaning to post this quote for quite a while now, for no other reason than I found it amusing. It is from R.M. Ballantyne's novel The Gorilla Hunters;
"And in the first place-"
"O Ralph, I entreat you," interrupted Peterkin, "do not begin with a 'first place.' When men begin a discourse with that, however many intermediate places they may have to roam about and enlarge on, they never have a place of any kind to terminate in, but go skimming along with a couple of dozen 'lastlies,' like a stone thrown over the surface of a pond, which, after the first two or three big and promising…
laelaps | September 3, 2008Zach has got the latest edition of the paleo-carnival The Boneyard up at When Pigs Fly Returns.
laelaps | September 3, 2008
An Indian rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis), photographed at the Philadelphia Zoo.
laelaps | September 2, 2008A few months back I remember first hearing about an absolutely crazy idea proposed by Sb's Dave Munger; a website devoted to blog posts about peer-reviewed research. Ok, maybe it wasn't that out of the vein, but the concept has really taken off, and today the latest iteration of ResearchBlogging has been released.
The update is about more than a new webpage setup and some spiffy new colors, though. Amongst all the other neat features there is multiple language support, topic-specific RSS feeds, customizable blog bios, and the ability to flag posts that don't meet the site guidelines.…
laelaps | September 2, 2008It is amazing what a little perspective can do. For most of August I was hard at work on the chapter on whales, ignoring nearly every other section. This allowed me to focus on what I wanted for one of the most important chapters of the book, but now that I have gone back to some of my earlier writing I have to admit I am horrified. When I opened up the chapter on the evolution of birds I could not believe what I was reading. How could I have written such drivel?
I started to edit the first part of the bird chapter, but no matter what I did I could not see a way to turn what I had already…
laelaps | September 2, 2008Well it's back to classes for me today, but I just can't get this song out of my head;
In a related note, Fresno State trounced Rutgers 24 to 7 during last night's football game. It looks like all those millions funneled to the pigskin crowd have been well worth it...
Update: Many thanks to Mike who has offered up some words of encouragement. The only reason I didn't choose the same musical number for this post is that I had used it earlier this summer, and then Blake reminded me of the Pink Floyd tune. Trippy...
laelaps | September 2, 2008
A grizzly bear (Ursus arctos horribilis), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
laelaps | September 1, 2008The next edition of The Boneyard is due to be unveiled tomorrow at When Pigs Fly Returns, so gather up your best paleo posts from the last month and get them to me or Zach soon!
laelaps | September 1, 2008When do you think that the following passage was first published?
John Doe guesses that evolution is true, but he rather wishes it were not. ... John Doe suspects from head-lines in his newspaper that evolution is a debatable theory, that it is being overthrown every six months, and that it may be discarded before long.
Those of you who saw the list of the new items I picked up yesterday probably guessed correctly; that the quote came from the 1925 popular book Evolution for John Doe by Henshaw Ward. Although written in 1925 it still (unfortunately) relevant, particularly when newspapers that…
laelaps | September 1, 2008
An Amur leopard (Panthera pardus orientalis), photographed at the Philadelphia Zoo.
laelaps | August 31, 2008
When I wrote my essay on violent interactions between prehistoric monsters in art, I thought I had touched on something intriguing. I penned a proposal for a more focused article on the topic and sent it out to magazines purported to feature articles at the intersection of science and culture. The response I got was almost uniformly the same. Not only were the magazines not interested in dinosaurs, but illustrations of dinosaurs were not art. As M.J.T. Mitchell explained in his interesting (yet deeply flawed) The Last Dinosaur Book, illustrations of prehistoric animals are often seen as "…
laelaps | August 31, 2008
Henry de la Beche's "Duria Antiquior," an image of the carnage along the shores of ancient Dorset.
As I've been reading Jane Davidson's A History of Paleontology Illustration I have been thinking about my favorite paleo artists. Late at night, when I am settling down to sleep, I sometimes just like to pull a few books off the shelf and just look at the work of people who have attempted to "burst the limits of time" with their art. Indeed, we fortunately live in a time when there is a glut of good paleo artists, each with their own style, but before I share my favorites why not share yours…
laelaps | August 31, 2008I have spent most of today finishing up Jane Davidson's A History of Paleontology Illustration (a review of which I intend on will writing up shortly), but I took a quick break to blow a few bucks at the Cranbury Bookworm. Here's what I came home with;
Evolution for John Doe - Henshaw Ward (1925)
African Exodus - Christopher Stringer & Robin McKie (1996)
Piltdown - Frank Spencer (1990)
Annie's Box - Randal Keynes (2001)
Life - Richard Fortey (1997)
I'm not letting myself start any of them until I have written the review of Davidson's book, however, and by that time I might put some more…
laelaps | August 30, 2008I had been meaning to post these pictures for a while, but I kept forgetting until now. Both are of Huxley, who was the first "foster cat" of the summer and found a good home;
laelaps | August 30, 2008
My wife and I reading while dinner cooks on the fire. Taken at Cape Henlopen State Park, Delaware this past May.
So much work to do, so little time. The summer whizzed by at a rate faster than I expected, and now I'm just two days away from the start of the fall semester. (As my wife commented the other day, I'm continuing my education in spite of the university's best efforts.)
There has been a lot to keep me busy. Outside of working on my book, I have been putting the finishing touches on a proposal for a paper about Edward Tyson's 1699 dissection of a chimpanzee (although, if accepted,…
laelaps | August 29, 2008As far as my vote in the upcoming election goes, John McCain's selection of Alaska governor Sarah Palin makes no difference to me. I'm voting for Barack Obama. What everyone is all a-twitter about on the science blogosphere, however, is the fact that during a debate in 2006 Palin said that if the issue of creationism came up in the classroom it should be discussed alongside evolution. Here's the actual quote from the debate;
Teach both [evolution and creationism]. You know, don't be afraid of information. Healthy debate is so important, and it's so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of…
laelaps | August 29, 2008Just in case you haven't had enough of the "classic" (vintage?) Eric Boardman & Gary Owens dinosaur documentaries, here's the sequel to "More Dinosaurs" called "Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs."