Books
laelaps | September 21, 2008I'm about halfway through Keith Thomson's book The Legacy of the Mastodon: The Golden Age of Fossils in America, and so far I have learned quite a bit. Even though the book covers already well-trodden ground (the "American incognitum," Cuvier's mosasaur, Mary Anning, the discovery of Hadrosaurus), Thomson also pays attention to some lesser-known paleontological personas like Ferdinand Vandiveer Hayden and G.W. Featherstonhaugh.
Although Thomson's prose is easily accessible, the book isn't particularly well-written (the short chapters are essentially outlines of particular events or persons in…
grrlscientist | September 21, 2008tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books
"One cannot have too many good bird books"
--Ralph Hoffmann, Birds of the Pacific States (1927).
The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that are or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle bird pals, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is published here for your enjoyment. Here's this week's issue of the Birdbooker Report by which lists ecology, environment, natural history and bird books that are (or will…
clock | September 19, 2008It is great when you write a blog post about somebody, then that somebody shows up in the comments and clarifies his position thus starting an interesting conversation (both in the comments and via e-mail), then you realize that his book-signing tour is bringing that somebody to your town, so you go there and meet that somebody in person and have a great conversation, which inspires you to write yet another blog post - the one under the fold....
It's too late and I am too tired to write a long post on this, but I know I won't have time tomorrow. All dirty, scrungly and unshaven after a day…
thusspakezuska | September 18, 2008Strictly speaking, McCain's and Palin's policies, but Palin's got the alliteration thing going there. Plus, let's face it, she's just more interesting.
In an earlier post, I wrote about how Palin presents an un-scary, Nice Feminist face to the average voter, which facilitates the sense that one is being all progressive and modern and supportive of women, without actually having to change anything. The liberals want you to support reproductive health policies for women that will actually facilitate their independence from men and give them control over their own bodies. This, of course,…
laelaps | September 18, 2008This past spring the science blogosphere was all a-twitter over the release of the creationist propaganda film Expelled. Was it a success? A flop? A big budget fluff piece that only attracted those already inclined to agree? Such debates aside, the release of Expelled and the opening of Ken Ham's Fun House (aka The Creation Museum) signals the fact that anti-evolutionists are willing to dump millions of dollars in attempts to "reclaim America for Christ."
While the museum in Kentucky* and Expelled have received plenty of press, modern day anti-evolutionists are trying to extend their…
laelaps | September 18, 2008It can really be a chore to track down old papers. While many journals have digitized their collections and placed them online, a subscription is often required to access old papers (even from the 19th century!)*. That's if the paper you're looking for was published in a journal that still exists, of course. There are plenty of journals that have gone defunct or are otherwise unavailable, a sad fact that keeps important papers out of the hands of students and scientists today.
[*This really aggravates me. Shouldn't these papers, in many cases nearly 100 years old or more, be freely available…
laelaps | September 17, 2008
As ever, I didn't get as much done as I wanted to today, but I still added a few more pages. I would have accomplished more, but in my research I came across a few resources that had previously eluded me. A few (like a collection of papers by Lawrence Lambe, including his description of Gorgosaurus) were only tangentially related to the project, but others (like William Beebe's paper on the hypothetical bird ancestor "Tetrapteryx") are going to be essential to what I'm writing. I even found a bit of paleo-fiction relating to the urvogel, so I've got plenty of resources to mine.
Although I…
laelaps | September 16, 2008
From Garfield Minus Garfield.
I had planned to get at least 20 pages finished today, but I don't think I'm going to be able to make it. As it stands now I've got 15 pages, much of it brand new material, but after taking the bus home I have a splitting headache. Sitting on a bus during rush hour in New Brunswick means that you will be subjected to many short stops and starts (particularly since there's only a crowded, single-lane main road between campuses), and by the time I get home I usually want to sit down and not get up.
Still, I more than doubled my output from yesterday, and I have…
gregladen | September 16, 2008What does the well informed American voter interested in the intersection of science and politics read? Well, not just read, but read to become more informed about current events and controversies. And, I'm thinking here of books that look at the science/politics intersection rather than how politics works or how science works.
I do not harbor the illusion that any one is really looking for something to read in order to pick a candidate or a party. That one of the parties is anti-science (mainly) and the other is pro-science (mainly) is well established. But one likes to become more…
grrlscientist | September 16, 2008
I receive a fair number of books to review each week, so I thought I should do what several magazines and other publications do; list those books that have arrived in my mailbox so you know that this is the pool of books from which I will be reading and reviewing on my blog.
Lost Land of the Dodo: An Ecological History of Mauritius, Reunion & Rodrigues by Anthony Sheke and Julian Hume (New Haven and London: Yale University Press; 2008).
Table of Contents:
Geography of the Mascarenes
First contact
The pristine islands
Where did the Dodo come from?
Early settlement
United under…
laelaps | September 15, 2008
From Garfield Minus Garfield.
The beginning of classes has marked the start of a more chaotic daily schedule, one that often puts me in no mood to write. I want to work on the book when I have the time, but at the end of most days I feel like I've been trampled by a horde of freshmen (which isn't too far from the truth, as a matter of fact).
In any case, I more than doubled the material I had for the new version of my birds/dinosaurs chapter. This might not be especially impressive given that I had only three pages to start with, but I intend to keep up with the updates through the rest of…
gregladen | September 14, 2008That depends ... on what X and Y are!
And if that does not come naturally to you, perhaps you should read The Complete Idiot's Guide to Pre-Algebra by Amy Szczepanski and Andrew Kositsky.
The CIG to PA is built just like the other books in the Idiot's series, using familiar conventions to keep the flow of the book smooth while providing additional ancillary information, and in the case of this text, practice problems (answers provided in the back). This book reminds me of a tired old reference I've got on my shelf called Technical Mathematics. Sometimes you just need a place to look up…
grrlscientist | September 14, 2008tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books
"One cannot have too many good bird books"
--Ralph Hoffmann, Birds of the Pacific States (1927).
The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that are or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle bird pals, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is published here for your enjoyment. Here's this week's issue of the Birdbooker Report by which lists ecology, environment, natural history and bird books that are (or will…
clock | September 14, 2008At Quail Ridge Books
WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 17, 7:30 p.m. Thomas Frank (WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS?) RETURNS
with his new, much reviewed book, THE WRECKING CREW: CONSERVATIVE RULE IN THEORY AND PRACTICE, which examines the Washington culture that politicians have given us.
clock | September 11, 2008....is to read how Grrrl visited the Harry Potter spots in London:
My Quest: To Visit all the Harry Potter Film Sites in London, Part 1:
The Leaky Cauldron, Gringott's Wizarding Bank.
My Quest: To Visit all the Harry Potter Film Sites in London, Part 2:
Platform 9 3/4, Diagon Alley, Lambeth Bridge, The Houses of Parliament.
My Quest: To Visit all the Harry Potter Film Sites in London, Part 3:
Little Whinging Zoo, Train Station, The Ministry of Magic, 12 Grimmauld Place (Headquarters for the Order of the Phoenix), View Out the Windows of Harry's Room at the Leaky Cauldron.
skookumchick | September 10, 2008I've carried on with the activity of actively waiting in accordance with Boice's Advice for New Faculty Members that I'm blogging about this semester. And I'm preparing for trying Chapter 10: Begin Writing Early.
More below the fold...
I mentioned to a colleague that I was trying to follow Boice's exercises, but that I was being blocked by not knowing what to do during my periods of "actively waiting." She had started reading the teaching section (as Lab Cat also did), and found ideas there that parallel the idea of actively waiting to write. Advocated, in fact, is (p. 24):
doodling and…
sciencewoman | September 9, 2008My 19 month old Minnow is at the stage where she likes to name the things she sees. For some weeks now she's been particularly into telling me about all the water she notices. "Wa-we!" says she in her sweet little voice. There's wa-we in the bath, wa-we in the dog's bowl, wa-we in the toilet, wa-we in her cup, and wa-we in the wading pool ("poo" she says insistently). It was tremendously exciting for her when we had a few days of heavy rain and everytime she'd go outside there'd be wa-we in the air.
As we drive from home to school each morning, Minnow tells me about the lake ("wa-we") we…
grrlscientist | September 7, 2008tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books
"One cannot have too many good bird books"
--Ralph Hoffmann, Birds of the Pacific States (1927).
The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that are or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle bird pals, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is published here for your enjoyment. Here's this week's issue of the Birdbooker Report by which lists ecology, environment, natural history and bird books that are (or will…
gregladen | September 5, 2008Hey, People of Florida! As long as you are going to get wacked by a hurricane, you might as well get a copy of Stormy Weather by Carl Hiaasen to occupy your time while the power is off.
At the beginning of the summer, I suggested that you start reading all of Hiaasen's books, beginning with Tourist Season. Those of you who took my advice have already gotten way past Stormy Weather. The rest of you better get on it.
Stormy Weather is the usual (but always engaging) Hiaasen look at Florida corruption, politics, crime, environmental issues, and so on, but in the context of the aftermath of…
scientificactivist | September 5, 2008Microcosm: E. Coli and the New Science of Life
by Carl Zimmer
Pantheon: 2008, 256 pages.
Buy now! (Amazon)
I come face-to-face with Escherichia coli every day. In a sense, we all do--as billions of E. coli inhabit every individual's intestines. But for me, E. coli is a protein factory. I'm a structural biologist, and my work depends on being able to produce large amounts of specific proteins--generally proteins found in humans or mice. However, purifying large amounts of these proteins from humans or mice would be virtually impossible, and manipulating these proteins in the manner I…