Brian Switek
Brian Switek is an ecology & evolution student at Rutgers University.
laelaps
Posts by this author
A California sea lion (Zalophus californianus), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
A grizzly bear (Ursus arctos horribilis), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
I have spoken before of my fondness for book digitization projects, but there are still some improvements to be made. Many of the titles presently available via resources like Google Books are relatively low-quality and look no better than photocopies, but with the basic move towards digitization…
Western gorillas (Gorilla gorilla), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
After a few delays, The Boneyard #25 has gone up at The Great Dinosaur Mystery and the Big Lie. Check it out.
The next edition is due to go up on December 2, 2008. If you're interested in hosting, speak up in the comments.
With the election of Barack Obama as the next president of the United States, many science-savvy folks have breathed a (tentative) sigh of relief. Perhaps we can finally put all this creationism in the classroom nonsense to rest now that a progressive Democrat is next up for the presidency. I'm not…
Geladas (Theropithecus gelada, females in the foreground, male in the background), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
Maybe Toumai (or the first known skull of Sahelanthropus, if you like) doesn't represent a true human ancestor, but this documentary is still pretty interesting. Called Pre-Human: Riddle of the Toumai Skull, I missed it when it originally aired, but thankfully the glory of the inter-tubes has…
A black leopard (Panthera pardus), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
I am actually starting to feel optimistic about meeting my self-imposed mini-deadline. It took me a few days, but I was able to go through what I had previously written for the human evolution chapter once. It let me regain my bearings and straighten things up a bit, even if I ended up adding as…
From "The Larger North American Mammals," published in the November 1916 issue of National Geographic.
An Amur tiger (Panthera tigris altaica), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
First, many thanks to everyone who donated to the DonorsChoose challenge during October! Altogether, everyone who participated at ScienceBlogs raised about $30,000 for students, and I was proud to see that most of my challenges were fully funded.
The Boneyard #25 is delayed due to some technical…
I didn't vote in the 2000 election. I was only 17.
I didn't vote in the 2004 election. I forgot to register.
This morning I woke up at 5:30, got myself together, and walked across the street to the polling place. There was already a line. I felt no sense of inner conflict as I shuffled through the…
A western gorilla (Gorilla gorilla), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
California sea lions (Zalophus californianus, male in the foreground and females in the backgriound), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
After putting it off for too long, I finally began my re-write of the human evolution chapter today. I feared what I would find when I began working with it again. I had written about 25 pages, but that was back in April, May at the latest, and I knew that a lot of it would have to be thrown out.…
I was recently asked a few questions about ScienceOnline '09 by Stephen, one of Miss Baker's biology class students. You can check out my responses here.
[Thanks to Bora for the link, too.]
It's a little dated, but here's an episode of the old TLC show PaleoWorld about hominid posture and bipedalism;
I forgot to put this up yesterday, but better late than never, right? It's Charlotte (the big fat one) and Vlad (the little one) cuddled up as a ball of furry dark matter on the couch.
A juvenile Western gorilla (Gorilla gorilla), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
This past February I wrote about a new giant sengi (or elephant shrew) described in the Journal of Zoology. When attempts to capture live animals failed, researchers used camera traps to get a better look at these previously undescribed creatures. A new paper in the Journal of Mammalogy has…
A grizzly bear (Ursus arctos horribilis), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
From Woman Triumphant.
When I don't know what else to write about, I usually pick a phrase off the top of my head into Google Books and see what turns up. Today I chose "ape-man," and the usual parade of popular books and scientific articles showed up. I was looking for something a bit different…
A red-eared slider (Trachemys scripta elegans), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
The 25th edition of The Boneyard is coming up next Tuesday over at The Big Dinosaur Lie. You can send your submissions directly to me (evogeek AT gmail DOT com) or to the blog where they will be posted, and let's try to get some of the new paleo-bloggers in on this one!
From Garfield Minus Garfield.
In high school, I always felt like the dullest of the bright kids. Even though I made it into a number of AP and honors classes and held my own, I always felt like I didn't quite belong. "I'm not as smart as these people; what am I doing here?"
By 2001 I had my…
A false gharial (Tomistoma schlegelii), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.