Brian Switek
Brian Switek is an ecology & evolution student at Rutgers University.
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Posts by this author
May 31, 2009
A red fox (Vulpes vulpes), photographed at Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge.
I just got back from Delaware a few hours ago, and overall it was a pretty good trip. I did not see the swarms of mating horseshoe crabs I was looking for, but I did see a number of other cool critters. This mangy…
May 29, 2009
A horseshoe crab (Limulus polyphemus), photographed at Cape Henlopen State Park, Delaware.
This weekend I'm headed off to see the annual breeding explosion of horseshoe crabs (Limulus polyphemus) in Delaware Bay. During late May and early June, especially during the full and new moon, scores of…
May 29, 2009
Welcome, new readers. Thanks for sticking around after all the excitement over "Ida" last week. You can expect plenty more posts on strange mammals, odd evolutionary hypotheses, and new peer-reviewed research in the near future, but if you just can't wait, check out a list of some of my "greatest…
May 29, 2009
An Amur leopard (Panthera pardus orientalis), photographed at the Philadelphia Zoo.
May 28, 2009
Saartje Baartman, drawn from a wax cast made in Paris. From The Human Race.
On December 31, 1816 Saartje Baartman died in Paris. She had been ill for three days, perhaps stricken with smallpox, before she and her unborn child expired. Better known as the "Hottentot Venus", Baartman was a tragic…
May 28, 2009
The folks at 3quarksdaily have just announced that they are going to award three prizes (called, appropriately enough, quarks) to some of the best examples of science blogging on the web. All you have to do is pick out your favorite blog post written sometime between May 24, 2008 and now and submit…
May 28, 2009
A herring gull (Larus argentatus) takes off. Photographed at Spring Lake, New Jersey.
May 27, 2009
The "Hesperopithecus" tooth discovered by Harold Cook.
I could see it coming from a mile away. As soon as I heard all the hype surrounding "Ida", the exceptionally preserved specimen of Darwinius announced last week, I knew creationists would soon be citing our old friends "Archeoraptor", "…
May 27, 2009
A group of sandpipers fleeing from an incoming wave. Photographed at Spring Lake, New Jersey.
May 26, 2009
The skull of a tarsier, from The Descent of Primates.
At the turn of the 20th century evolutionary biologists faced a significant problem. In 1859 Charles Darwin had expounded the mechanism of evolution, and Eugene Dubois' discovery of "Pithecanthropus" (known as Homo erectus today) illustrated…
May 26, 2009
There has been a lot of moving and shaking going on at ScienceBlogs lately. Not only have we welcomed two new library science bloggers (Christina's LIS Rant and Confessions of a Science Librarian, welcome), but three of my favorite bloggers have left the Sb community. John Lynch (Stranger Fruit,…
May 26, 2009
I broke the news via my Twitter feed last night, but in case you missed it my op-ed "The dangerous link between science and hype" has been published in today's Times. I will give you one guess as to what it is about.
May 25, 2009
During the first Congressional hearing on the IPCC report on human-induced climate change in 2007 Republican Representative Dana Rohrabacher floated a rather unusual idea. Citing warmer global climates of the distant past, like that which dominated the Eocene about 56 to 34 million years ago,…
May 25, 2009
It has been nearly a week since Darwinius, a 47-million-year-old primate heralded as the "missing link", burst on the public scene. (See some of my previous posts about the fossil here, here, and here.) Nicknamed "Ida", the fossil has already spurred comments from nearly all corners of the science…
May 25, 2009
A pair of calves (Bos primigenius taurus), photographed in suburban New Jersey (close-up).
May 24, 2009
A white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), photographed in suburban New Jersey (close-up).
(original)
May 23, 2009
The skeleton of an orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus), photographed at the National Museum of Natural History.
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May 22, 2009
The exceptionally preserved skeleton of Darwinius, known popularly as "Ida." From PLoS One.
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It has been three days now since an international team of paleontologists promised to deliver the change we need change everything, but when I woke up this morning I was pleased to find that things had…
May 22, 2009
The skull of Smilodon, photographed at the AMNH's "Extreme Mammals" exhibit.
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May 21, 2009
The good news: Earlier today I had the pleasure of participating in an interview about "Ida" on the BBC4 program Material World. I was a little nervous (this was my radio debut), but it was a lot of fun. I just wish we had some more time! You can check it out here (if you're in the UK) and here (if…
May 21, 2009
The skull of the marsupial predator Thylacoleo, photographed at the AMNH's "Extreme Mammals" exhibit.
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May 20, 2009
Many thanks to everyone who has read, commented, and promoted my posts on "Ida", the 'missing link' that wasn't. I have been floored by the response - over 25,000 visits in the last 24 hours; being mentioned on Wikipedia; being quoted on Slashdot; and being picked up by blogs on the Guardian, the…
May 20, 2009
The skull of the giraffid Bramatherium, photographed at the AMNH's "Extreme Mammals" exhibit.
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May 19, 2009
A restoration of the extinct adapid Darwinius, known popularly as "Ida." From PLoS One.
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So the big day is finally here. "Ida", a 47-million-year-old primate skeleton from Messel, Germany has finally been unveiled on PLoS One and in a flurry of press releases, book announcements, and general…
May 19, 2009
From PhD Comics.
It's just like a game of telephone! While it doesn't exactly fit, this cartoon reminded me of the hubub over the announcement that will CHANGE EVERYTHING that is going to be made this morning.
May 19, 2009
The skull of a crabeater seal (Lobodon carcinophagus), photographed at the AMNH's "Extreme Mammals" exhibit.
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May 18, 2009
Late last week I received a rather curious e-mail. It read;
WORLD RENOWNED SCIENTISTS REVEAL A REVOLUTIONARY SCIENTIFIC FIND THAT WILL CHANGE EVERYTHING
Ground-Breaking Global Announcement
What: An international press conference to unveil a major historic scientific find. After two years of…
May 18, 2009
The skull of Arsinoitherium, from A preliminary note on Arsinoitherium zitteli.
As spectacular as the extinct Eocene mammal Arsinoitherium was, many scientists were not all that interested in it. Its size and weapons were certainly impressive, but it appeared to sit on a difficult-to-define…
May 18, 2009
Over at the Inverse Square blog author Tom Levenson has just started a multi-part blog series on the evolution of his forthcoming title Newton and the Counterfeiter. It is an extension of a session on writing a pop-sci book he lead with Dave Munger at ScienceOnline'09 last January, and the posts…