Search Content

Displaying results 61501 - 61550 of 87947

Facebook Playing With Fire, Again

Facebook opening up to the masses: Social networking site Facebook is to ditch its requirement that users must have a university email address, according to media reports. Facebook required members to have a school or university email address, but added 1,000 approved work addresses in May allowing students that had graduated to continue to access the site. Removing the need for approved email addresses will put the site in direct competition with other social networks such as MySpace, Bebo and Friendster. My prediction - disaster. It will not just compete against MySpace, it will become…

Another fox hiding from atheists in a hole?

Barry Saunders is a local columnist for Raleigh News & Observer who I never thought was very funny (there is a mysoginist streak in his writing) so I rarely read him these days. But the other day I could not help but notice that he started his column with the old "no atheists in foxholes" stupidity - in context of the VT massacre, of course. I was far too busy these last couple of days to do anything about it myself, feeling confident that he was gonna hear about it from many others. And, sure he did. Just like Katie Couric, Tom Brokaw, Bob Schieffer and John Burnett (the latter two…

What did I talk about in St. Paul this weekend?

This was kind of a lost weekend for me — Darwin Day on Thursday, Columbus on Saturday, St. Paul on Sunday, with all the flitting about through the air and on freeways in between, so I'm a bit swamped now on Monday morning, struggling to catch up with all the real important stuff that I get paid for in my job, and that I usually get done on the weekend. So no, Greg, I don't have much to say about our panel discussion on evolution/creation education on Sunday — you'll have to do it for me! It was a good discussion, though, with a whole gang of UM educators up front talking about our diverse…

New Bird Species in Idaho

New Bird Species Found In Idaho, Demonstrates Co-evolutionary Arms Race One does not expect to discover a bird species new to science while wandering around the continental United States. Nor does one expect that such a species would provide much insight into how coevolutionary arms races promote speciation. On both fronts a paper to appear in The American Naturalist proves otherwise. Julie Smith, now at Pacific Lutheran University, and her former graduate advisor, Craig Benkman at the University of Wyoming, have uncovered strong evidence that coevolution has led to the formation of a species…

Old, senile, and ignorant

Charlie Daniels has chimed in with a little squeak of outrage at Newdow's lawsuit. His post is titled "He Must Be a Miserable Man", and I think it must be self-referential since it is an astonishing collection of stupidities. Foremost, here's one that I can't believe anyone would say: If we deny God His rightful place in the affairs of this nation should we expect Him to intervene when we need protection? Just what do you think has kept us safe from terrorist attacks since 9/11? It certainly wasn't the atheists. I expect atheists did contribute, as did Christians and Muslims and other…

Freethinker Sunday Sermonette: tales from the trenches

It seems to us the battle between the secular and the religious is settling down into a predictable form of trench warfare. From the secular side (that's where my trench is located) comes this recitation of the now accepted responses to the now expected arguments of the religious against us atheists (hat tip reader LT). Many of these arguments involved some rather deep issues that are treated in a fairly superficial way. For example, Carl Sagan's remark that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I'm not even sure what that means but I see no reason why it should be true. Or…

And the Winnahs Are....

Hi Folks - So I had so many  responses to the free book giveaway (between here, facebook, private email and the other site, 149 unique entries) that I decided to  give three signed books away.  The boys had an awesome time picking names from the hat, and the winners are: JRB (entered at www.sharonastyk.com) Johanne Perry (entered at Science Blogs) and Khadijah (entered at Science Blogs) Please email me with your address at jewishfarmer@gmail.com and I'll get them in the mail to you ASAP! Didn't win?  All is not lost, you can order one, or I would also consider bartering  (and I also have a…

Thought Experiment on Extended Electric Disruption

Well, I guess I timed that last piece reasonably well ;-), no? As you may have noticed, I am at present typing this on the internet, rather than carving it into a stone tablet (actually I'd probably just use a pen and a piece of paper, but stone tablet does sound more apocalyptic), so the latest solar storm wasn't a big deal. Still, it does seem like because there are so many fun things that could take out electricity for an extended period - let's call it widespread outages for months, anyway - that it does seem to be worth talking about. So let's talk. What do you imagine such an outage…

Beck and Stein deserve each other

What happens when you put two of the dumbest right-wing pundits together on the air? Madness. On the July 23 edition of CNN Headline News' Glenn Beck, guest Ben Stein, while discussing Sen. Barack Obama's plan to deliver his speech accepting the Democratic presidential nomination at Denver's Invesco Field, stated that he did not "like the idea of Senator Obama giving his acceptance speech in front of 75,000 wildly cheering people" because "[t]hat is not the way we do things in political parties in the United States of America." Stein continued: "Seventy-five-thousand people at an outdoor…

There *Is* Beauty in the Bellow of the Blast....

In the previous thread commenters DC Sessions and Prometheus have been discussing the pure aesthetic appreciation of the BP disaster and other man made problems with splendor that is grim. And what they say is true -and I think interesting and worth looking at. After all, all of us are just a teensie weensy wee bit bloodthirsty, right? For me, however, what came of the discussion was the irresistable urge to play "Beauty in the Bellow of the Blast" from Gilbert and Sullivan's Mikado, which seems on target. So I leave you with it (the Tit Willow bit at the beginning is also delightful,…

Staniford On Sea Level Rise

What I like about Stuart Staniford's work is that he does such a lovely job of offering useful and clear visual descriptors of things that are often otherwise made less clear. The design of a good graph or visual is worth a lot. So I thought this bit about the way sea level rise plays out in the emerging data was very useful. For the range of climate models used in the IPCC AR4, and for multiple different emissions models, they show the prediction range associated with that model (the different colored bands). The interesting thing that emerges here is that it sort of doesn't matter much…

LHC bounds Higgs

Summary of results on Higgs particle on LHC workshop at KITP I wasn't here for it, but last week John Conway presented the LHC Higgs Searches (slides, audio, video) summary talk at the LHC11 workshop. I had, of course, kept half an eye on the flurry of conference announcement on the preliminary LHC constraints on various wished for particles and sparticles, but it is particularly satisfying to see a good summary presentation. Low mass joint Higgs constraints - more data needed (from Conway's talk, link above) So, there is space in the parameter space, there are a few little gaps in the 200…

Stopping Chao's Secret Rule

Congressman George Miller (D-CA) along with 11 co-sponsors introduced a bill yesterday (H.R. 6660) to prohibit Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao from issuing her proposed rule mandating new requirements for health risk assessments prepared by MSHA and OSHA.  The Congressman's statement accompanying the bill makes plain his disdain for the Bush Administration's 7 1/2 year assualt on workers' rights and protections.  Miller promises: "This Congress will not stand for the further weakening of worker protections, particularly when it's done in secret--as this Administration heads out of town."…

Carry Out Containers Gone Awry

After dinner last night at a local tavern, I asked the waiter for a container to carry home our leftovers.  He promptly returned with a No. 5 plastic container (damn!).  Have you ever looked at the carry-out containers you receive from your local restaurants?  Are they made of a recyclable material?  Are they made of a recyclable material that the city you live in will actually recycle?  According to the District of Columbia Office of Recycling, âcarry-out containersâ are not allowed in recycling bins.  I propose that we petition the City Council to pass a law requiring…

Fuel tank explosion in Arkansas kills 3 workers

Three Indiana men â Stoney Powell, 45 and Roy Mathis, 60 of Wheatfield, and William Decker, 48 of Scottsburg â were killed near Searcy, Arkansas on Wednesday, May 14 in an explosion at a fuel storage facility.  The three men worked for the Kentucky-based firm C&C Welding.   Losing a loved one is difficult in any circumstance, but it must be especially painful when your love is killed so far away from home.  An Associated Press story reports that the storage facility is owned by TEPPCO Partners LP (NYSE: TPP) and the firm's spokesman Rick Rainey noted: "the explosion occurred just…

Wow — is this stupid or what?

At the last couple of talks I've given out here on the west coast, I've begun by introducing the appalling ignorance and illogic of creationist arguments. I think I have a new favorite example. To summarize: God ordered the soldiers of the Hebrews to march around Jericho 6 times on 6 days, which means they would have traversed 6 * 360°, or 2160 degrees. The moon has a diameter of 2,160 miles. Therefore, God exists. Bonus points! If you argue that the Hebrews would not have used "miles" as units (although I would have first pointed out that degrees and any linear measurement aren't directly…

Tony Mazzocchi Book Events in DC

The Man Who Hated Work and Loved Labor: The Life and Times of Tony Mazzocchi is one of the Pump Handleâs top book recommendations this year (hereâs an excerpt, to whet your appetite). On Monday January 7th, the bookâs author, Les Leopold of the Labor Institute, will be coming to Washington to read from it and sign copies. There are two events scheduled that day. The first, featuring Les and a number of distinguished speakers, will be held at noon in the Gompers Room at AFL-CIO headquarters, 815 16th St. NW. That evening, there will be a book party at Busboys and Poets Cafe (2021 14th St.…

$15 To Turn off "Special Offers" Bravo Amazon.com!

With the announcement of the Kindle Fire HD, some users were upset to learn that Amazon was going to stuff "special offers" on the device. But the company quickly retreated, and now is offering the option to turn of the ads for a mere $15. This is a good development for consumers. We should have the choice to move away from ad-supported business models. As I explain with my co-author Jan Whittington, there is a cost to free business models. "Free," ad-supported services are packed with hidden costs to privacy and other consumer interests. While the ads are gone, there is still no word…

Here Comes the Downturn Denialism

We have not played with the Denialists' Deck of Cards for some time! Let's pick them up again, because the economic downturn gives all sorts of businesses the opportunity to play the "Bear Market" card. Stephen Power brings it in today's Wall Street Journal: "We know something needs to be done [to cut emissions], but we've got to get the economy on its feet before we do something economically irrational," said Mike Morris, chief executive of American Electric Power Co. of Columbus, Ohio. Mr. Morris and other executives fear lawmakers will use revenue from pollution permits to pay down the…

I'm redundant-who needs a blogger?

There's a lovely article in this week's Nature documenting a transitional stage in tetrapod evolution (you know, those forms the creationists like to say don't exist), and a) Nature provides a publicly accessible review of the finding, and b) the primary author is already a weblogger! Perhaps there will come a day when I'm obsolete and willl just have to turn my hand to blogging about what I had for lunch. For an extra super-duper dose of delicious comeuppance, though, take a look at this thread on the Panda's Thumb. I wrote about Panderichthys, and a creationist ("Ghost of Paley") comes…

Expelled makes me sick, or it would if I were allowed to see it

If you haven't been keeping up, let me give you a quick heads up about this whole Expelled brouhaha. A bunch of lying Creationist cultists decided to make a film whining about how oppressed Creationist "scientists" are. Ben Stein got involved somehow. They hoodwinked a bunch of real scientists into talking to them. They excluded any scientists who were religious but accept evolution. They hyped the film to evangelicals, but barred reviewer, journalists, or the scientists who are in the film from seeing it. They expropriated copyrighted material. They lied a lot. But really, the…

Measuring Identity Theft at Top Banks (Version 1.0)

I've been AWOL from Denialism Blog because one of my UC-Berkeley projects has become all-consuming. I'm interested in sparking a market for identity theft protection. A real one. One where consumers can actually make choices among banks based on their actual ability to address security attacks. Last year, I published Identity Theft: Making the Unknown Knowns Known, (PDF) an article making a legal and policy argument in favor of mandated public disclosure of identity theft statistics by banks. In this vein, today, I'm releasing "Measuring Identity Theft at Top Banks (Version 1.0)," my…

Sharing the wealth

Yikes…while all these new people are reading here, I should be sending them off to other good science sites. Quick, here are a few links: The gang at Scienceblogs.com—lots of sciencey stuff there. The Panda's Thumb. A few more: De Rerum Natura, Evolving Thoughts, Evolution 101, Thoughts from Kansas, The Austringer, Deep-Sea News, FrinkTank, Good Math, Bad Math. More! I know, the more I mention, the more I dilute the effect, and I feel like I ought to dump the whole humongous blogroll here. Try Mike the Mad Biologist, Red State Rabble, The Lancelet, Muton, Newton's Binomium, Dharma Bums,…

The stupid, it burns

Oh, no … I mentioned the existence of godtube the other day, and now people are farming it for incredibly stupid videos that they send to me. It's rich soil for stupid over there, and they've got a bumper crop — you would not believe how awful some of their arguments are. I hesitate to mention this one because I know it's going to trigger yet more bad videos in my in-box, but it is so bad, so crazy, that I have to share it. This one claims that Food Patterns of our Body Proof for Intelligent Design, and, well, you have to see it. It starts with the claim that a sliced carrot looks like a…

Gullible is not in the dictionary

As either evidence that you can convince idiots of anything to get high, or that police don't have a sense of humor, check out the Smoking Gun's coverage of this police bulletin warning of a new drug - Jenkem. The hilarious part? The drug is supposedly created by fermenting human sewage in the sun, then inhaling the fumes. Slang terms include: Winnie, Shit, Runners, Fruit from Crack Pipe, Leroy Jenkems, Might, Butthash, and Waste. Ha! Now Snopes has the skinny on this supposedly new epidemic which the memo warns is "now a popular drug in American schools." Yeah, maybe among kids with…

Friday Magic Trick

In honor of Phenomenon and the fun of talking about magic tricks check out Ramana, aka Wouter Bijdendijk who has been doing the levitation trick shown below, only he's doing it in front of the Whitehouse. Here he is doing a similar piece standing on the side of a building - more performance art really. I think the only one who can't figure this one out is the current White House resident. It's clearly a terrorist attempt to bring the executive to a standstill as he tries to puzzle it out. Spoiler below. This, is of course, very simple. The two clues are that you never see him actually…

Martians!

Mars seems to bring out the kooks. I was pointed to the bizarre Xenotech "research" site, which consists entirely of the delusional fantasies of Sir Charles W. Shults III, Scientist (yes, that's what he calls himself). His research program? He gleans photographs from Mars probes for random shapes that look biological to him. Here, for instance, is the "clearest and most perfect trilobite" he has found in these pictures. It's a good thing he marked up that one photo with his imaginary lines—I've seen a lot of trilobites, and I wouldn't have seen one in his rock if he hadn't pulled out the…

Iowa's flooded...and it's raining

Two years ago Iowa City was hit by a tornado. Last year my hometown back in Ohio was underwater. This year, Iowa's already been hit by an EF5 tornado, and now 49 out of our 99 counties are disaster areas because of flooding. And it's raining now, and more is predicted for the next few days. All this is after an incredibly soggy spring where the rivers started out high due to one of the snowiest winters on record. Many farmers only in the past few weeks finally were able to get out in the field to plant crops--crops which are now underwater. So far I've not seen reports of any human…

David Crowe takes it way beyond HIV denial

HIV "dissident" David Crowe is like the gift that just keeps on giving. Last year, I mentioned a paper he'd written in the journal Medical Hypotheses, suggesting that influenza serotype H5N1 doesn't exist. Well, it just keeps getting better. Now, it seems he's writing a book on "the infectious myth"--like previous commenter jspreen, he's going to write about how the germ theory is wrong. Read more about it below... From Crowe's site: Most people believe that every disease on the following list has an infectious cause: * HIV/AIDS * SARS * West Nile * Mad Cow, CJD and other…

Death penalty out in Rwanda

Rwanda abolishes the death penalty: Rwanda's parliament voted late on Friday to abolish the death penalty, a move that should clear the way for suspects in the 1994 genocide to be extradited back to Rwanda. You might think that survivors of such a horrible genocide would want to see those who victimized them put to death, but the president of a group of survivors says otherwise: Survivors of the slaughter welcomed the decision, noting that the death penalty had existed in Rwandan law before the genocide. "It didn't deter people from picking up machetes to slaughter their fellows - that's…

DNA, schmeNA

Over at her old blog, Karmen had a nice overview of Deinococcus radiodurans, a fascinating organism that's able to withstand many different extremes: genotoxic chemicals, oxidative damage, high levels of ionizing and ultraviolet radiation, dehydration, and, as the name suggests, incredibly high doses of radiation. (We're talking high--up to 5,000 Gy without breaking a sweat, while it only takes about 10 Gy to kill a human). However, despite 50 years of study, no one's really figured out just how it does it, though some clues (such as higher levels of manganese and low levels of iron) have…

Canada's TB legacy

Last month I noted the story of Robert Daniels, a patient with drug-resistant tuberculosis who's been held in isolation in Arizona in order to prevent spread of the deadly pathogen. While some patient's rights advocates have been outraged, Mr. Daniels' treatment pales in comparison to what Mona at Science Notes writes about: News has broken that the Canadian government continued to require Native Canadian children to attend residential schools where they could learn "civilized," Christian, European ways, for years after they knew that tuberculosis was rampant in those schools, and they…

Lax vaccination requirements = more pertussis

Orac has an excellent post discussing the rise in pertussis ("whooping cough") in many areas, and its correlation with easier exemption from mandatory vaccination (using a "personal belief" exemption in addition to a religious exemption, for example). I've written about pertussis previously, and a problem is that the vaccine effectiveness quickly wanes, so that adults frequently lack significant immunity. While we rarely get sick, we can be carriers of the bacterium and infect children around us. As such, new recommendations suggest that adults also should get a pertussis booster. I worry…

OSHA Debated on the Kojo Nnamdi Show Today

By David Michaels The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) was created more than thirty years ago to make the American workplace more safe. And officials there say that deaths and injuries on the job have declined on their watch. But critics say OSHA has dropped the ball when it comes to safety regulations for everything from oil refineries to popcorn plants. Thatâs the description of the segment of todayâs edition of the always interesting Kojo Nnamdi Show, starting at 1:00 PM EST. Iâll be one of Kojo's guests, along with Jim Morris, the author of the terrific National…

Biology needs to explain gravity?

Is your lunch hour safely over? If not, wait a while before watching another interview with Ben Stein. I can't believe what an idiot this man is; it's not just that he's ignorant, but that he has these bizarrely inappropriate notions about biology. He complains about "Darwinism" because it doesn't explain why are there laws of gravity and thermodynamics, or where physics and gravity come from (Bonus lunacy! He claims Darwin said gravity was intelligently designed!). He keeps making these insane assertions in interview after interview, too; does he ever think, or notice that gravity is not a…

Cruel nature

If you should ever find yourself in my neighborhood, and were to walk up to my door, I have to warn you: the welcome mat is splattered with blood stains. I didn't do it! No Jehovah's Witnesses are missing from the region! (They never come to my door anymore, anyway.) We got an unpleasant surprise this morning in that the nest of baby bunnies outside our door was raided, probably by one of the local cats, and the whole family was butchered and laid out on our doorstep. And these bunnies were at that cute stage with fur and big eyes…or at least, they would have been cute if they'd all had heads…

oooh, ScienceBlogs has a hater!

10 Ways To Enrage A ScienceBlogs.Com Audience. A few of the better ones: 10) Ask why they don't just find a missing link to prove Evolution. 9) Say you're not convinced the entire state of Kansas is stupid. *** 3) Tell them that saying they have a "Lysis To Kill" at football parties isn't all that funny. (OK, I liked that last one. Many of the rest were kinda stinkers). Apparently they don't think much of us and y'all from their sidebar: Top 10 Reasons You Should Read Scienceblogs.com Instead Of Us: 1) You have no sense of humor. So, he thinks our audience has no sense of humor, but hey…

HIV and responsible journalism

If I could have been at this week's conference for one session, it would have been this morning's symposium on AIDS denial and responsible journalism. Hannah has already mentioned it and given her impressions and thoughts. The session itself was moderated by HIV researcher Daniel Kuritzkes and journalist Laurie Garrett, currently a Senior Fellow on Global Health at the Council on Foreign Relations. Talks were also given by HIV researcher John Moore, South Africa-based science journalist Tamar Khan, Toronto Star science reporter Kim Honey, and Nathan Geffen of the Treatment Action Campaign…

Swabbin'...

(The title should, of course, be hummed to the tune of "Strokin'...") I'm out playing with cows again this afternoon. In the meantime, a few good posts from elsewhere: Ed talks about the excuses Dembski's given for why research into intelligent design isn't being done. Revere notes a cull of 50,000 dogs in China due to rabies. He notes: We've gotten pretty used to the idea that if H5N1 appears in birds it is legitimate to slaughter birds wholesale within a certain distance of the infected flock. In the west, birds are kept as caged pets by some people but not huge numbers. In Indonesia…

The boredom of debating deniers

John and Jason [edited; and Ed] quote from a John Derbyshire article discussing the wearying business of aruging with creationists: Basically, it is a game of Whack-a-Mole. They make an argument, you whack it down. They make a second, you whack it down. They make a third, you whack it down. So they make the first argument again. This is why most biologists just can't be bothered with Creationism at all, even for the fun of it. It isn't actually any fun. Creationists just chase you round in circles. It's boring. It would be less boring if they'd come up with a new argument once in a while, but…

Argument from fire extinguisher

Rebecca over at Memoirs of a Skepchick makes an excellent argument against the new HPV vaccine: Before the invention of the fire extinguisher in 1816, people used sensible fire safety precautions. They did not leave oily rags piled in buckets next to the ashtray. They did not set their farts on fire. And they always kept their curtains far away from heating devices. After the invention of the fire extinguisher, all hell broke loose. It didn't take long for games such as "Tie a Lit Sparkler to the Cat" and "Flaming Monopoly" to explode -- literally and metaphorically -- in popularity all over…

Why are little girls always the target?

Here, let me ruin your morning, just in case you hadn't already heard the story of this raid on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. A raid was finally triggered April 3, after a family violence shelter received a hushed phone call from a terrified 16-year-old girl saying her 50-year-old husband had beaten and raped her. State troopers put into action the plan they had on the shelf to enter the compound, and 416 children, most of them girls, were swept into state custody on suspicions that they were being sexually and physically abused. Doran said it was not until…

For the Ohioans...

Just wanted to point you to these posts over at Mike's blog, regarding Jimmy Stewart, a former physicist and candidate for State Representative in Ohio's 22nd District: Dublin and Clintonville. I don't know him from Adam and so this doesn't constitute an endorsement in any way, but apparently he's reaching out to the blogosphere for both questions on his positions, and, of course, support. Mike's already asked him some questions (including ones about intelligent design and overall science education in Ohio's schools), and I submitted some as well that have reportedly been passed along.…

HIV/AIDS denialism covered in PLoS!

Our very own Tara Smith and Steven Novella have teamed up to write an excellent paper covering the state of HIV/AIDS denialism in the Public Library of Science. I love the article, and Tara and Steve do a great job covering all the critical aspects of denialism inherent in the HIV/AIDS denialist movement. Starting with prominent deniers who are largely responsible for the movement, they go on to cover the basic conspiracy theories that really are inseparable from any denialist argument, the classic goalpost moving technique, fake experts, anti-consensus nonsense (also known as the Galileo…

Numerology Defeated in 5-1 Vote by the SF Taxicab Commission

Jesse McKinley reports in the Times: It was a good day for the Devil in San Francisco on Tuesday, as the Taxicab Commission voted to keep the Dark Lord's favorite number -- 666 -- affixed to an allegedly cursed cab. The vote, which came after an amused period of public comment and annoyed looks from the commissioners, extended the satanic reign of Taxi No. 666, which is driven by one Michael Byrne (pronounced burn). Mr. Byrne, who did not appear at the hearing on Tuesday night and was not reachable for comment, had lobbied -- out of superstition -- to have his medallion number changed, and…

Chimps have souls!

Take that Egnor! Altruism -- helping another with no expectation of personal reward -- was once thought to be a uniquely human trait, The Times of London reported. However, in recent experiments, chimpanzees repeatedly helped humans who appeared to be struggling to reach a stick within the animal's enclosure. The chimps, which were interacting with humans who had not given them food, spontaneously helped the humans by reaching across and helping them get the stick. The experiments were carried out among 36 chimpanzees at a sanctuary for the animals in Uganda. Anthropologists cite altruism as…

Maniraptoran spotting in the Late Cretaceous Gobi

When I was a kid I drew lots of dinosaurs. My efforts weren't too bad, but of course I got a lot wrong (by modern standards) and - like so many dinosaur fan-boys and girls growing up in the 80s and 90s - I became a very good copier of Greg Paul. Here's a Late Cretaceous Mongolian scene I drew once (I cheated, as some of the animals shown here might never had met). Your challenge: name them. As might be obvious, I always liked filling in all the little details. Plants, rocks, bugs and such. In fact, I always thought I might make a reasonably good mural artist: in Prehistoric Life Murals,…

Speculative penguins: the horror, the horror

One of the lamest things people do on blogs is (in my humble opinion) write about their own blogroll. I mean: how banal, vapid and insipid can you be? Anyway, on an unrelated note, observant readers will note... that I've just updated my blogroll - hooray! - and have added a brand-spanking-new and extremely exciting Speculative Zoology section. Awesome. Just to remind you how awesome speculative zoology can be, here's a picture I stole from Tim Morris's Speculative Dinosaur Project blog: it features a panoply of future penguins... Having mentioned speculative sphenisciforms, it would be…

Functional anatomy ALIVE

Yesterday I attended the Centre for Evolution and Ecology workshop 'Modern Approaches to Functional Anatomy', held at the Natural History Museum (and organised by the Royal Veterinary College's John Hutchinson). Whoah: what a meeting... Bipedal chimps and orangutans, leaping lemurs, autralopithecines, 'When Komodos destroy', pliosaurs and marsupial lions, hominid wrists, elbows and ankles, over-engineered dwarf elephants, how elephants use their sixth digits, the non-conservativeness of Sphenodon, self-righting turtles, bat canines... and McNeill Alexander! Shock horror, even the talks on…

Mysterious gracile felids

The large black cats that people report from Britain and elsewhere in the world are sometimes said to look odd, being occasionally described as unusually gracile and less stocky than leopards (for an example in the literature see Trevor Beer's description and illustration: Beer 1988). If this is true it makes these creatures a total mystery as no leopard-sized species matches this description. But what do you make of this peculiarly gracile large melanistic cat? Compare it with the melanistic leopard shown below... I'll explain what's going on here later; I do know the answer. Yet again no…