Brian Switek
Brian Switek is an ecology & evolution student at Rutgers University.
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Posts by this author
March 21, 2008
The Bleiman brothers just mentioned Deep Star Six, which I fondly remembered from my video-store clerk days.
Believe it or not, I think Deep Star Six was better than the gross-out cheese-fest that was Leviathan, although the latter received a lot more airplay on UPN, TNT, and TBS when I was…
March 21, 2008
I've seen the glossy, gussied-up magazine versions of the New Testament at Target, Ceiling Cat has delivered unto us the lolcat Bible, and no one can be without The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, but The Manga Bible? I'm not sure I even want to look...
March 21, 2008
The other day I wrote quite a bit about science popularization (most of it as a result of being aggravated), but one point that I forgot to mention was how Darwin approached the problem of creationism in On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. Natural theology, especially of the…
March 21, 2008
Tomorrow the next edition of The Boneyard is going to go up at The Dragon's Tales, so get your entries to me or Will soon! I'm in need of a host for the next edition on April 5th, so just let me know by e-mail or in the comments and I'll pencil you in. And if you can't think of a science-heavy post…
March 21, 2008
The skull of Nichollsia borealis.
Update: As Nick has aptly pointed out, this plesiosaur is going to need a new name. The genus name Nichollsia is occupied by an isopod, arthopods once again trumping prehistoric creatures. I wonder how many times this has happened; I'm sure an interesting review…
March 21, 2008
I made a bit of a tactical error in my viewing choices the other night. For some reason I thought that I could handle watching Maxed Out (a great documentary about the soul-sucking practices of credit card companies) and Nancy Pelosi's Friends of God in one night, but I ended up a bit depressed at…
March 21, 2008
Red-Spotted Newt (Notophthalmus viridescens viridescens).
March 20, 2008
This has to be seen to be believed; the creationists behind Expelled are so threatened by PZ that he was threatened with arrest if he attempted to see the film, but Richard Dawkins made it in without a problem. I'm sure the internet will be a-buzz with whatever Dawkins has to say about the film…
March 20, 2008
According to tradition, Richard Owen is the great "villain" of Victorian biology; brilliant, arrogant, and jealous, the "British Cuvier" was the greatest threat to On the Origin of Species. In turn, his arch-nemesis was T.H. Huxley, a heroic young scientist who zealously defended Darwin and…
March 20, 2008
I had a feeling that other people were going to weigh in on Chris Mooney's latest article about "enablers" when I hit the "publish" button and shut down the computer yesterday afternoon, and I guess I was right. ERV, PZ, and Mark H have put forth their take on the article as well (ERV's…
March 19, 2008
Chris Mooney has a new article out with the title of "Enablers" in which he charges that scientists are essentially drawing attention to creationism, global warming skeptics, etc. by actively refuting pseudoscience. What should we do instead? Well, there doesn't seem to be much of an answer to that…
March 19, 2008
Last night I had one of those ideas that made my eyes go wide, wake my wife up, and try to explain what was bouncing around in my brain before it skittered away into the recesses of my thoughts. I think I was able to grab a fragment of the idea, but the more I turned it over in my head the more I…
March 19, 2008
...but I couldn't help but laugh when I saw the following headline;
Bush: Iraq has been 'longer and harder' than anticipated
[Story]
March 19, 2008
Yesterday a copy of John Brockman's The Third Culture arrived in the mail, and I was expecting it to contain a discussion about the modern mode of science popularization, or at least some insight into why many scientists decided to cut out the media middlemen and start writing books themselves.…
March 19, 2008
Tai Shan, a giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C.
March 18, 2008
Remember "Dakota," the exquisitely-preserved hadrosaur that was the selling point of a book that barely featured it? (See here for more gripes) It turns out that it's an Edmontosaurus, although the species name is left off so I have no idea whether the specimen represents a new variety of…
March 18, 2008
Last year, in a paper published in the journal Current Biology, Jill Pruetz and Paco Bertolani reported on their observation of ten different chimpanzees thrusting wooden "spears" into holes in trees 22 times over the course of more than a year, presumably to stun bush babies that sleep in the…
March 18, 2008
The Cambrian "explosion," the enigmatic phenomenon in which many of the phyla existing on the planet appeared in a relatively short period of time (at least 20 million years), remains a difficult event to study. Fossils are rare, intricate, and often represent creatures that are difficult to fit…
March 17, 2008
The lower jaw of Megalosaurus, presently the only fossil that can accurately be attributed to this enigmatic genus.
Although it was one of the first dinosaurs to be scientifically described during the early 19th century, the theropod Megalosaurus remains one of the most enigmatic (and…
March 17, 2008
Josh Donlan of Shifting Baselines wants to know what you think of Pleistocene Re-wilding. I recently aired some of my complaints about the hypothetical plans after reading Paul Martin's Twilight of the Mammoths, but while I don't support the idea I would encourage you to take the survey and add…
March 17, 2008
A pair of wild dogs (Lycaon pictus) playing at the Bronx Zoo (I apologize that it's a bit blurry).
As you might have seen in the last post, my computers and camera were stolen this past weekend so I have lost 99% of all the photos I've taken over the past two years. I still have a few I had burned…
March 17, 2008
Saturday night, after returning from dinner with friends, I opened the door to my apartment and let my wife in. As I fumbled with the string of icicle lights that run around the room to provide a little illumination, she said "I'll turn on the computer.... the computer isn't here!" Before I could…
March 15, 2008
... but this is ridiculous; [beware the blood & gore]
Although it's not clear how this giraffe died, the video does serve to illustrate an important point; spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta) often hunt alone, and if an individual comes across a carcass there's more for them than if they had…
March 15, 2008
Yesterday I went on a bit of a rant (triggered by yet another frustrating message from the university administration) about my college career, and I wanted to express my thanks to everyone who took the time to offer advice and encouragement. The comments made me feel a lot better, and I will…
March 15, 2008
Sasha, a male Amur tiger (Panthera tigris altaica) at the Bronx zoo.
March 14, 2008
Ah, spring break... I don't have the ability to go anywhere warm, but I am getting a new desktop computer that will soon allow me to store my mass of technical papers, work on my book a bit more, and play some World of Warcraft from time to time. I've got a few books coming during the next week,…
March 14, 2008
If you do, head over to Ask a Biologist and help them celebrate one year of answering science questions on the web.