Brian Switek
Brian Switek is an ecology & evolution student at Rutgers University.
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Posts by this author
July 26, 2008
Western gorillas (Gorilla gorilla, a silverback male [top] and females [middle and bottom]), photographed July 23th, 2008 at the Bronx zoo.
July 25, 2008
Beyond the importance of his ideas I find the life of Charles Darwin fascinating because of all the innumerable opportunities for history to have turned out differently. If his father had kept Darwin off the HMS Beagle, for instance, Darwin may well have had the quiet country parsonage he longed…
July 25, 2008
A giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis), photographed July 23th, 2008 at the Bronx zoo.
July 24, 2008
That long list of books is making the rounds again (Jennifer, Chad, Jessica, John, and Bora have already jumped in), yet I can't bring myself to join in the fun.
The list reminds me of something one of my high school English teacher once told my class. He was very concerned that we be "cultured" (…
July 24, 2008
Just for the hell of it (and because Jennifer did it first) here's a Wordle of my manuscript to date. I'll post new ones periodically to see if any evolution can be spotted as I continue to write.
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src="http://wordle.net/thumb/wrdl/86829/Ever_more_words"…
July 24, 2008
The skeleton of a young Tarbosaurus. From the LiveScience article.
Poor Tarbosaurus. Even though it was a top predator during the Cretaceous most people have never heard about it, the theropod from Asia being a poor man's Tyrannosaurus. (Some people think that Tarbosaurus = Tyrannosaurus, but I…
July 24, 2008
In working on one of my projects I've run into a little snag; I need to get my hands on three papers by E.D. Cope and Rutgers does no have access to them. They are all in the Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences, although the only reference to them I've found is from an old paper by H.F.…
July 24, 2008
An ebony langur (Trachypithecus auratus), photographed July 23th, 2008 at the Bronx zoo. Of all the animals at the zoo people stop to watch primates more than nearly any other group of animals. The monkeys & apes watch the primates on the other side of the barrier, too.
"What's that animal…
July 24, 2008
A tree kangaroo (Dendrolagus sp.), photographed July 23th, 2008 at the Bronx zoo.
July 23, 2008
Given that today is a weekday and the weather forecast predicted a 90% chance of heavy thunderstorms I thought that the Bronx zoo would be mostly empty. I was way off. At times the crush of the crowds, vacationers and neon-clad elementary school groups, was almost too much to bear and I was…
July 23, 2008
At Zooillogix Benny tells us about cuckoos that can change their cries and frogs that can selectively hear different sounds.
John Lynch just co-authored a great paper about the importance of the history of science to education. Head on over to Stranger Fruit to congratulate him and have a…
July 23, 2008
A young prairie dog (probably Cynomys ludovicianus), photographed July 15th, 2008 at the Philadelphia zoo.
July 22, 2008
The first time I cam face-to-face with a dinosaur I was so scared I ran around the corner and hid, peeking out to see my parents try to reassure me that I would not be gobbled up, impaled, trampled, or otherwise harmed by the roaring robots. I had bugged the hell out of them to go see the…
July 22, 2008
... a ring-tailed lemur;
I found Chris Mooney's latest piece about Sizzle so aggravatingly condescending that I was set to pen a lengthy, ill-temptered response. I thought better of it, especially since it is clear that any negative comments or criticisms about the film will be ignored. (Instead…
July 22, 2008
Writing a post about feathered dinosaurs yesterday gave me the shot in the arm I needed to jump back into my book project. I've spent so much time reading old papers and concerning myself with the thoughts of Victorian scientists that I had almost forgotten that I needed to bring the chapter up to…
July 22, 2008
Last year I missed the super-secret ScienceBlogger seance; by the time I found out that some of my favorite bloggers were in the city I already had other plans. Little did I know that just a few months later I'd get assigned my own personal brain slug and be assimilated into the ScienceBorg so I…
July 22, 2008
A male Amur leopard (Panthera pardus orientalis), photographed July 15th, 2008 at the Philadelphia zoo.
July 21, 2008
John and Chad both have updates about their books, and even though I'm tempted to join the club I figure there's been enough meta on here lately (I wrote two different posts about the current status of my writing but scrapped them both). Instead I thought I would ask what you have been reading…
July 21, 2008
Is it just me or is the History Channel mutating? I guess they've covered just about everything there is to cover in human history as I keep seeing more announcements for programs about natural history, particularly involving extinct creatures. On July 29 the new series Evolve will premiere along…
July 21, 2008
For a long time feathered dinosaurs just looked weird to me. Seeing fuzzy Deinonychus or some other dromeosaur with a splash of plumage never looked quite right and I didn't understand why in the course of a few years predatory dinosaurs went from being scaly to being covered in down. Most of the…
July 21, 2008
Anyone who has spent time watching Discovery Channel's "Shark Week" knows how frightening sharks can be when biting into their prey. Their jaws are not attached their their skull, allowing the jaws to come forwards and out in the process of biting (the lower jaw often coming up first to impale prey…
July 20, 2008
A Plains zebra (Equus quagga), photographed July 15th, 2008 at the Philadelphia zoo.
July 20, 2008
If I got paid to do reviews of books, movies, websites, and products I definitely could turn it into a full-time job. Almost every day something turns up in my inbox telling me about a new website or product that someone wants me to take a look at and plug here. I end up deleting most of them (…
July 20, 2008
I didn't quite know what to expect when I entered the theater to see The Dark Knight last evening, I just knew it was going to be good.* I was absolutely blown away. This isn't the sort of film where you walk out saying "It was good for a comic book movie." It is a great movie, period, something…
July 20, 2008
A young Verreaux's Sifaka (Propithecus verreauxi), photographed July 15th, 2008 at the Philadelphia zoo.
July 19, 2008
A giant otter (Pteronura brasiliensis), photographed July 15th, 2008 at the Philadelphia zoo.
July 18, 2008
Over the course of the past year I've had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of many paleontologists and illustrators of prehistoric life, people who have helped me with their comments, criticism, and support. One such person whose work I admire is Matt Celeskey, the artist (and blogger)…
July 18, 2008
You all are way too good. The "mystery creature" from yesterday is indeed a fishing cat (Prionailurus viverrinus), photographed July 15th, 2008 at the Philadelphia zoo.
July 17, 2008
First, thanks to all of you who have been adding my posts to StumbleUpon.com. Over the past three days my traffic has been double, even triple, of what it normally is, and as far as I can tell much of it is coming from StumbleUpon. Thank you, and I hope some of you who are new to Laelaps like what…