Paul Z. Meyers
pharyngula
Posts by this author
BioGraphic
Watching carefully, I noticed that two other activities added to the commotion: sloughing of skin and defecation. Like other whales, sperm whales shed skin on a regular basis. This may be a mechanism to reduce the risk of infection and to rid the animals of external parasites. As the…
Back around the 11th of July, I saw a few comments by a guy named Myles Power, a science youtuber, who was quite irate that Rebecca Watson criticized evolutionary psychology five years ago. There were the usual vaguely horrified reactions implying how annoying it was that some mere communications…
But wouldn't you know it, it's an endangered species. If it weren't for that, I'd happily wear Telipogon diabolicus on my lapel everywhere.
Our HHMI students are going to the Morris Theater tonight to watch Finding Dory (fish are biological, so it fits). You're all welcome to join us at 7!
Southern Blue Tang
Conodonts are strange and extinct animals that left behind lots of fossils: their teeth. Practically nothing else but teeny-tiny, jagged, pointy teeth. I remember when the animals themselves were total mysteries, and no one even knew what phylum they belonged to -- it was only in the 1980s that a…
This is kind of awesome: cephalopods only have one kind of photoreceptor, so it was thought that they would be only able to see the world in shades of gray. Those amazingly clever camouflage tricks they pull? That was just matching intensities and textures, fooling our eyes. But now someone has…
Now you've got another paper you can file with that dead salmon fMRI paper: one that analyzes the transcriptome, or excuse me, the thanatotranscriptome, of dead zebrafish and mice.
You should not be surprised to learn that when a multicellular organism dies, it's not as if every single cell is…
This week, Nature has an article on the reconstruction of global tectonics during the past 200 million years.
a–c, Maps are separated by 10 Myr. The shapes of the large plates do not change much, whereas the adjustment of the small plates evolves quickly. d, 90 Myr after the first snapshot (a),…
The theme of this year's con is "…and how do we GET there", which means we really should have a session on octopus locomotion.
Neil Shubin reports that Bible tracts have begun appearing in copies of his book, Your Inner Fish, in bookstores. He even has photographic evidence.
This is remarkable news. We now know how bible tracts are made: they are degenerate forms descended from more complex and sophisticated texts, and…
Who among you has taught or studied vertebrate anatomy? I have. It's cool. Skeletal and muscular anatomy are weird, though, because we so take the principles for granted that we're often not aware of it. We can move because we have a jointed framework, a collection of levers that are moved by the…
I keep telling students that the key thing in photography is lighting.
Amy Roth
Kate Fenhalls
As I just explained, however, the erotic possibilities will remain unexplored.
Every morning at this hour they wake me up with their chirping and cheeping. It's spring, and the mating season, and the circle of life must go on. Heh.
The guards should have known. Inky had just been biding his time, planning patiently. And then he scurried down a sewer pipe late at night, to freedom!
If I'd been guarding him, I would have been suspicious of that poster of Ursula from The Little Mermaid that he'd requested, too, and would have…
We had a job candidate pass through today. They were from New Orleans. The phrase "crawfish boil" came through on the interview. Now guess what I can't get out of my head?
Arkiv
Uh-oh. I've disappointed David Klinghoffer. I should probably put that on my CV.
You see, the other day he praised a fellow named Tom Gilson for a post in which he provided a succinct summary of Intelligent Design creationism, and I took that summary apart, point by point. You might think, perhaps…