A while ago now I wrote something on the Dmanisi fossils – the remains of a few individuals that suggest that Homo erectus spread relatively quickly through Eurasia after leaving Africa. I’ve just come across an interesting post on the Panda’s Thumb that I thought makes a good follow-up. Read it & see what you think.
Continue readingMonth: December 2008
a brief hiatus
Just letting you know that I won’t be monitoring the blog for the next few days – my Significant Other & I will be spending 4 days on a desert island. Well, an island. A tropical island. Where there may not be net access & even if there is, using it could prove to be […]
Continue readingone for the physicists
For those interested in physics, my friend Marcus Wilson has recently started a blog on the subject: Physics Stop. Luging, the Large Hadron Collider, Star Trek transporter beams – all this & more. And his door’s always open to visitors 🙂
Continue readingphew! I’m glad that’s over!
I’ve just finished chairing the examiners’ meeting that finalises grades for students in our School. (For those who might think that uni lecturers have nothing to do once the students have left – forgeddit! This is the time when we: finish exam-related admin, work with grad students, prepare for next year’s teaching, write papers, do […]
Continue readinga wordle for my blog
A while back Ken gave a link to wordle, a rather neat site where you can build a word image for a piece of text or the content of a web page. I’ve just revisited and got a wordle for the last few posts here: I like wordle 🙂
Continue readingmore on tiktaalik
Tiktaalik roseae is a lovely example of a transitional fossil – it has a number of morphological features that clearly place it on the ‘fish-to-tetrapod’ transition. The type specimen is a remarkably well-preserved fossil that’s been very carefully analysed. A recent paper by Jason Downs & his co-workers described the results of their examination of […]
Continue readinganother good thing about questions
Or, one reason why teaching is good for teachers. I’ve just got to the point in Richard Feynman’s autobiography where he’s talking about why he loves teaching. It really resonates with me & I thought I’d share this bit with you: If you’re teaching a class, you can think about the elementary thgns that you […]
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