Brian Switek
Brian Switek is an ecology & evolution student at Rutgers University.
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Posts by this author
March 14, 2008
Bora has been tirelessly interviewing seemingly anyone and everyone who was in attendance at the 2nd annual Science Blogging Conference (including me), but now he's had his turn in the hot seat. Check out the interview with the "Crazy Uncle" of science blogging over at Confessions of a Science…
March 14, 2008
A polar bear (Ursus maritimus) playing with two toys prepares to jump in the pool after throwing them in to the icy water.
March 13, 2008
I've successfully survived the test-taking aspect of midterms; now uneasiness sets in until the grades come back.
Relient K - "College Kids"
March 13, 2008
According to Lewis Black's hypothesis of the cause of cerebral aneurysms, when someone hears something incredibly stupid or irrational (i.e. "If it weren't for my horse, I wouldn't have spent that year in college.") the mind fixates upon it, becoming more and more stressed until a cerebral aneurysm…
March 13, 2008
Things will probably be a little light here today. I've got two midterm exams, both of which I'm dreading, so it's cram, cram, cram until the last minute for me. Hence I don't expect to post much (if anything) today, but hopefully I'll be back to normal by tomorrow. In the meantime, enjoy the…
March 13, 2008
The American bison (Bison bison) was almost entirely lost by the beginning of the 20th century, but a number of conservation projects sprang up during this time to try and restore bison populations. The individual animal photographed above calls the Bronx Zoo home, and the institution has a…
March 12, 2008
Like every kid who went on family outings to the NJ shore, I ended up coming home with any number of hermit crabs over the years. I'd make sure the sponge was wet, that they had food, that they were really in their shells and not just hiding elsewhere (probably terrorizing them in the process), but…
March 12, 2008
According to a news report released by CNN, a dolphin named "Moko" led a mother and calf pair of pygmy sperm whales back to sea after they had repeatedly stranded themselves on a sandbar near Mahia Beach off New Zealand. The story hails the dolphin as a hero, and while such anecdotes might be heart…
March 12, 2008
As if I didn't have enough books to read this year already, this July will see the publication of Tyrannosaurus rex: The Tyrant King, a book wholly dedicated to the iconic dinosaur. It's edited by Peter Larson and Kenneth Carpenter (it's part of the Life of the Past series), and although I don't…
March 12, 2008
A few weeks ago I picked up a slew of old anthropology books, many of which were at least minimally concerned with figuring out what makes our species human (or what defines "Man," to put things in their historical context). Bipedalism, making tools, and language were the classic examples of…
March 11, 2008
An itchy Malayan tapir.
As was the case with many other animals I learned about when I was younger, I believed that there was only one kind of animal called a tapir. Most popular books aimed at children don't spend much (if any) time on taxonomy or diversity, so there was no need for the authors…
March 11, 2008
You know documentaries have fallen into a sorry state of existence when their primary draw is the destruction of expensive objects just to fill up a few minutes (or even seconds) or airtime. I haven't seen the whole documentary, but the first installment of the BBC's The Truth About Killer…
March 11, 2008
We're starting a new program here at Sb where specially-selected readers have the ability to pick out the best of what's appearing in the whole of the community. It works like this; I get to pick two readers who then get the ability to tag three posts per week that will go into an RSS feed that…
March 10, 2008
This weekend I had a chance to get through a few shorter anthropology books that I purchased a few weeks ago, including Our Face From Fish to Man, The Leopard's Spots, and Adventures With the Missing Link. The last book, by Raymond Dart, is part autobiography and part popular science book, and the…
March 10, 2008
When I think of kangaroos, the image of large macropods bounding across the Australian outback most readily comes to mind. Oddly enough, though, some kangaroos became adapted to life in the trees and belong to the genus Dendrolagus. Previously I thought there was only one species of tree kangaroo…
March 9, 2008
Today I didn't get completed nearly as much as I would have liked. That's always the case, but this evening it's particularly true. The main reason for my lack of productivity is because the cat that I'm now fostering, a polydactyl named Little Foot, decided to walk on the keyboard and rip out the…
March 9, 2008
There's Icons and Evolution, and then there's Icons of Evolution. The first one I (unfortunately) became acquainted with shortly after my interest in evolution was sparked and the second was just released this past December (although I knew nothing about it until Greg mentioned it), but I doubt…
March 9, 2008
Against my better judgment, I went out to catch a matinée showing of 10,000 BC yesterday, and the only good thing that came of the outing was that I found a $20 bill in the parking lot. The movie is one of the stinkiest pieces of movie cheese I've encountered. At least Dragon Wars was so bad it…
March 8, 2008
Smilodon
It's been two weeks since the last Boneyard weathered out of the blogosphere. Here's a look at what present excavations have revealed over the past two weeks;
Carnivorous mammals have evolved saber-teeth many times in the past, but just how they used their teeth to kill prey has been…
March 8, 2008
I'll be putting up the next edition of The Boneyard this afternoon, so you've still got until about 4PM (eastern time) to get your posts in. Any submissions can be left in the comments or sent to me directly at evogeek AT gmail DOT com.
March 8, 2008
The small-clawed otter (Aonyx cinerea) is the smallest otter species presently known. They derive their name from their relatively short claws that do no extend past the fleshy pads on their feet, which actually allows them an increased amount of dexterity when handling their food.
March 7, 2008
There must be some unwritten rule that if you're going to face off against a prehistoric predator, you'd better make sure there's some heavy machinery nearby to even the odds [from an episode of Primeval];
The first time such a confrontation between "monster" and machine on film (that I know of…
March 7, 2008
As promised, here's a photo to make up for the somewhat blurry picture from this morning, only this time I decided to use another shot from the polar bear sequence.
March 7, 2008
One of Gerhard Heilmann's color illustrations of Archaeopteryx that graced his classic book The Origin of Birds. For more of Heilmann's excellent artwork, see this website.
Birds are extant dinosaurs; it's a phrase that (while initially quite stimulating) has been expressed so often that it…
March 7, 2008
[Update; I've now received all the papers (thank you all!), but I'll leave the list up here just in case anyone else is interested in tracking these down for their own interests.]
In the process of writing a chapter on the evolution of birds (and, therefore, dinosaurs) I've found that there is a…