I took a little time over lunch to catch up with the work of various science communicators, most notably that of Brian Switek, whose blog Laelaps is carried by the Wired website & who also writes Dinosaur Tracking on Smithsonian.com. I’m now regretting my long absence, for not only is Brian an excellent communicator of […]
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symphony of science: the world of the dinosaurs
I occasionally (very occasionally, right now, with my workload the way it is) watch the Symphony of Science series on youtube. Today I took a few minutes & watched "The world of the dinosaurs", which is quite good** in a techno- sort of way. Why am I mentioning this? Because when I was taking part […]
Continue readingliterate primates?
A while back now, I wrote a brief piece commenting on the ability of at least some chimpanzees to recognise numbers. So it didn’t come as a huge surprise to hear that members of a baboon troop could distinguish between ‘real’ words and random strings of letters. Yes, really. A group of psychologists led by Jonathan […]
Continue readingif evolution is true, why are there still apes
We’ve just come back from a few glorious days in New Plymouth (arriving home before the change in weather). Had a great time tramping, walking the coastal walkway, eating yummy food – all those nice things you do, holidaying with friends. And as some of the party were driving from Paritutu to meet the rest […]
Continue readingcancer – an example of evolution at the cellular level
It’s more than 3 years now since a very close friend died of cancer. At the time, I wrote briefly of how cancer cell lines can evolve resistance to chemotherapy. Now Orac has written a much longer essay discussing the same thing. It’s well worth reading & would probably make an excellent resource for working […]
Continue reading‘scientists anonymous (nz)’ write again…
I’ve written about the group who call themselves ‘Scientists Anonymous (NZ)’ before, in the context of determining the reliability of sources. At the time, I commented that I would have a little more confidence about the information this group was putting out there if the people involved were actually identified – as it is, they […]
Continue readingmarathon man (rpt)
I’ve been blogging since August 2007. Which seems quite a long time, looking back on it 🙂 Anyway, because I’m kind of rushed at the moment – & on the theory that new(ish) readers might not have delved all that far into the back issues, I thought I’d repost a couple of pieces from way […]
Continue readingvideos on creationism & evolution
A while back, I wrote about the way that the geology of the Grand Canyon has been misrepresented by ‘Young Earth’ creationists. Now here’s a good discussion of this from geologist Steve Newton: You may also remember the comments about evolution that were made by some of last year’s Miss USA contestants. A 2012 Darwin […]
Continue readingcute, creative caminalcules
This post was originally written for Talking Teaching, where it has the title "what is the caminalcule lab supposed to teach?" You can get some good ideas for posts from reading the search terms that bring people to your site 🙂 I was first introduced to the Caminalcules way back in the dim dark past […]
Continue readingmotivating tomorrow’s biologists
That’s the title of Susan Musante’s paper in the latest issue of Bioscience (& many thanks to David Winter for sending it on). It’s a summary of some key points made by speakers at an NAS convocation called "Thinking evolutionarily: evolution education across the life sciences." Now, I find science fascinating, exciting, & endlessly interesting, […]
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