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Shout-out to Cruze, Lonnie, and Scholar 3000 at The REC Radio Show on G-Town Radio

I just want to say thank you to Len Webb aka 'Cruze' and his posse for having me on their weekly, two-hour online radio show, The REC, this past Wednesday night at G-Town Radio in Philadelphia. It was nice to open my e-mailbox Wednesday morning with his note. I've read your blog on the case of Henrietta Lacks and the episode of Law and Order. The episode inspired us to spend some time tonight June 9th on the program discussing the issue. I planned to reference your blog and your thoughts on the show but I was hoping you might be available to talk to via phone and share your thoughts live on…

Is vaccinating poultry for bird flu obscuring cases?

Several countries have elected to vaccinate poultry as a bird flu control measure. Vietnam and China both have such programs. The Vietnamese program is credited with their good record on bird flu this year. But poultry vaccination has some down sides: The potential impact on human health of poorly implemented bird inoculations and experimental poultry vaccines needs to be carefully considered, according to a report prepared by the influenza team at the European Centre for Disease Surveillance and Control in Stockholm. A drop in the number of human cases in countries where fowl are vaccinated…

Friday No Fun: Pseudonymous blogging no longer allowed at ScienceBlogs?

According to DrugMonkey's recent post, ScienceBlogs' new overlords The National Geogrpaphic Society will no longer allow pseudonymous to continue blogging here. I have just been informed that ScienceBlogs will no longer be hosting anonymous or pseudonymous bloggers. In case you are interested, despite extensive communication from many of us as to why we blog under pseudonyms, I have not been given any rationale or reason for this move. Particularly, no rationale or reason that responds to the many valid points raised by the pseudonymous folks. This is, as they say, not unexpected. It is…

My talk: Evidence vs. Ideology: The Canadian Conservative Government's War on Science

This past Tuesday I gave a talk as part of the York University Department of Science & Technology Studies' STS Seminar Series. Not surprisingly, my talk was centred on the work I've done as a chronicler of Canadian science policy issues. The title and abstract of my talk are: Evidence vs. Ideology: The Canadian Conservative Government's War on Science Canada has entered an era of decision-based evidence-making, where scientific and other evidence takes a back seat to an ideology of political partisanship in the service of economic development and “prosperity.” Where once we could hope…

My picks from ScienceDaily

Homing Pigeons Get Their Bearings From Their Beaks: It has long been recognized that birds possess the ability to use the Earth's magnetic field for their navigation, although just how this is done has not yet been clarified. However, the discovery of iron-containing structures in the beaks of homing pigeons in a new study1 by Gerta Fleissner and her colleagues at the University of Frankfurt offers a promising insight into this complex topic. The article will be published online mid-March in Springer's journal Naturwissenschaften. Social Life Of Honeybees Coordinated By A Single Gene:…

ASM anyone?

Back from Mongolia (photos here for anyone interested), but heading off across the country this weekend for this year's American Society for Microbiology general meeting in Boston, then down to Connecticut for some reunion-ating. I just wanted to draw your attention (especially those of you planning to head to ASM, or already in the Boston area) to these events: The Science Social Media Breakfast Tuesday, June 3, 2008 8:00 a.m. ET - 10:00 a.m. ET Channel Café, 300 Summer Street, Boston, MA Join Elio Schaechter of Small Things Considered and Chris Condayan from the MicrobeWorld Radio and…

Triangle Tweetup Tonight

There is a Triangle Tweetup tonight and I'll be there, along with about 250 people from the Triangle, as well as from Greensboro and Greenville. You can follow the proceedings on Twitter, of course - @triangletweetup. You will also be able to watch it live! Looking at the list of attendees, I see several names that are familiar, including my SciBling Abel PharmBoy who has blogged about the event in much greater detail. Then, there will of course be people like Ginny Skalsky, Wayne Sutton, Lenore Ramm and the amazing Rachel of @DPAC. I am assuming that Bob Etheridge on the list is really the…

My picks from ScienceDaily

Novel Kind Of Learning Gene Discovered: Scientists at the Freie Universität Berlin have come one step closer to unraveling the molecular basis of learning. A team led by neurobiologist Björn Brembs has discovered the first gene for operant conditioning in the fruit fly Drosophila. Family Type Has Less-than-expected Impact On Parental Involvement, Study Finds: Children in step-families and in other non-traditional families get just as much quality time with their parents as those in traditional families, with only a few exceptions, according to research to be presented at the annual meeting…

Science Debate 2008 - my Question #3: Global Warming

To keep the conversation about the Science Debate 2008 going, I decided to post, one per day, my ideas for potential questions to be asked at such a debate. The questions are far too long, though, consisting more of my musings than real questions that can be asked on TV (or radio or online, wherever this may end up happening). I want you to: - correct my factual errors - call me on my BS - tell me why the particular question is counterproductive or just a bad idea to ask - if you think the question is good, help me reduce the question from ~500 to ~20 words or so. Here is the third one, so…

Science Debate 2008 - my Question #1: Scientific Advice to the President

To keep the conversation about the Science Debate 2008 going, I decided to post, one per day, my ideas for potential questions to be asked at such a debate. The questions are far too long, though, consisting more of my musings than real questions that can be asked on TV (or radio or online, wherever this may end up happening). I want you to: - correct my factual errors - call me on my BS - tell me why the particular question is counterproductive or just a bad idea to ask - if you think the question is good, help me reduce the question from ~500 to ~20 words or so. Here is the first one, so…

One Simple Way to Save Our Planet ..

tags: conservation, environment, plastics, oil, petroleum products ... Stop using plastics -- especially those flimsy plastic grocery bags -- unless you plan to reuse reuse reuse them. People ask me if I could do only one thing to preserve the planet, what would it be? I tell them that the best, and easiest way to help save this planet would be to cut down on one's use of plastics, beginning with those flimsy plastic bags that are given out by supermarkets. If people would only make or purchase several strong canvas bags and reuse them for carrying groceries, they would have taken a big step…

Norse Saga About The Buddha

I found something pretty wild in an essay by J.L. Borges this morning. There's a 13th century Norse saga about the Buddha. And the story has other fine twists as well. This all revolves around a legendary tale of the Buddha's early life. In the 6th century BC a son was born to a petty king in what is now Nepal. He was named Siddharta, and it was prophesied shortly after the boy's birth that he would become either a great king or a great holy man. His father then kept him carefully protected from contact with religion and human suffering, apparently to keep the boy away from the holy-man…

January Pieces Of My Mind #2

One reason that it's so hard to talk to believers about alternative medicine: the sharing of alt-med advice is largely a social, friendship-reinforcing activity. It's not just irrelevant to believers, but quite rude, to question the medical efficacy of someone's advice. This is not the case when you're talking about tax forms or sewing machines. Amazes me to think how varied and nutritious food we have in rich countries. All year round I can pretty much afford to eat whatever I want. And I'm not anywhere near being rich. I'm happy to do stuff for people. Just don't expect me to remember if…

Early Neolithic Amber Hoard CT Scanned

The Skalk article I mentioned the other day (with the rubber goat) tells the story of an unusual find made in northernmost Jutland in the summer of 2005. Peter Jensen was stripping some land of topsoil for gravel extraction when, from the vantage point of his machine, he spotted something interesting on the ground. Jensen happens to have much experience of machine operation at archaeological digs. It turned out that he had managed to identify a pit in the subsoil filled with thousands of amber beads: an Early Neolithic votive deposit datable around 3500 cal BC. Most votive amber deposits…

Its a small world after all!

I know you all read PZs blag, but I really need to take a moment to point out this bit of irony. Casey Luskin I mean, 'The Discovery Institute' *WINK!*, just filed a false DMCA claim against a YouTube user for criticizing Luskins appearance on some random FOX News show. Now, Im fairly certain that it was Casey, not 'The Discovery Institute' that filed the false claim. The DI has a pretty fast and loose interpretation of copyright laws-- I really cant imagine they would have a problem with 'fair use' of their work after they stole 'fairly used' XVIVOs cellular animations in presentations,…

Phylogeny of Linepithema

Argentine ants tending scale insects Three years after finishing my Ph.D., I have finally published the last bit of work from my dissertation.  It's a multi-locus molecular phylogeny of the ant genus Linepithema, a group of mostly obscure Neotropical ants that would be overlooked if they didn't happen to contain the infamous Argentine Ant.  In less jargony language, what I've done is reconstruct the evolution of an ant genus using genetic data.  Here's the citation: Wild, A. L. 2008. Evolution of the Neotropical Ant Genus Linepithema. Systematic Entomology, online early, doi: 10.1111/j.…

Dr Charles is back in The Examining Room

Great news hit my e-mail box overnight: one of the premier literary physician-bloggers of my childhood days in the blogosphere has returned. Hi all, I missed you. I missed blogging. Just wanted to let you know that I'm returning to writing at http://theexaminingroom.com I hope you'll stop by, and I look forward to catching up with you all! Dr. Charles back from 2007 retirement This is VERY good news for all of us, especially if you never had the pleasure of reading The Good Doctor before. I cannot write with his clarity, of course. But I can say that Dr. Charles has a tremendous gift for…

Troubling drop in whale population

There's a reason the Japanese, Norwegian and Icelandic whaling fleets mostly take the smallest of the great whales ;;;;; whalers had taken so many of the bigger species that only the minke could tolerate any kind of hunt. There are supposed to be hundred of thousands of them out there, just waiting to be exploited by responsible, sustainable whaling operations. But wait... This past weekend comes news from Iceland of a dramatic drop in minke whale number in the country's waters. According to a whale count from 2001 compiled by aircraft, there were 43,600 minkes in Icelandic waters, but last…

Quantum Summer Schools + Fault-Tolerant Workshop

With fast approaching deadlines: The 2009 Asher Peres International Physics School: Title: "The Edge, twixt quantum and classical phenomena" 30 Nov - 4 Dec, Sydney, Australia http://web.mac.com/quests/PeresSchool2009/Welcome.html The 2009 Asher Peres school provides senior undergraduates and junior postgraduates with a pedagogical introduction from internationally leading scientists on topics ranging from the interface between quantum and classical phenomena through to the role of quantum science in biology and nanomechanics. The international lecturers for 2009 are Prof Wojciech Zurek: Los…

Human-Neanderthal Hybridization (here we go again ... again)

A day or so back, I posted on an AP article which declared that "skull found in a cave in Romania includes features of both modern humans and Neanderthals, possibly suggesting that the two may have interbred thousands of years ago." The original research article is now online. Let's look at the abstract, shall we? Between 2003 and 2005, the Pestera cu Oase, Romania yielded a largely complete early modern human cranium, Oase 2, scattered on the surface of a Late Pleistocene hydraulically displaced bone bed containing principally the remains of Ursus spelaeus. Multiple lines of evidence…

Watching the ripples of the #HItsunami

I was over at my friend Kira's house last night, having some wine and pizza and helping her relax before her PhD defense this afternoon. There was nothing abnormal about the evening at that point, though soon enough, that would change. Within the hour, we would first hear reports of a tsunami warning, the results of the fifth largest quake in recorded history off the coast of Japan. We would turn on the news and watch as the 13 foot waves rushed across Japanese crop fields. We'd watch in horror as cars were thrown about in raging floods and fires broke out in the water's wake. We'd look at…

Fake videos lead to real confessions

In case you missed them, here are my selections from the psychology and neuroscience posts on ResearchBlogging.org for the past week: Confronted with fake video evidence, nearly everyone confesses. In a simulated "crime," researchers were able to induce false confessions -- but fewer people were willing to rat out others. Second language changes the way bilinguals read in their native tongue. Learning a new language makes you read differently in the old one, suggesting you don't just "switch on" a different language. Children with autism do understand emotions. While autism does seem to…

Blogging about Tweets and the Realm of Influencers

Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter, announced the top ten Tweets of 2010 - yes, it's that annual ritual of lists. Anyone whom might doubt the influence of Twitter might consider that in 2010, so far, more than 25 billion Tweets have been sent. The number one Tweet was written by NBC's Ann Curry: In the wake of the Haiti earthquake last January, the U.S. military took control of Haiti's airfield. A Doctors Without Borders plane carrying much-needed supplies and medical aid wasn't given clearance to land -- depriving the wounded of help from its team of physicians. Jason Cone, the organization'…

Twelve Months of The Thoughtful Animal (2010)

King of all blogmemery Drugmonkey has started another one this week. The rules for this blog meme are quite simple. Post the link and first sentence from the first blog entry for each month of the past year. Seems easy enough. Instead of just choosing the first blog entry this month, however, I'm going rogue and just randomly choosing a blog entry from each month. I've been blogging The Thoughtful Animal for exactly a year, so I'll have something for each month (my one-year bloggiversary will be during Science Online). Without further ado: January: As promised, here is the beginning of a…

Mapping the Brain

I've got a new feature in Wired Magazine on the Allen Brain Institute and their heroic attempts to construct a gene expression map of the human brain. I was most impressed by the way the Institute has "industrialized" the scientific process, as it transforms the artisan model of lab benchwork - post docs playing with micropipettes - into a high-throughput model, in which massive robots execute most of the actual "science". The article is now online, but the photographs are pretty stunning (in a gruesome sort of way), so be sure to pick up a copy of the magazine. The human brain is…

Pat Barker, PTSD, Regeneration

Kennedy Fraser had an illuminating profile of the novelist Pat Barker in a recent New Yorker (not online): Barker grew up with silent, wounded men. "And with talkative women, spinning stories," she said. "Stories with bits missing." She is a true war baby. "My mother was in the Wrems" - the Women's Royal Navy Service - "and her stories about World War Two were always quite interesting. She used to run home through an air rad, because she knew her mother would be worried. It was a very dangerous thing to do, but I'm afraid that wouldn't occur to my mother. She really adored the war. She was…

A stealth librarianship manifesto

Stealth librarianship is a way of being. This particular edition of the manifesto applies to academic libraries. The principles of stealth librarianship apply to all branches of the profession, each in particular ways. Other manifestos could exist for, say, public or corporate librarians. However the core is the same: to thrive and survive in a challenging environment, we must subtly and not-so-subtly insinuate ourselves into the lives of our patrons. We must concentrate on becoming part of their world, part of their landscape. Our two core patron communities as academic librarians are…

Let the Pandemic Games begin!

This is a public health blog run by an old geezer (or geezers, depending upon how many of us there are), but if you are a crazed gamer with an age in the low double digits (or not), this post is for you. The part for you is below the fold, at the end. But first some background. Despite my age, I'm always looking for new and interesting ways to do public health and a year or two ago I started to look at the virtual reality "game" Second Life. I posted about it, noting that CDC had a tiny outpost there, NOAA had a spiffy island set-up, and several notables had avatars there, too: Richard Posner…

Weekend Diversion: Axe Cop

"I'll chop your head off!" -Axe Cop What games did you play with your imagination as a little kid? Did you make up stories involving muppets? Horses? Cartoon characters? Cowboys and... native americans? Or, as the Hoosiers would sing, Cops And Robbers? Well, if ever any of that amused you, have I got a discovery for you. Image credit: Ethan Nicolle and Malachai Nicolle. A cartoon created, literally, by the imagination of a (then) five-year-old! When Ethan Nicolle, an animator/graphic artist in his late 20s, went to his parents house in 2009 to visit his little brother Malachai, the…

Ecological Validity in Prospective Memory Tasks: The Effects of Delayed-Execution and Aging

Findings in the laboratory do not always apply to the real-world - a myriad of factors can influence real-world phenomena, and scientists actively seek to eliminate many of them in their laboratories. But ecological validity can be particularly difficult to establish in cognitive science, where real-world levels of motivation, stress, and memory load can not always be practically (or ethically) simulated in the laboratory. Ecological validity may be particularly important in tests of prospective memory - the ability to remember to perform a planned future action. One salient example: young…

Rebooting science journalism -mixed-metaphor notes on the upcoming yakfest

Tomorrow I fly to North Carolina for the ScienceOnline 2010 conference, or unconference, where on Saturday I will sit down with Ed Yong, Carl Zimmer, John Timmer, and anyone else who squeezes into the room, to talk about rebooting science journalism. The obvious assumption behind the topic (if I can return to the titular metaphor) is that science journalism is such a mess that it needs not just cleaning up, but a wholesale restart. But "rebooting" is probably too mild a term for what most people think is needed; if we're to stick with digital metaphors, I'd to say the assumption is more that…

Scientific realism and inference to the best explanation

A major argument for the existence of the entities in scientific theories is that if these entities did not, on the whole, exist, the empirical adequacy of the theories would be miraculous. In other words, positing the reality of these entities, and the truth of the theories, is an inference to the best explanation, or IBE as it's abbreviated. Alan Musgrave has a new paper out in the online Rutherford Journal (which is of very high quality for an online journal) entitled "The 'Miracle Argument for Scientific Realism" which canvasses these issues. IBE is also called "abduction", after C. S…

Going above and beyond (or below) the call of duty for medical research

I've heard of physicians using themselves as guinea pigs for their own research before, but this is ridiculous. Yesterday, my copy of General Surgery News arrived at my office. As I was whiffling through it to see if there were any articles worth reading, I came across a tale of a Japanese doctor who was truly dedicated to his research, so much so that that I had to hand it to him. Well, sort of. Yes, on p. 22 of the June issue of General Surgery News (sadly, not yet online as of this writing, so you'll have to take my word for this--or check up on me in a couple of weeks when they'll…

I Have A Blog; I Don't Need To Read Your "Dead-Tree Format" To Have An Opinion!

Everybody's talking about Unscientific America 'round these parts lately. I've almost finished reading it and will post a review of my own sometime soon. In the meantime...Isis has a post up where she makes note of ERV's displeasure with the book. In response, ERV comments thusly on Isis's blog: Isis-- I havent read Unscientific America. I called foul on some shit Mooney wrote in 2006 he has yet to address, I would have been shocked if he sent me a copy. My issue with Mooney initially had nothing to do with atheism, nor does my problem with him today have anything to do with atheism. PZ…

Who are the science journalists?

At Science Online 2010, due to begin in a few weeks, I will be chairing a panel of veteran bloggers/journalists in a discussion on rebooting science journalism in the age of the web. Joining me will be Carl Zimmer, John Timmer and David Dobbs. We'll be chatting about how science journalism and science journalists will survive in the new media ecosystem, which traits are adaptive in this environment, and which are not. Dave's already got the ball rolling with some thought-provoking posts on the topic and over the next couple of weeks, I'll be doing the same. This first post will go back to…

Links 12/7/10

Links for you. Science: Congress Critters enlist the taxpayers in the war on NSF funded science Another reason to avoid visiting Answers in Genesis Polluted Air Increases Obesity Risk in Young Animals: Exposure to polluted air early in life led to an accumulation of abdominal fat and insulin resistance in mice even if they ate a normal diet, according to new research. Citizens Against Peer Review Eric Cantor Wants Our Grandmas to Decide Science Funding Other: Feds Warrantlessly Tracking Americans' Credit Cards in Real Time No Free Parking Web bug reveals browsing history: Porn sites are…

Around the Web: Potternomics, PeterSuberNomics, #ScholPubNomics and more

WSJ explains the economics behind lending Harry Potter ebooks by Amazon Money Talks — How Audience Priorities and Publishing Incentives Can Lead to Unusual OA Behaviors #scholpub, PeerJ and Tim O’Reilly The coming revolution in STM #scholpub Why doesn’t Moore’s law apply to #scholpub? Who is the Steve Jobs of #scholarlypub? Whence comes the needed disruption? Top 10 reasons why professors leave: elephant in the lab series Whose Intellectual Property? Conflicted: Faculty and Online Education, 2012 Mending Fences (university presses & librarians in wake of GSU decision) Penguin, 3M Test…

Around the Web: It doesn't matter what e-books cost to make, Harvard & MIT's edX and more

It doesn't matter what e-books cost to make EdX: A Platform for More MOOCs and an Opportunity for More Research about Teaching and Learning Online The Problem With EdX How Should Your University Respond to edX? Resisting the Robo-Assignment The Immersion Method -- I & II (intensive "great books" courses) Reconsidering Academic Careers Libraries as Indoctrination Mills The Virtues of Blogging as Scholarly Activity Pay up, Yochai Benkler (the Benkler-Carr wager on the nature of the web) The economics of digital sharecropping Open letter to college graduates A revolutionary new approach…

Around the Web: Promise & perils of Pinterest, Abundance vs disruption, Beyond the textbook and more

Promise & Perils of Pinterest Abundance vs disruption: dramatically different views of the future Beyond the Textbook My Experience With eBooks: Yea or Nay? Of dead trees, living networks, and encyclopedic ambition Ask the Administrator: If I Become a Dean, Will My Faculty Colleagues Shun Me? Killing the Story (Apple & Daisey) The Prison-House of Data (digital humanities) Nicholas Carr on the evolution of communication technology and our compulsive consumption of information Counterintuitive digital media assignments Making Sense of the Digital Transition: Are Textbooks Dead? Know…

Seven New Wonders

Can you name the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World? (Neither could I. To refresh your memory, they are, in chronological order: The Great Pyramids of Giza, The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, The Statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Mausoleum of Maussollos at Halicarnassus, the Colossus of Rhodes, and the Lighthouse of Alexandria. Phew!) The famous list was composed by Philon of Byzantium in 200 B.C. Could it be time for an update? The New7Wonders foundation thinks so. In 2001, Swiss-born Canadian filmmaker, museum curator, aviator, and explorer Bernard Weber…

Celebrate Darwin Day by writing an essay!

Yes, yes, I know Darwin Day was Februrary 12th. Nevertheless, the Alliance for Science is sponsoring an essay contest in Darwin's honor and, if you're a high school student you can still celebrate by writing an essay. And if you're a high school teacher, and your student wins, you win $$ for buying lab supplies.  Okay, I suppose it's only us geeky bloggers who consider writing an essay to be a kind of celebration. If the sheer joy of celebrating Darwin Day by writing an essay, doesn't pique your interest, there are prizes. Write an essay on the topic: "Why would you want your…

How Pink Are You?

I ran across an online quiz today that claims it can identify if you tend to be more of a socialist or capitalist. I think I am more of a capitalist than a socialist, despite my score (below the fold) so I think this quiz just used the wrong statements or made the statements too black-and-white for a realist, such as myself, to answer in any way other than "gee, that depends upon the circumstances, so therefore, I will disagree with this statement as written." What were your scores and what did you think of the way the statements were written? You Are 24% Capitalist, 76% Socialist You…

Red Dust Rising

The Annual Meeting of the American Astronomical Society is underway in Texas... ...and due to UnForeseen Circumstances, I am not there. Strangely enough I can't find the program on-line, but I gather I am there virtually, although I just realised I have no idea if I am on more than one poster at the AAS. But dozens of press releases are, so I start with one of the most interesting, which strangely enough did not come out with the AAS meeting, but came out last week. Astronomers at the Carnegie Institution have found the first indications of highly complex organic molecules in the disk of red…

Free Avian Anatomy Handbook

tags: online books, ornithology, birds, anatomyAvian Anatomy Handbook, Julian Baumel I know several of my overseas readers have wanted a free PDF of Julian Baumel's celebrated Handbook of Avian Anatomy: Nomina Anatomica Avium, 2nd Edition, published in 1993 by the Nuttal Ornithological Club, but I have been unable to email it to you due to its large size (400 pages; 49MB). Thanks to the suggestion of one of my readers, I uploaded a copy of this PDF to RapidShare, which hosts large files of up to 100 MB. Now, you can download this PDF to your computer -- but the file must be downloaded at…

Free Avian Anatomy Handbook

tags: online books, ornithology, birds, anatomyAvian Anatomy Handbook, Julian Baumel For those of you who study birds or who like to look at them, Julian Baumel's celebrated Handbook of Avian Anatomy: Nomina Anatomica Avium, 2nd Edition, published in 1993 by the Nuttal Ornithological Club, is now available as a free PDF download. It's a big file (400 pages; 49MB), so it might take some time to download, but it is free (shall I add that even though Julian Baumel was retired at the time, he came out of retirement for a short time to guest lecture the anatomy lab portion of my Ornithology course…

Fornvännen's Spring Issue On-Line

True to the rules of Open Access publishing, the April issue of Fornvännen has come on-line in all its full-text glory less than six months after paper publication. Katharina Hammarstrand Dehman reports on the kind of hardcore wetland archaeology you can get to do when somebody wants to dig a huge tunnel under a coastal city. Helena Günther launches a merciless attack on the shamanic model of interpretation that has coloured much Scandy rock-art research in recent years. Maria Lingström reports on her fieldwork on a 1361 battlefield. Unusually early battlefield archaeology on a site where…

Fornvännen's Summer Issue On-Line

Shortly after Fornvännen 2012:1 reached subscribers on paper, issue 2011:2 has now been published on-line. Get thee there, Dear Reader, and read for free (not dearly)! Joakim Wehlin on why some of Gotland's mightiest Bronze Age monuments were built next to the island's single megalithic tomb of the Early Neolithic. Karl-Magnus Melin on ancient wells. Torun Zachrisson makes an interesting suggestion as to where the church of Birka may have been located. Jürgen Beyer tries to make sense of some semi-literate 16th century epigraphy in Plattdeutsch on Gotland. Tryggve Siltberg criticises…

The virus hunters

Radio Open Source, after a number of requests, has done a program on avian influenza. You can listen to the broadcast here. The guests on the program include: William Karesh Veterinarian Head of the Field Veterinary Program of the Wildlife Conservation Society David Swayne Veterinarian Director of the USDA Southeast Poultry Research Lab Edward Dubovi Microbiologist Director of the Viral Section of the Diagnostic Lab at the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine Rubin Donis Chief of Molecular Genetics at the Influenza Branch of the CDC They also have a A Complete Guide to…

The Onion Knows the Archaeological Worldview

Archaeologists have an extremely strange worldview. We never simply see what's going on around us right now: we keep thinking about what a place would have looked like hundreds of years ago, or what it will look like in the far future. The Onion has a great piece on-line about just that: "Crime Scene Investigators Find Arrowhead". "Their bodies showed signs of blunt force trauma to the head, as well as several postmortem stab wounds, although no indications of sexual abuse were present. A steel pipe bearing human blood and tissue matter was found at the scene but did not appear to be related…

Antiquity's Spring Issue (With Polish Flint Babes)

The spring issue of Antiquity, a journal for which I am proud to act as a correspondent, has come on-line and is being distributed on paper as well. It has a lot to offer those interested in Northern European archaeology: papers on the construction date of Silbury Hill in Wiltshire, England; on the late-1st Millennium temple at Uppåkra, Scania, Sweden; on mid-to-late 1st Millennium research as historical archaeology; on the Viking Period towns and trade network around the Baltic; and (as illustrated above) on voluptuous Late Magdalenian female silhouettes knapped in flint and found at…