The other day I mentioned I was reading Steve Jones’ book, Coral. He’s a good writer & I’ve enjoyed Coral, just as I’ve enjoyed most of his other books (although The single helix didn’t quite work so well for me). Anyway, yesterday a friend sent me a link to a report about a talk Jones had given – […]
Continue readingMonth: October 2008
read the question!
I know I’ve said this before. And your teachers will have said it too. But – read the question! Why am I saying this again? Because I’m marking essays at the moment & I seem to be writing that phrase rather more often than I’d like. When I set a question, whether it’s for a […]
Continue readinga plug for david attenborough
Last night I watched – & thoroughly enjoyed – the first episode in David Attenborough’s series Life in cold blood. It was the first time I’d seen really good footage of chameleons hunting – their tongues are amazing! (& I hope that when I’m in my 80s I’m still finding life as much fun, & as […]
Continue readingthe benefits of science blogging
A couple of weeks ago one of the commenters on Ken Perrott’s Open Parachute pointed me at a paper about blogging (& in fact Ken’s already written about it). Shelley Batts & her colleagues have looked at the benefits of ‘institutional’ blogging – to the institution, the bloggers, and those reading the blog. I found it helpful […]
Continue readingfish fingers, anyone?
Fish with fingers, whales with legs – the sub-title of Carl Zimmer’s 1998 book on the evolution of amphibians & whales – seems even more apt with the announcement of a new fossil find: a fish whose pectoral fins contained bones homologous to tetrapod fingers (Boisvert et al. 2008).
Continue readingdeconstructing ‘processes & patterns of evolution’
A while ago my friend Heather, who’s a biology teacher, asked if I would write something on answering questions in the ‘processes & patterns of evolution’ paper (AS90717). Here you are, Heather – I finally got around to it 🙂
Continue readingso many books, so little time in the day
In the last couple of days I seem to have accumulated a pile of lovely enticing books to read. (& I didn’t even buy them – our wonderful science librarian sends new books through from time to time). I’m spoilt for choice, in fact. And I still haven’t finished Microcosm!
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