Books
pharyngula | October 25, 2011There aren't enough children's books telling the story of evolution — every doctor's office seems to be stocked with some ludicrous children's book promoting that nonsensical Noah's ark story, but clean, simple, and true stories about where we came from are scarce. Here's one, a new children's book called Bang! How We Came to Be by Michael Rubino. Each page is formatted the same: on the left, a color picture of an organism (or, on the early pages, a cosmological event); on the right, a short paragraph in simple English explaining what it is and when it occurred. The book just marches forward…
gregladen | October 24, 2011Here in the Northern Hemisphere, many of our birds fly away in the fall. Other, very cool birds from even farther north, depending on where you live then arrive. But just about now, where I live, we are at the tail end of the migration out and not quite at the migration in, so this is a good time to take stock of what is important: Which bird books do you want people to give you for Christmas?
Before I make any suggestions, I would like to point out that Princeton, an emerging and major player in the Bird Book world, has a facebook page that, if you "like," will automatically enter you in a…
aardvarchaeology | October 19, 2011
Though I played a lot of tabletop role playing games in the 80s and 90s, I've never been much of a live action role-player (LARPer). Just seems to be way too much preparation for such short events. So the only real LARP I ever took part in was in May of 1992 (it was called Saturday Night Live, ha-ha-ha) - until this past Sunday, when I tried again. And it was fun!
Boardgaming buddies head-hunted me for this extremely well organised LARP because they had a male deficit. The event was titled Kärlek och fördel, "Love and Advantage". The idea was basically to collect all the main characters…
sastyk | October 12, 2011Lots of stuff to update you all on. First, the family expansion project - still nothing new. After three months of waiting, we've decided to expand our looking in a few different ways - our county just doesn't have a placement, and after all the work of getting ready, we're anxious to get one.
Meanwhile, I'm powering through the Adapting-In-Place Manual, and it will be out next spring. Here's a preview of the Cover:
Making Home Cover.pdf
I'm also getting ready for the ASPO-USA conference - where I'm going to be sharing a hotel room with Nicole Foss. We're going to have a late night…
pharyngula | October 6, 2011How dare Terry Pratchett release his new book, Snuff, next week, on top of the new stuff from Dawkins and Pinker? Hasn't he been paying any attention to my schedule?
It's an Inspector Vimes novel, too.
Yes, I've preordered it. I cannot resist temptation.
(Also on FtB)
pharyngula | September 29, 2011Among the many joys plaguing me recently is learning that I get to teach, for the first time for me and for the first time at my university, I get to teach a course in cancer biology this spring term. I'm not totally unprepared for this — I was on a cancer training grant for about 5 years, got some basic education in clinical oncology as well as the basic science of the processes, and really, it's all about gene regulation, cell cycle control, signal transduction, and specification and commitment, all stuff that is eminently familiar to a developmental biologist. But still, you can guess what…
gregladen | September 28, 2011A man "lies crumpled on the sand ... Behind him a dark trail leads back to the spot from which he has just been dragged. Looking closer, we notice something slightly odd about the figure crouching over the wounded man. His posture does not suggest a doctor attempting to staunch bleeding, or even to check heartbeat or pulse. Look a little closer still, and you may be inclined suddenly to reel back or to close your eyes. The man sprawled at such an odd angle beside the injured [man] has his face pressed against a gaping tear in [his] throat. He is drinking blood fresh from the wound..."…
pharyngula | September 27, 2011Steven Pinker has a new book coming out next week, and I'm very much looking forward to it. It is titled The Better Angels Of Our Nature: How Violence Has Declined, and its premise is that humans have been becoming increasingly less violent over time. I'm very sympathetic to this view: I think cooperation, not conflict, has been the hallmark of human evolution.
There's an overview of Pinker's argument at Edge.
Believe it or not--and I know most people do not--violence has been in decline over long stretches of time, and we may be living in the most peaceful time in our species' existence. The…
gregladen | September 26, 2011Land of Lisp: Learn to Program in Lisp, One Game at a Time! is a book about lisp programming. If you are into programming for fun, artificial intelligence, role playing games, or an emacs user, you should take a look at this book. I've got some info on this book as well as a few others for the budding emacs enthusiasts.
Land of Lisp teaches the lisp programming language using the development of games as a focal point.
Lisp is one of the oldest programming languages, and occurs in numerous dialects. The standard form that is taught in Land of Lisp is Common Lisp.
The teaching style in…
pharyngula | September 26, 2011You can download the app today for £9.99…and the price of your iPad, of course, but all the cool kids have one of those already.
Dang, I was feeling so special because I had the book on Friday and the rest of America wasn't going to have it until 4 October, and now it turns out I was only 3 days ahead of you all.
(Also on FtB)
aardvarchaeology | September 24, 2011
I visited the Gothenburg Book Fair for the first time because of my new book. The Academy of Letters needed people to put on the Researcher's Square stage, and conveniently one of their staff had just published a book with them - me. When the local organiser saw me she did a double take because I was way younger than she had come to expect from the Academy.
The book fair, as I understand it, exists to let publishers and writers communicate with each other and their customers, and also to entertain and inform these customers. The main convention hall is packed with display booths and throngs…
gregladen | September 24, 2011Evolution: How We and All Living Things Came to Be, a kids evolution book, has won the 2010 Lane Anderson Award. The reason I mention this is because of this blog post which discusses how the book is published in Canada but not the US.
This bit of the post is interesting:
Loxton has reported receiving hate mails asking as to why his book doesn't give "equal time" to Intelligent Design". Loxton, an editor of the Skeptic magazine, has the answer ready - the book is about science and not religion.
It may not be published in the US but Amazon will still sell it to you! Imma give a copy or…
gregladen | September 22, 2011Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body is a book you should read. With one small caveat I'll give you below, it can be used as a behind-the-desk supplement for teachers of anatomy or any kind of organismic biology in High School or Intro College. It can be assigned in some classes. Or, it is just plain excellent bedtime reading.
It is interesting to look at how and why the book came about to begin with. In the author's words:
This book grew out of an extraordinary circumstance in my life. On account of faculty departures, I ended up directing the…
gregladen | September 13, 2011The Species Seekers: Heroes, Fools, and the Mad Pursuit of Life on Earth sounds like a cool book, though I've not read it yet. From Publisher's Weekly:
Until about 1834, the word "scientist" didn't exist. According to naturalist Conniff (Swimming with Piranhas at Feeding Time), it was likely at a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science) where a member, following the model of "artist" and "atheist," coined a new term--"scientist" reflecting the transition of the nascent study of plants and animals from self-educated hobbyists to a new breed of professional. The…
aardvarchaeology | September 9, 2011Those who want hard copy or are unwilling to wait six months for the free PDF can now order my Mead-halls book on-line for SEK 180 / U$D 27 / â¬20 / £17 plus postage.
aardvarchaeology | September 6, 2011
Rundkvist, Martin. 2011. Mead-halls of the Eastern Geats. Elite Settlements and Political Geography AD 375-1000 in OÌstergoÌtland, Sweden. Kungl. Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien (KVHAA), Handlingar, Antikvariska serien 49. Stockholm 2011. 165 pp. ISBN 978-91-7402-405-0.
Abstract
The Swedish province of OÌstergoÌtland has long been recognised as one of the 1st millennium's political hot spots. Splendid single finds, though never before surveyed comprehensively, offer a rough idea of where elite settlements might be sought. But not one of the ostentatious manorial buildings…
pharyngula | September 6, 2011As Jerry Coyne has alerted us, there is a free evolutionary biology textbook available on Kindle — grab it while you can (if you don't have a kindle, just put the free Kindle app on your computer).
I haven't had a chance to look the book over myself. Eugene Koonin is a respected name, but books that claim to establish a "Fundamentally New Evolutionary Synthesis" put me off a bit. Other stuff in the summary sounds interesting, though, just downplay the grandiose claims a bit when reading it.
(Also on FtB)
gregladen | August 28, 2011I am not specifically recommending the book Created Equal becuase I've never seen it up close and cannot vouch for its qualities (and it is not cheap) but it was mentioned, with several photographs from the book, here, some time ago.
In Created Equal, photographer Mark Laita pairs images that are in some way "opposite" (though it is not always the case, in my opinion) such as this one of a country fair livestock show contestant and a Cajun guy with his gator, or a ballerina and a boxer, or a homeless man and a real estate developer.
Might be a good coffee table book for the person who has…
aardvarchaeology | August 27, 2011
I'm a single dad now for two weeks while my wife's in China shooting interviews for a documentary series.
Aard's been getting a lot of comment spam lately, and the filter isn't working properly, so I've turned on comment moderation.
After digging in that cave I did four hours of metal detecting at the Lilla Härnevi hoard site because it has been ploughed and harrowed since April when we were there in force. Only one semi-worthwhile metal find: one of those fyrk coins of Queen Christina's. Also two pieces of knapped imported flint, and Magdalena found a grindstone. No hoard bits.
I bought…
pharyngula | July 25, 2011Over the course of the last few weeks, I have dragged myself through George R. R. Martin's latest, A Dance with Dragons, the fifth book in his Game of Thrones series.
I'm done. No more. I'm not reading any of his books any more.
It's terrible. Martin has taken the concept of the pot-boiler to an extreme — it's a novel where nothing happens other than continual seething, roiling turmoil. He whipsaws the reader through a dozen different, complex story lines where characters struggle to survive in a world wrecked by civil war — one other problem is that I'd hit a chapter about some minor…