laelaps | August 16, 2008I'm hard at work on my book today (I intend to finish the chapter on whales by the end of the weekend) but I won't leave you hanging. Here's a Charlie Rose episode from 1994 featuring both Stephen Jay Gould (starting at the 29:10 mark) and Donald Johanson (starting at 45:25, with a rather unfortunate introductory blurb);
laelaps | August 16, 2008
Two Amur tigers (Panthera tigris altaica), photographed at the Philadelphia zoo. They are brothers, two of three males born there last year.
laelaps | August 15, 2008Remember that freezer chock full o' Bigfoot I mentioned yesterday? Well today the men who claim to have found the body of the sought after mythical beast held a press conference in which the results from the first round of DNA testing were presented. Of the three samples tested one came back inconclusive, one had "traces of human DNA," and a third had "traces of opossum DNA" according to news reports. The actual body, first seen in shadowy and low-resolution images this week, was not presented.
A second round of DNA tests have been promised, but maybe it's just a stalling tactic. While the…
laelaps | August 15, 2008Olivia Judson has a short column in the opinion section of the New York Times about the importance of teaching evolution in public schools. Like Judson, I am frustrated that evolution is often taught as a distinct biological phenomena at the end of the year, hardly presented as the concept that makes sense of the rest of biology (as Theodosius Dobzhansky once said). Rather than being a powerful idea that connects what is being taught it is often treated as little more than a footnote, if it is mentioned at all. Just because a school isn't mired in a creationist controversy doesn't mean that…
laelaps | August 15, 2008
Two nesting American flamingoes (Phoenicopterus ruber), photographed at the Philadelphia zoo.
laelaps | August 14, 2008Leave it to Faux (oops, I mean FOX) News to be the first to get on the cryptozoological bandwagon. According to the media outlet the body of Bigfoot has been revealed and is awaiting a battery of tests to confirm it's authenticity. It looks like a hoax to me, but here's the credulous "news" coverage;
That's right; the body is said to have come from Georgia, not any of the Pacific Northwest haunts normally associated with the legend. (The American south has their own tradition of Bigfoot tales, although Sasquatch is usually called the "Skunk Ape" there.) You can make a decent model anywhere…
laelaps | August 14, 2008Now this is pretty damn cool. Peter McGrath of the Beagle Project Blog liveblogged the airing of the 2nd episode of Richard Dawkins' The Genius of Charles Darwin (I posted a few thoughts last week here). Michael Barton and Richard Carter show up, too, and it's definitely some interesting commentary on the documentary.
I still have to liveblog my 2nd viewing of the first episode (and I hope to do the same for the other two parts), but after watching the first half of the 2nd episode last night I have to say that I'm not very impressed by this series. I can see now why many critics of Dawkins…
laelaps | August 14, 2008I never quite know what to say when people call me a scientist. I take it as a compliment, certainly, but I'm usually unsure as to whether I can apply the word to myself or not. Is a scientist defined by their journey through the academic meat grinder? By expert knowledge? By skeptical thought? The popular imagery of scientists is often of a socially-inept nerd or of a mad scientist, both archetypes representing scientists as being so detached from the public that they almost literally don't speak the same language. As I've said before I find this characterization unfortunate, but in order to…
laelaps | August 14, 2008
Grace the lion (Panthera leo) rolling over, photographed at the Bronx zoo.
laelaps | August 13, 2008When I received my financial aid information for the upcoming semester at Rutgers I was dismayed to find out that I would primarily have to take out loans to attend classes. During a year in which I'll have to pinch a few more pennies I also received less grant money, only about $800, so my options were to either leave school to work full time or take the loans. I decided to stay, and to my surprise I received a letter last week saying that an extra $100 has been tacked on to the grant. I didn't know about it immediately, but it is probably because the university president, Richard McCormick…
laelaps | August 13, 2008I didn't take nearly as many pictures as I thought I would during last weekend's trip to New York, but fortunately Bora (resident shutterbug here at Sb) has been posting lots of snapshots from the festivities. I also had the pleasure of meeting John Pieret on Saturday afternoon, and here's the photographic evidence.
The photos I have posted from this weekend were taken while running through the AMNH fossil halls just before closing time, but hopefully next time I'll think to snap a few more shots of my fellow bloggers before skipping town.
laelaps | August 13, 2008According to a news report released last night the first confirmed remains of a scimitar-toothed cat have been found in Venezula, a contemporary of the dirk-toothed cat Smilodon. The uncovered remains are said to represent six individual sabercats, called Homotherium, including a complete skull. This makes Homotherium one of the most widely traveled and persistent of all sabercats; it has been found in Africa, Europe, Asia, North America, and South America, and the genus was present from about five million years ago to 10,000 years ago (although it became extinct in different parts of the…
laelaps | August 12, 2008more cat pictures
There are few things more satisfying than being able to get back to original papers, letters, and articles to discover something new. Even though I could conceivably write a solid chapter based upon reviews and popular accounts I feel that reading original source materials is not only important for accuracy, but also for my integrity as a writer. Thanks to Google Books I was unable to uncover some information I thought I was never going to be able to find, as well as some information I didn't expect.
While Richard Owen is commonly (and properly) cited for recognizing the…
laelaps | August 12, 2008
Amphicyon
Welcome to the 22nd edition of The Boneyard, marking the long-awaited return of the blog carnival all about paleontology. Much has happened since the last iteration, so there's plenty of new blogospheric specimens to peruse;
Are there different "rules" of classification at work for fossil mammals than for. non-avian dinosaurs? Zach considers lumping and splitting at When Pigs Fly Returns.
Traumador reports on a new bit of titanosaur discovered in New Zealand.
Mo presents a specimen of one of my favorite "early birds," Confuciusornis, along with some new artwork.
A DC…
laelaps | August 12, 2008There are few things that make me as happy as being able to find an elusive reference or seemingly ephemeral bit of information, and this afternoon I am smiling. After almost giving up I have been able to locate Richard Harlan description of Basilosaurus, reprinted in his book Medical and Physical Researches, and available for free download. There's lots of other great papers in the book (particularly if you're interested in the scientific study of apes), and I certainly recommend that anyone with a love for dusty old science texts give it a look.
Stumbling across this collection of Harlan's…
laelaps | August 12, 2008I try to be careful when using the term "ignorant." The dictionary definition could apply to anyone who is "unlearned" or "uneducated" in a particular area, i.e. I am nearly completely ignorant when it comes to quantum physics. I have always felt that the common usage of the term is more charged, however; that it not only indicates a lack of education but a lack of desire to learn anything about the subject at all. This probably stems from the root word, "ignore," but whatever it's derivation it is certainly not a compliment. It was somewhat unsettling, then, to read a review paper by an…
laelaps | August 12, 2008
The skull of a Tyrannosaurus at the AMNH. This is the actual skull that served as the model for the replica shown here yesterday. Photographed August 9th, 2008.
laelaps | August 11, 2008After many false starts, breaks, and dead ends, I'm finally nearing the completion of at least one chapter of the book. I still am not entirely sure how I'm going to end it and I still have some details to fill out, but there appears to be a good chance that I'm going to finish the chapter on whale evolution on time.
Reading The Emergence of Whales has provided me with more interesting examples of the evolution of systems and adaptations, allowing me to do more than just retell the same old story. There is much more detail than I can fit in but I think it's important to relate the particulars…