Brian Switek
Brian Switek is an ecology & evolution student at Rutgers University.
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Posts by this author
December 11, 2007
The power of the evolution idea is that it directly affects every creature that has ever lived on this planet and ever will, for that matter. It does not apply only to mussels and marmosets, dinosaurs and date palms, or penguins and porgies; Homo sapiens is as much a product of evolution as the…
December 11, 2007
A mount of Plateosaurus. [Source]
When I was first becoming acquainted with dinosaurs, the origin of the gigantic Jurassic sauropods seemed pretty straightforward. There was Plateosaurus (see above) from the Late Triassic of Europe, and it almost seemed certain that it was the ancestor to…
December 11, 2007
This photograph of a Maned Wolf (Chrysocyon brachyurus) unfortunately looks as if it were taken in someone's yard, but these South American canids are fascinating all the same. I will tread lightly here as Anne-Marie is the expert round these parts, but there is at least one interesting story to…
December 10, 2007
America is a strange country indeed; we want to know about what our future leaders are going to do about the economy, terrorism, and various social issues, but we don't ask that they be scientifically literate. In the ever-growing mass of debates held this year, it was even revealed that a number…
December 10, 2007
If you fail at everything else in life, you could always try to work for a scientific organization, reveal that you're a creationist, and then land a job as a professor at Liberty University. That's just what Nathaniel Abraham did, and now he's suing the prestigious Woods Hole Oceanographic…
December 10, 2007
I'm sure that many of you, like me, have added a number of books to your shelf in 2007 (or revisited ones that have already found a place there). My own selections have almost exclusively been in the area of natural history, both old and new, but before I write up a list of my favorite selections…
December 10, 2007
For those of you in Germany (or can speak German, for that matter), the beta version of Scienceblogs.de is now available, featuring all-new blog content. Page 3.14 has the scoop.
December 10, 2007
There is certainly a glut of books out there about why people reject science, embrace superstition/pseudoscience, or both, and I've read a few of them over the past month or so (The Mismeasure of Man, Discarded Science, Science Talk, and Why People Believe Weird Things are the ones I read) to see…
December 10, 2007
The infamous "random things" meme is again making the rounds and I've been doubly tagged, first by Greg Laden and then by Mike Haubrich, so just as I've done in the past (see here and here) I'll pull double duty an try to come up with some original answers. I'll continue Greg's line first since he…
December 10, 2007
A monster in Loch Ness, crazy old Scots, and Nazis; what else could you want? Well, a coherent movie, of course, but The Loch Ness Horror is so full of rolled "r"s and movie cheese that fun all the same. The movie starts off with Nessie spotting some Nazi activity over the lake, the information…
December 10, 2007
The Boat-Billed Heron (Cochlearius cochlearius) is a somewhat strange member of the family Ardeidae, although it was previously placed in its own family, the Cochlearidae. As you can tell from the above photograph taken at the "Aquatic Bird House" at the Bronx Zoo, the bill of this type of bird is…
December 9, 2007
A Polar Bear (Ursus maritimus) playing with a plastic drum at the Philadelphia Zoo. This isn't much of a post, but I should probably note that this is my 200th post here on ScienceBlogs (time sure does fly, huh?), and you readers have left nearly 900 comments thus far. More posts should be coming…
December 7, 2007
I have to wonder if whoever was put in charge of the Golden Compass reviews page on RottenTomatoes.com has something against the film; it's listed as receiving a 44% approval rating but some of the reviews seem more positive then negative when I actually read some of them. I don't need to ask a…
December 7, 2007
Paleontologist Jack Horner has proposed that the pachycephalosaurs Dracorex (upper left) and Stygimoloch (upper right) are really growth stages in the species Pachycephalosaurus (lower center), as presented in the November 23rd, 2007 issue of Science
Pachycephalosaurus was always introduced to…
December 7, 2007
Note: As Larry Moran rightly points out in the comments everything isn't all about putting out papers and us science bloggers should put out graphs of our own publication rates, as well. For my own part, I've contributed nothing so I couldn't even make a graph, but I know there has been some…
December 7, 2007
Every time I think I'm finally going to get down to writing a nice, juicy epic post there's some new dinosaur news or discovery that comes up and throws me off the rails. I'm still working on the sailbacks piece (hopefully I'll finish it this weekend; my term paper took precedence during the week,…
December 7, 2007
Yesterday was a little light on posts as I was in transit for most of the day to a lecture at NYU by Kevin Hunt of Indiana University called "The inferred forest home of the earliest hominins: Firm foundation or house of cards?" The talk was much more narrow in scope than what it might sound like…
December 7, 2007
Can you find the Eyelash Viper (Bothriechis schlegelii)? It's generally good to see them before you stumble upon them in the Central and South American rainforest, as this small pit viper has a venomous bite. The one in the photo is green, but they can take on a variety of colors (yellow, pink,…
December 6, 2007
I'm going to be out most of the day as I'm going to attend a lecture in New York on how useful (or not) living primates are in reconstructing the lifeways of extinct hominins (with a new copy of Peter Bowler's Monkey Trials and Gorillas Sermons to keep me occupied during the trip), but if you're…
December 6, 2007
There are few creatures that are as charming as otters; their lithe forms are amusingly awkward on land but incredibly graceful in the water, and they are always a joy to behold. Their energetic playfulness makes them difficult to photograph, however, although this particular North American River…
December 5, 2007
A crude evolutionary tree drawn by Charles Darwin in his first "transmutation" notebook around July 1837.
Welcome, dear reader, to the second edition of the taxonomically-oriented blog carnival Linnaeus' Legacy, founded by fellow science blogger Christopher Taylor. Here's the "view from the top…
December 5, 2007
Later this afternoon I'll be hosting the taxonomic blog carnival Linnaeus' Legacy. If you have a post you'd like to be included (or know of another post that should be included), please send it to me before 3 P.M. Eastern Time.
December 5, 2007
In honor of the presentation I'm delivering today (which comprises about half the subject of my term paper), here is the skull of a baboon (Papio sp.), baboons sometimes eating meat when they can get it. Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), however, incorporate much more meat into their diet and have…
December 4, 2007
It's always a good day when a new book arrives at the door, but I've been a little worried lately as a number of books that were shipped weeks ago hadn't turned up. With only one or two exceptions they all came today (pictured above beneath the Christmas tree), and four of them are review copies…
December 4, 2007
George and Charles H. Sternberg's "Trachodon" (=Edmontosaurus) mummy, discovered in Wyoming in 1908. Image from Osborn, H.F. (1912) "Integument of the iguanodont dinosaur Trachodon", Memoirs of the AMNH ; new ser., v. 1, pt. 1-2.
Dinosaur "mummies," specimens that have undergone unusual…
December 4, 2007
A Blue Tit (Cyanistes caeruleus). Via Wikipedia.
In 1921, people who had milk delivered to their door in Swaythling, England had a mystery on their hands; someone was drinking all the cream out of their milk bottles. Local youths and other potential culprits were named, but the phenomenon began…
December 4, 2007
Ben Stein is out and about flogging his upcoming farce of a documentary, Expelled, and he recently repeatedly shot himself in the foot during a recent appearance on Glenn Beck's self-aggrandizing CNN show. If you can stomach it, here's the video;
Hearing what Stein said during this brief…
December 4, 2007
These three Reticulated Giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis reticulata) were very intent on getting a free handout, and all lined up for this shot. Chances are that if you see a giraffe at a zoo, it's a Reticulated Giraffe, and out of these three the male is the darker, knobbly giraffe to the far…
December 3, 2007
A few weeks ago I mentioned that the school board in Polk County, Florida looked like they were going to try and get creationism into the classroom when the school science standards are revised in January of 2008, and now it looks like some of the members of the Texas Education Agency might be…