Cool Organism Thursday #5

Tech Tags: Cool Organism Thursdays Homo sapiens palaeontologicus SVPCA Glasgow Subway

This week's Cool Organism Thursday is the little known subspecies Homo sapiens palaeontologicus. Often misidentified in popular literature as H. sapiens boffinus, it is characterised by an uncanny ability to commit to memory many names of five or six syllables in length, a magnetic affinity for beer and an annual return to its intellectual spawning grounds every autumn. American forms tend to exhibit greater facial hair and more elaborate head ornamentation than the more conservative European lineage, although clear exceptions exist.

Despite relationships between palaeontologists being discussed at length (see comments on Ask Doctor Vector), there is some question as to who the most recent common ancestor is. Still, it's my blog and I say it's Georges Cuvier.

Sadly, there is no image to go with this COT today. I do have a cracking photograph of two prime specimens of the subspecies looking thrilled to be riding the Glasgow Subway, but I fear there may be unfortunate consequences for my PhD study (or at least any collections access at the Natural History Museum) if I allow this image to go public. Bribery, or the promise of access to even better sauropod specimens, may help at this point (well, they'll probably be up on Facebook next week...).

Yes, this is really lame, but I've had hardly any sleep and too much alcohol. I owe so many people e-mails, and I have a list of posts from my bloggy friends that I must respond to, but I don't think it's going to happen until after the weekend. Needless to say, I knocked this post out in about 10 minutes...

Vote For Down House

Tech Tags: UKTV History Down House Charles Darwin Britain's Best

I've been sitting watching Sharpe on UKTV History, and seen for the first time (we don't usually watch UKTV History) the contest they're holding to find Britain's Best, a guide to the best historical locations in the British Isles.

Down House, home of Charles Darwin, is one of the nominations. Unfortunately voting is only open until midnight UK time (7pm EDT, 4pm PDT)!

You can vote for Down House from the page I linked to above, but you've only got six hours! I don't think they're checking IP addresses for a UK location, so if any of my American, Canadian or Australian readers want to make Down House one of Britain's top historical sites, go for it!

In Glasgow

Tech Tags: laptop meme SVPCA holiday

I'm up in Glasgow for the SVPCA meeting, staying with the in-laws. My laptop is pretty dead. I think the capacitors have gone now. I may be able to get them fixed under my PC World warranty, but the last time I tried to get something fixed the idiot told me that what was covered wasn't and vice versa, and then when I tried to read out the policy he said "Well that's all legal stuff, I don't know about that". He was so unpleasant that I don't trust him not to "accidentally" wipe my hard drive. But Paul has a plan involving stuff from Maplins.

I'm using a temporary replacement. I'm hoping it will become a permanent replacement. I desperately want to blog about it because it really is the dog's bollocks, but I don't know if I can yet.

Because I spent most of yesterday travelling I'm still a bit dazed and confused, so have a meme from Laelaps. Normal service (including e-mails, proper blog posts and comments, both here and on other blogs) will be resumed when I've had more caffeine or alcohol (the fact that it took me five goes to spell "alcohol" is probably testament to the need for this).

Three things in my fridge that define life right now:
1) Two sweet potatoes that looked okay before we went away, that we're hoping will still be okay when we get aback, but will probably be blue and furry.
2) A half-drunk bottle of lime crush, looking very lonely because we finished the tequila.
3) More ground coffee of different flavours than you can imagine.

Three recent acquisitions:
1) A new rear driver suspension arm, along with a whole other load of stuff that cost me £680 altogether for my car Christine.
2) A boston fern, Nephrolepis exultata, which is in our loung now (bringing the Mesozoic indoors).
3) New underpants. 20 of them for £18. Good old M&S.

Three classics I reach for every day:
1) My hubster (1979 vintage).
2) Twinings everyday tea - cannot physically leave the house without it.
3) My iPod.

My kids right now, in three words or less:
Unfertilised ova...

My sweetie right now, in three words or less:
Smurfing the net.

What's on my to-do list:
Write stinking letters to my bank for singularly failing to deal with the fraud attempted on my account (don't bank with Barclays if you value your money), get access to the Hunterian collections at some point this week, comment on some friends' blogs, register for this academic year at Birkbeck, and find a lightweight autumn jacket that I can wear to work (hoodies don't cut it anymore).

What I do often that relates to the season right now:
If we had had a really nice summer I would be spending as much of it as possible in the garden. Actually I have been doing a lot of gardening - even rescuing the sweet peas in the front of the house (not my job but our landlords don't go in for landscaping).

What I'm listening to right now:
The muffled sound of possibly the Clyde 2 radio station coming up from the conservatory below the bedroom window.

What I'm worried about right now:
Whether I will ever be able to a) buy a house, b) pay off my debts and d) finish my PhD, and if I achieve all of those whether it will then be too late to have kids.

Which news stories I'm following right now:
Probably actually the Madeleine McCann disappearance - I have my views, but I'm not about to air them here.

What I'm reading right now:

Liston, J.J. 2004. A re-examination of a Middle Jurassic sauropod limb bone from the Bathonian of the Isle of Skye. Scottish Journal of Geology 40(2): 119-122.

What I'm looking forward to right now:
The conference later this week, our annual pre-SVP holiday in Texas and New Mexico, and a long weekend in the Peak District that I'm going to book when we get back to London.

A thought I keep returning to right now:
The fear that no one actually takes me seriously because I'm having to pay for my own PhD and do it part-time.

One small thing that's making me happy right now:
This computer is really making me happy.

Songs About Dinosaurs

Tech Tags: dinosaur+songs Weird Al Yankovic Was(NotWas) Eva Moon Ziggens Prehistoric Animal Brigade

When I was six years old, possibly younger, I remember watching a children's educational television programme at school. We were corralled into the music room at my primary school, and that is where I learned the words to "Prehistoric Animal Brigade", which I mentioned a few weeks ago:

It was absolutely my favourite childhood song ever. I can still remember it (although I was a little dismayed to discover that I'd actually sung #Long beak clacking# - it's not even a word). My mum can still remember it. My hubster now has it indelibly etched on his subconscious. I bought it on iTunes, and I have threatened to sing it to any offspring we should acquire.

But there are many many more songs about dinosaurs than this. So I thought I'd let you into my top five (okay, so I actually only know six - perhaps you have some more suggestions?).

1. "Jurassic Park" by 'Weird Al' Yankovic

Best video ever (for the Velociraptor fumbling for a set of keys to unlock the door). Best song ever (for shamelessly ripping off the acid-trip that is "MacArthur Park"). Best lyrics ever (for #A huge Tyrannosaurus ate our lawyer, well I suppose that proves they're really not all bad#).

2. "Walk The Dinosaur" by Was (Not Was)

I expect most of my palaeontologically-minded friends will disagree, but "Jurassic Park" is way better a song. Plus this loses points for palaeontological inaccuracies in the first line - #It was a night like this 40 million years ago#.

3. "Dinosaur Of Love" by Eva Moon

Now, this is one I found quite by accident, looking for my number 4 choice a few years ago. And I'm afraid there's no video. You can hear a clip on Eva Moon's website, from the album "Something's Brewing", but I suggest you buy it on iTunes. It's worth it for the lyrics #You are my boneman, bigger than T.rex and I'm gonna get me some of that Tyrannosaurus sex#.

4. "Tim The Dinosaur" by The Ziggens

When I moved to the USA, my best friend Usch made me a CD, and this was on it. It's a really sweet simple little song, all about, well, a dinosaur called Tim, who is always there for the singer when he needs a friend...

5. "Barney's On Fire" by 'Weird Al' Yankovic

If you're a palaeontologist, you probably hate Barney the Purple Paedophile. It's a little cheeky of me to have two 'Weird Al' songs in the top five, but it's a funny song. Can't find any official video, but this spoof one is funny:

I'd be interested to know what you think - after all, when limiting the subject matter to just dinosaurs, the chances of getting any song that's going to make it into the top 100 best ever are slim to none. Plus, bands like Aerosmith, the Eagles, Guns 'n' Roses etc tend not to write songs about dinosaurs. Do you know of any that are better than what I've suggested? Are we suffering from a lack of any dinosaur songs full stop?

Percussive Maintenance...

Tech Tags: Meez 3-D animated avatar messing about at work

Got myself a Meez (thanks for the link Laelaps):

If you decide to get one having seen this, please let them know that I recommended you (there is a space to enter the username of whoever recommended you - I'm "juliasaurus"), so I can get credits for a wedding ring and the awesomest dinosaur background!

Update: I am now married and I have dinosaurs. But I no longer pound the computer keyboard because I decided to 'fess up to my readers - I love country music...

Cool Organism Thursday #4

Tech Tags: Cool Organism Thursdays Eisenia foetida red wiggler earthworm compost heap

On the basis that next week's COT will probably be a vertebrate (as I'll be at the SVPCA conference in Glasgow), let's go with an invertebrate. How about Eisenia fetida? Although Paul doesn't realise it yet, for the past six months or so, he's spent every other Sunday afternoon chasing several dozen of the things round the lid of the composter with a stick.

Eisenia foetida is also known as the red wiggler worm, a member of the phylum Annelida, and it's the worm you really want in your compost heap. They reproduce fast - a worm reaches sexual maturity in 40-60 days, produces a cocoon within four days of mating, which take 23 days to hatch, and it can do all this for nearly two years. According to its Wikipedia entry, Paul may want to be a little more careful with the stick, as when roughly handled they emit a vile odour (hence the specific name "foetida").

I don't know much about them, save for the fact that they flourish anywhere there's decaying organic matter, so the compost heap at the bottom of our garden is heaven for them. They mostly hang out in the compost itself, but frequently we find a whole load of them in the lip of the lid (don't know why). This is where Paul grabs a stick and tries to ease them back into the heap. They seem to enjoy forming a huge knot with other worms, and many of the images I found while searching for a good picture show hundreds of them all entwined.

They feed on the bacteria that feed on the decaying food, cuttings, shredded paper and barbecue ash that we put in the top of the heap. We've had a decent-sized colony there for at least six months, and they have produced the most beautiful compost. They are doing their bit for the Mesozoic garden, and for this I am eternally grateful. They may be slimy, they may be wriggly, and the red colour is a bit off-putting, but they're very cool.

Faster, Dinosaur! Kill! Kill!

Tech Tags: dinosaur running speeds Tyrannosaurus rex Sellars Manning Proceedings of the Royal Society B

I haven't seen anything about this on the blogosphere yet - a new paper out entitled Estimating dinosaur maximum running speeds using evolutionary robotics". I've just had a quick look at it (full text appears to be available - woot!). As with so many studies, it needed to be anchored with extant organisms, and it was a good move for them to use bipedal animals - humans, ostriches and emus. After all, two are extant dinosaurs.

The authors constructed models, the full details of which are in the paper (the mere mention of MATLAB brings me out in a cold sweat), and checked that the Homo, Dromaius and Struthio models predicted the current observed top speeds. They did. So it is reasonable to conclude that the top speeds predicted for the extinct dinosaurs Compsognathus, Velociraptor, Dilophosaurus, Allosaurus and Tyrannosaurus would have been near the actual top speeds attained by the predators.

What I hadn't expected to see was tinyCompsognathus running rings round Velociraptor. I imagine it to be similar to the tube mice I see on my commute - the little buggers can move! But while the tube mice have very fast metabolic rates, metabolism was not a factor considered in the simulation. Effectively this was "On the basis of the muscle mass and limb dimensions, what is the maximum speed an organism of this build could attain, if metabolic rate was not a factor?". Presumably, the metabolism and fitness of the individual would make a great difference. Justin Gatlin can run at a speed of 10.3ms^-1 (albeit with a bit of illegal help, it would appear). When I heave my fat arse round Green Park, I'm lucky if I can get to 3ms^-1.

But the authors raised a point - elite athletes with muscle mass much greater than that used in the study can attain speeds of 12ms^-1. General female athletes more typically achieve 6-8ms^-1. There are variations between organisms of the same species.

So what would "normal" speed have been? Would female T. rex have been faster than or slower than their male counterparts? What is the average level of fitness in an animal? I presume we define it in the same way we do for humans, that basically the less time the heart takes to return to normal after a period of strenuous exercise, the fitter the owner of the heart is. How fit, say, are the lions and cheetahs of the Serengeti? Is their pursuit of a gazelle like Kelly Holmes winning the 400m, or like a fat hungover lager-lout waddling around the five-a-side pitch on a Sunday morning? The questions we can ask ourselves after reading the paper are absolutely fascinating. It's the sort of thing I'd love to spend hours in a pub discussing. And I'm intrigued by Bill Sellars' interview with the BBC News, in which he says:

One of the things that people argue about is why did they need to move as fast as they did - what are they chasing after? We're now doing some work on Hadrosaurus which is assumed to be one of the things that T. rex would prey upon because there have been fossils found with bite marks on their backs. What we find is that we're getting really quite high speeds for these animals as well, which makes perfect sense. If you're a fast predator, you're probably chasing fast prey that you want to catch.

I'm looking forward to this follow-up study, when it comes out. People argue that T.rex may have been a predator or a scavenger. I'm of the opinion that if you're that big and toothy, you can probably eat whatever the hell you want to. The BBC has a great little animation showing, from left to right, the movement of Dromaius, Struthio, Homo, Compsognathus, Velociraptor, Dilophosaurus, Allosaurus and Tyrannosaurus. Look at that compy go!

Sadly, the entire point of the study was lost on the writers in the Metro "newspaper" (hardly worthy of the title), who were far more concerned with whether T. rex could run faster than David Beckham - surely it depends on which one of the two has a broken metatarsal this time? The Independent, being a better class (?!) of paper, decided that Cristiano Ronaldo was the footballer of choice. The Daily Mail nearly made me fall off my chair by actually referring to the authors as "palaeontologists" (I expect "scientists", "experts" or "boffins", depending on whether it's a full broadsheet, "tabloid-style" broadsheet or a red-top).

But the Metro wins the Bad Journalism of the Day award for calling them "dino-detectives". Please. The Metro is actually designed for adults. It's one thing calling them dino-detectives on Newsround or Blue Peter, or some other kids-oriented programme, but not in a daily near-national newspaper. I think I even prefer "boffins"...

Why We Need More Scientific Literacy #5

Tech Tags: earthquakes Richter scale moment magnitude USGS scientific literacy

Time for another pet peeve (in addition to the narrative description of evolution). The use of the Richter Scale. Now, the USGS changed its policy back in January 2002, and has not reported earthquakes using Richter magnitude since then. Rather, it uses the moment magnitude.

The moment magnitude, up to a point, is identical to the Richter magnitude. However, with large earthquakes, anything above magnitude 6.0 (on either scale), the two measurements start to diverge. The Richter scale saturates, which is to say that proportionately much larger earthquakes have lower numbers than would be expected on a strict logarithmic scale. So while a magnitude 5.0 earthquake is approximately 32 times stronger than a magnitude 4.0 earthquake, a magnitude 8.0 earthquake may actually be 1000 times stronger than a magnitude 7.0, but the Richter scale won't tell you this.

Far better to use the moment magnitude (although the USGS apparently does not use it for earthquakes below 3.5 - but then such small earthquakes are only ever publicised locally), which for every unit indicates an increase in strength of 10^1.5, or about 36.1 times, throughout the scale. I wish I could find the graph that illustrated this point beautifully - perhaps Highly Allochthonous can oblige (as I'm straying dangerously into subjects that I understand but not enough to convey my point succinctly).

So my point anyway. The USGS uses the moment magnitude to report all earthquakes over magnitude 3.5. We don't hear about international earthquakes below about magnitude 5.0. So if our news reporters are relying on USGS earthquake alerts (which is likely), the figures they are giving out are moment magnitude figures and not Richter magnitude figures. This morning an earthquake in the Atlantic, off the coast of Brazil, was reported. There is very little news online - the most I have been able to get is a short briefing: Quake rocks Atlantic Ocean, north of Brazilian coast.

Yet this morning on the radio, a BBC reporter happily told us that this earthquake measured 6.6 "on the Richter scale". Now, it may well be that a moment magnitude of 6.6 is almost identical to a Richter magnitude of 6.6, but that was not what was measured, nor was it what was reported. It's like this - imagine reporting temperatures, that are reported on the Celsius scale, on the Fahrenheit scale. At a certain temperature, -40°, the numerical values of the temperature in Celsius and Fahrenheit are the same. So you can get away with it. But you can't report 32°Fahrenheit as 32 degrees Celsius. You can't report 100°Celsius as 100°Fahrenheit. You would be misleading the public (and possibly quite dangerously, if you're giving the weather forecast).

And reporting a seismic moment magnitude as being on the Richter scale is similarly misleading the public. Yes, there is a semi-argument for the general public not knowing anything other than the Richter scale, for it being retained as a sort of allegory - "It's not really on the Richter scale, but you the general public are incapable of understanding moment magnitude". But isn't that a bit insulting? Aren't you all intelligent enough to deal with an earthquake that's "magnitude 6.6" without having a redundant and inaccurate "on the Richter scale" tagged on the end?

Am I Unusual?

Tech Tags: hurricane season idiocy natural disasters tornadoes holidaymakers Caribbean

Am I the only person in the world who, when planning a holiday, checks up on natural disaster seasons in the area of interest? It's one thing for the poor buggers who live in the Caribbean (especially as hurricane frequency and severity both appear to be increasing, probably down to man-made climate change), but seriously, only an idiot would go on holiday to the Caribbean in peak hurricane season.

And you'd have to be a special kind of stupid to book your honeymoon, your dream holiday of a lifetime, to a region that could very easily be devastated by hurricanes and tropical storms while you're there. You can't have it both ways - either you go on honeymoon immediately after your wedding, or you go to the Caribbean in the winter. It'll still be hot, the sun will still shine and the sea will still be blue. But you'll have the added bonus of not cowering in a hotel because DirtCheapHolidays can't be bothered to fly you out of Cancun. As I said, I do have great sympathy for the inhabitants of the Caribbean and Gulf countries - let's get this one thing straight - it's just the holidaymakers who need a good slap in the face with a wet fish (which may well happen during the hurricane).

I've told Paul we are not going on holiday to San Francisco until the Big One has happened. We're also not going to Istanbul until the Northern Anatolian Fault has done its business busting east to west. Nor will we be going to the foothills of the Himalayas for some time yet. Extreme? Possibly. But I remember Part II Geophysics, and if Professor James Jackson tells you not to go to a particular earthquake-prone spot (and shows you the evidence), you'd be a fool not to take heed. We really try hard to avoid blatant natural disaster areas.

We booked our honeymoon in Colorado, Wyoming and South Dakota at the end of August last year (in fact it's a year on Thursday since we flew out). It's out of the peak tornado "season" in the northern part of Tornado Alley. But a tornado could still appear given the correct weather conditions. So we listened to the radio while we drove, in case the automated Doppler announcement kicked in. And we printed off county maps of all the states we were going to. No point panicking about a tornado in Niobrara county if you're in Yellowstone. We're going to do the same for Texas and New Mexico, although peak tornado season is even earlier in the year. We're not going to the coast.

We plan our holidays. We look on the FCO website. We check to see if there are any risks, natural or otherwise. We don't think that just because we're on holiday we're immune to muggings, killings or kidnappings. There is always the possibility of freak tragic events (e.g. the recent bridge collapse in Minneapolis). Does anyone else check their holiday will be safe, or do you all blindly book your vacation without finding out whether your hotel could be blown away by a hurricane, swept away by the monsoons or beseiged by guerilla armies?

Boneyard #3 Is Out

Tech Tags: Boneyard Carnival Laelaps

It's been out since Saturday, but computer issues conspired and then I forgot. My bad. Sorry.

It'll be hosted at When Pigs Fly Returns on 1 September, which will be a great opportunity for Laelaps to submit some of his own writing (hint, hint).

I'm Not Girly, I'm Evolutionarily Hardwired For Berry-Hunting

Tech Tags: pink natural selection New Scientist colour perception

I like pink things. I look good in pink clothes, I have pink gardening tools, a pink laptop bag (oh yes), and a pink mobile phone handset. Pink is good. I assumed I was just a bit girly, although I was never subjected to much pink as a child (I had a green bedroom until I was seven, and a good non-gender-specific range of toys - I broke a Tonka truck!).

Imagine my delight when I found that it was actually a finely honed survival trait. New Scientist has just featured an article saying women may be hardwired to prefer pink. Apart from the overly narrative form of science reporting (you're regular readers, you know I have a pet peeve with "Species evolved trait X to help with activity Y"), it's an interesting article.

Females with a mutation conferring better recognition of redder hues would have been more likely to recognise ripe fruit, and therefore less likely to poison themselves and their fellow humans, and more likely to enjoy better nutrition. Surviving long enough to reproduce (and often) and being healthier while doing it would serve to increase the frequency of the mutation in the population. And the weaker individuals, who could not detect ripe fruit, would be selected against.

So the next time Paul is shopping with me, and I pick out another pink t-shirt, when he rolls his eyes, I will just tell him not to mess with natural selection...

Hulbert, A.C. & Y Ling. 2007. Biological components of sex differences in color preference. Current Biology 17, R623-R625.

Blog Censorship

Tech Tags: Harun Yahya creationism Turkey Wordpress block blogging censorship Irrepressible Info

Something very worrying is afoot in Turkey (thanks to Pharyngula for highlighting this earlier today). The notorious creationist, Harun Yahya, has managed to get all Wordpress blogs banned in Turkey. The text of the letter sent by Yahya's lawyers to Wordpress can be found in their blog Why we're blocked in Turkey (I'm aware that anyone coming here from Turkey will be unable to see it - let me know if you'd like me to post it here, and I'll put it in a comment to this blog). It appears that some blogs were identified (rightly or wrongly so) as containing defamatory comments, but that Wordpress did not remove those blogs when requested to by the lawyers. And as such they obtained a blanket block of all Wordpress blogs. There was apparently a brief period during which the community thought they might be unblocked, but it appears that the block still holds.

Now in the UK at least, there is a difference between libel/defamation and vulgar abuse. You are most welcome to call me a fat ugly bitch, and there is nothing I can do about it, because that is vulgar abuse, which is legal - nasty, but legal. But if you accuse me of, say, faking my qualifications, then that is libellous and I can have your ass in court before you have time to check your e-mail. And as far as I am aware, all websites have to be registered at a location in the world, and I think they therefore have to follow the laws of the country in which they are located. Paul, Mr Lawyer Sir, gonnae help me out here? Drowning in law...

But anyway, either the comments are libellous or they are not. Sadly I can't read Turkish, but I'm pretty sure if you're a Turkish blogger and you happen to have called this man whatever the Turkish is for "tosspot", that's not libellous, but if you have accused him of something illegal, he can probably sue you. What concerns me is not that blogs which may or may not have libellous content on them have been blocked, but that blogs which have never contained any information about Harun Yahya have been blocked. I wonder what Dinosaurs: A Creationist's Fairytale, Microecos, and my good friend Laelaps think about that? Fancy making it onto Irrepressible.Info, gentlemen?

To my knowledge, I only have one Turkish reader. But if they want to get around the block, try this work-around. I hope this all gets sorted out satisfactorily soon. If this happened in the UK, say with Blogger (who I believe are a slightly larger blogging outfit than Wordpress, but I may be wrong), there would be international (and a whole lot of national) outrage. I hope the outrage is not apparent only because it's not common knowledge outside of the blogging community yet. It's certainly not on the BBC News website.

I've purposely not said anything about Harun Yahya himself. This is not to avoid having my blog blocked (let's face it, if he wants to block Blogger blogs he probably will, whether or not I say anything), but simply because I know almost nothing about his assertions - I have almost no experience of Islamic old-Earth creationism. I'm just very worried that pro-evolution, anti-creationism sites (of whatever persuasion) are being censored, and that there may not be valid legal reasons for doing so. It's a reminder that in the evolution-creation debate, we have to be doubly sure we are sticking to the facts and not allowing ad hominem and probably libellous comments in. I honestly don't know what these bloggers said. But if we give any ground, any chink in our armour up to them, then they're going to use it.

Cool Organism Thursday Friday #3

Tech Tags: Aspergillus nidulans fungus self-fertilisation Cool Organism Thursdays

My apologies - this should have gone out last night. I thought I was going for after-work drinks for an hour or two, with Paul and his workmates, but it turned into dinner and not getting home and to bed until 2am. Considering I have only had four hours' sleep I'm feeling surprisingly alert - more so than I often do after seven or eight hours' sleep. I know I owe some people some e-mails. I stand a reasonable chance of having time to e-mail today, but all the e-mails I need to reply to are at home on my laptop, which is playing up again. But I'm not ignoring you, honest!

Paul wanted me to feature Torrent, the otter who's afraid of water. Very cute, but I'm trying not to make Cool Organism Thursdays too tetrapod-oriented. Then my poor husband sent me the article about fossil sea spiders, and the pictures made my arachnophobic skin crawl (I'm sorry Christopher, any arachnid bigger than my thumbnail creeps me out, although thanks to your superb blog post on daddy long-legs I am at least able to tell the difference between a pholcid and a harvestman when I disturb it in the course of gardening). Without any scale bar in the BBC photos, my imagination ran wild and I had visions of them being like the Japanese spider crabs (I know they're crustaceans rather than arachnids, but it's really the size I'm talking about).

So having rejected both Paul's suggestions, I'm going with fungi. Specifically Aspergillus nidulans. It's a popular one for biomedical studies, and Aspergillus species infect cereals and produce mycotoxins (so it's relevant to my day-to-day job). We had maybe two or three lectures on fungi in Part 1A Biology of Organisms, and that was getting on for nine years ago. But I do remember being bowled over by the concept of more than two sexes, or mating types. In our very anthropocentric view of the world, dealing with more than just "male" and "female" is as mind-boggling as trying to envisage more than three dimensions. There's a beautiful photo of A. nidulans on the website of the Broad Institute project. It looks familiar - I think my former room-mate used to grow it in her food.



Physorg has reported on a study by the University of Nottingham investigating the nature of the self-fertility in A. nidulans. The fungus is one of a number of organisms in the plant and fungus kingdoms to be able to reproduce sexually without the need for a partner. The abstract is available from ScienceDirect, but I don't have access to the PDF. What the abstract reveals, however, is that exactly the same pathways are activated in self-fertilisation as in out-crossing sex (sex with another individual), but that the genes responsible for sexual development have to be overexpressed for the invidual to be able to fertilise itself. And this only happens under conditions unfavourable for sex - I presume this is the distinct absence of any potential mate. And how neat the evolution of self-fertilisation must have been, if it was merely the advantage conferred on an organism by over-expression of an existing gene. So simple and so perfect that it couldn't possibly be intelligent design...

One way or another, I shall toast the humble fungus this evening. Although admittedly Saccharomyces cerevisiae is a budding yeast
and Aspergillus nidulans is a mould. Whether I make bread or drink beer, however, is down to how I'm feeling by tonight.


Paoletti, M., F.A. Seymour, M.J.C. Alcocer, N. Kaur, A.M. Calvo, D.B. Archer ∧ P.S. Dyer. 2007. Mating Type and the Genetic Basis of Self-Fertility in the Model Fungus Aspergillus nidulans. Current Biology 17(16). DOI:10.1016/j.cub.2007.07.012.

Enemies Of Reason

Tech Tags: Richard Dawkins Enemies Of Reason idiots morons crystals do not have energy you fool rational thought

Paul and I watched Richard Dawkins' new two-part television show on Monday, entitled Enemies Of Reason. It was great. Sometimes Dawkins can be a bit militant about things, and while I know one helluva lot of the people he criticises are equally militant, he often does nothing for his cause. If I recall correctly, he has even been criticised of making atheism a religion.

But he toned it right down this time, and did what he does best - showing up ridiculous "spiritual" mumbo-jumbo. My particular "favourite" new-age con is the frankly stupid notion that crystals can give you energy and cure diseases. I don't see anyone wandering around with a lump of cheap sandstone round their necks, despite the fact that it has the same chemical composition as that very expensive polished quartz crystal. Energy my arse - it's all a con.

For my American friends who haven't had the opportunity to see it, it's available on Google Video. For some reason I can't get it to embed properly on my page, which sucks.

Paul was particularly delighted to see Derren Brown appear - he's a big fan. I had the pleasure of getting to smack him repeatedly round the face as part of his stage show a couple of years ago, but before that, Derren Brown staged what was (until Jerry Springer: The Opera was broadcast, I believe) the most complained about television programme in the history of UK television: The Séance. So he is well placed to discuss how psychics mislead their clients/audiences. Spiritualist "churches" also get on my nerves, and Dawkins barely manages to contain his horror and disbelief when he attends a "service". Everyone in the "congregation" features heavily in the dictionary definition of gullible, yet when Dawkins interviews the medium afterwards, not even he seems to believe he's got any kind of spiritual power.

And the idiocy of the so-called expert dowsers is breath-taking. Yes, I'm sure there are people who still think that all this bullshit means something, and that the spirits are guiding our lives, but they have a tendency to write in CAPITALS, use txt spk, or write only in green ink. I could also never tire of punching the tarot card reader who started every sentence with "I do feel that". A lot of the morons on the show made me angry, but it was hard not to come away from the show with a fuzzy feeling that Dawkins had really shown 'em, coupled with a sense of incredibly superiority.

Charlie Brooker wrote a great article about it in the weekend Grauniad. I saw that courtesy of the Bad Science blog (and if I'd worked out that Ben Goldacre had posted the full-length version of the documentary that would have saved me 10 minutes of searching!!). If you're in the UK, try to watch the second part on Monday 20 August. If you're not, I'll see if I can find the second half and post it here for you.

Can I Have My £5000 Please?

Tech Tags: CBI bursaries palaeontology brain drain government funding Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills

I mentioned a few months ago, that foreign science and engineering students were being deterred from coming to the UK to study, due to extra-stringent checks on "proliferation-risk" subjects. I noted that a line could not easily be drawn between proliferation-risk and non-proliferation-risk science subjects, and like a lot of other far more prominent scientists, I was very concerned. I still am.

Things seemed to be changing for the better when Gordon Brown assumed the role of Prime Minister. He promised to shake up science. But science has been gradually removed from the National Curriculum, and the final straw seemed to be appointing John Denham MP to the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (I should abbreviate that to DIUS, but that makes it sound like a method of contraception).

Now the CBI have called for bursaries of £1000 per year to be given to science and engineering students. It's just one of many good ideas listed as part of its proposed five-year plan to get more young people into science, and I support this wholeheartedly, even though current high school students are very likely to get their PhDs before I do.

I fully acknowledge that science education was sick way before Blair came along and cocked it all up. I had to change schools at 16 and go to another school (fortunately, I won a scholarship to the wonderful Nottingham High School for Girls, where I received a first-class A-level education), because my state-run high school couldn't and wouldn't allow me to take biology, chemistry, mathematics and physics as A-levels. The head of sixth form even suggested that I didn't have the intellectual power to take on four classes (well I did, and I took general studies too, and I came away with four As and a B, and two 2s in STEP chemistry and physics, so nyeeehhh). Paul tells me he wasn't allowed to take all the sciences. He had to drop chemistry.

I also received appalling career advice, something else the CBI wants to improve. My high school careers advisor was completely unprepared for dealing with anyone who wanted to go to university. The only profession he knew about was medicine, because his son was a GP. I compared notes with my friends later - we had variously been advised to become surgeons, psychiatrists, physiotherapists and, in my case, a pathologist. I suppose palaeontology is similar to pathology on some level, but to paraphrase from my favourite movie of all time, Stand By Me, my clients "aren't even dead anymore". So I quite happily ignored him too.

It would be nice if we could have some kind of back-dating of these funds. There has been a brain drain on scientists for at least 10 years now, if not more. I now know of very few post-doctoral palaeontologists who have remained in Britain or in the profession. It shouldn't be like this. And I'm sure the lack of funding, lack of jobs and lack of interest from the government in anything we do is to blame. I'll make a deal - if the government gives me £5000 (£1000 for each of the four years of my undergraduate degree and £1000 for my MRes), then I promise not to flee the UK upon receipt of my PhD. Deal?

Stumbled!

Tech Tags: StumbleUpon Statcounter most hits ever get off my fat arse and write something

Thank you to the two people who stumbled upon my blog early this morning/late last night. I squealed with delight when I checked my Statcounter account this morning and saw I already had 250 hits in the space of five hours. While I'm sure it will tail off (I don't know much about StumbleUpon, but I'm sure new additions are featured more prominently), I am thrilled to have had so many visitors, and I hope you found at least some of it interesting.

Suppose this means I should try to write something about science now, shouldn't I?

Change Of Scenery

Tech Tags: Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area dead links Statcounter

Right. Over the course of this evening, this blog is a website in its own right. I've got to sort the about and links sections out, but the blogroll is up, and there's a nifty little contact form too. Should make things easier to navigate.

The new image is a panoramic montage Paul made of the road to Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area, from the south. It was one of the places we stopped on honeymoon last year. I stuck it into negative to make it look a bit funkier. Please let me know if there are any dead links, and I'll try to sort them out as soon as possible.

And come on - eleven more hits and I'll break the 200-hit barrier for today for the first time ever. You know who you are!

More Reading For You

Tech Tags: Laelaps human evolution

If you've finished reading all my husband's stories, pop over to Laelaps, where my friend Brian has written one of the longest, fullest and most interesting blog posts I have ever had the pleasure to read: Homo sapiens: the evolution of what we think about who we are.

I've only just been able to find time to devote my undivided attention to it. Print it off and read it curled up on the sofa this evening with a cup of tea or a nice merlot. You will be fascinated by this excellent review of how our understanding of human origins and evolution has changed with time.

So Very Proud

Tech Tags: Scott Sigler Paul Anthony Anderson writer script movie my husband rocks

Much to write about this week, from herds of Plateosaurus to the government desperately trying to stop the scientific brain drain it so expertly put in place. But just a quickie right now, to say how proud I am of my husband Paul.

Paul is an aspiring writer. If you haven't linked through to his blog before, I urge you to go and do so now. It's called Clamouring to become visible. He writes some very weird shit, but it's good weird shit. Despite him never having listened to or read any of his work, his short stories are reminiscent of some of Scott Sigler's short pieces, in their depth and mood. Which is handy...

Because he has just been chosen to work with Scott on a movie project. Scott made the announcement on his most recent podcast (if you download the episode you can hear him read out the names within the first five minutes - of course I would recommend you listen to the rest of the podcast too!). You can read the Hubster's reaction to the news here.

Of course, we have known for some time, but naturally had to wait for Scott to announce the winners before saying anything. Paul had hinted that he had some pretty fantastic news but couldn't say anything. This led to all his mates on Bebo thinking I was pregnant. I am not pregnant - I have waited six years to be able to go back to Carlsbad, New Mexico, and drink 46oz margaritas in Lucy's Mexicali Restaurant, and I'm not about to allow some foetus to screw that one up.

So Paul! I am so proud of him, and if his voice ever gets tired from him shouting this from the rooftops he should let me know, because I'll shout for him! I really hope this is a stepping-stone to even greater things.

And if you're planning to go to SVP in Austin, you may just get to read some more of his writing. I'll say no more for now...

Petrological Phlebotomy

Tech Tags: Ethical Palaeontologist domain web-hosting blog moving getting blood from a stone

There. If you're reading this, you're reading it on www.ethicalpalaeontologist.com. But as you can probably surmise from the title of this post, it hasn't been easy. In fact, it's taken me about three hours to sort. There were tears, there were screams, and there was a wailing and a gnashing of teeth. A scary moment when I questioned the sanity of my decision.

I only have 90 minutes until the supermarket shuts, and we need food. I need a shower. But at least, having applied the cleaning stuff to the bathroom before I started all this messing around with the interwebs, it is a very clean shower.

Cool Organism Thursday #2

Tech Tags: Cool Organism Thursdays Brassica oleracea Romanesco broccoli fractals

Over to the plant kingdom for this one, to the broccoflower, a hybrid between broccoli and cauliflower, both varieties of Brassica oleracea (and a confession from me that I have eaten the two for 27 years perfectly oblivious to the fact that they are the same species).

And I'm specifically thinking of the broccoflower known as Romanesco broccoli, shown in the gorgeous picture from the University of British Columbia. Because it has a spiky head which shows fractal forms. Fractals are shapes that can be divided into parts which are a reduced-size copy of the whole. You can see if you zoom in on each floret, that it is a perfect miniature copy of the head as a whole, and the floret has "floretlets" that are perfect miniature copies of the floret.

It brought to mind a poem by Lewis Richardson, which we were taught when we were studying fluid dynamics (a spoof on another poem about fleas, which nonetheless could also apply to fractals):

Big whorls have little whorls which feed on their velocity

And little whorls have lesser whorls and so on to viscosity

There's a great page linked to from the UBC website, all about fractal food. The author gives a good explanation of how fractals work, as well as some cooking tips. I doubt I can find such an unusual vegetable in Tescos, but one day I hope to try it - it's apparently deliciously nutty.

But What About The Choccies?

Tech Tags: foot-and-mouth disease chocolate Defra

Still no word on whether we are allowed to take chocolate with us out of the country, or post it to expats. Defra have a whole Q∧A on travelling abroad, but there's no actual "chocolate is/isn't allowed" statement.

Banned foodstuffs are:

Fresh meat, meat products, fresh milk or milk products from animals which are susceptible to foot and mouth disease. It is impossible to draw up a comprehensive list of every banned food but some examples are bacon, sausages, ham (and sandwiches or pizza containing these), soups containing meat pieces, cheese, cream, butter, milk powder, yoghurt and ice-cream.

Not banned foodstuffs are:

Some products containing milk and milk products which have been subject to further processing which involves cooking and products which do not contain meat/milk of susceptible species are permitted. It is hard to give a definitive list but examples are margarine, mayonnaise (not containing dairy products), soya milk, cereals (not containing dairy products), cooked ready meals and soups not containing meat/milk of susceptible species. Chocolate biscuits and cakes (not containing cream) which are finished products may be taken. Drinks such as tea, coffee and fruit juice are also OK.

I know on the grand scheme of things this is peanuts. A little worry as to whether I will be able to take chocolate over to the US, or send it to Usch (for whom Hersheys are okay but not as good as Cadburys Dairy Milk) is insignificant compared to the potential impact for the farming and tourism industry if this is not contained and controlled.

But really, if you'd seen what happens when they make chocolate, you'd be happy to accept that there's no chance of a virus surviving that. And most chocolate has been on the supermarket shelves for weeks. It has a best-before-end date of up to a year in the future. Perhaps I can't have it both ways - I can't have rigorous controls and vaccinations of susceptible animals AND relaxed rules on the export of chocolate all at the same time...

I'm Stunned

Tech Tags: Defra foot-and-mouth disease 2001 vaccination farmers

Defra have just lifted the ban on movement of animals, less than 120 hours after the news broke that a case of foot-and-mouth disease had been found on a farm near Guildford. I'm stunned, to be honest. A third case was identified only in the last day. I don't think we've seen the last of this, and if Defra and the Chief Vet have compelling evidence to suggest otherwise, then we certainly haven't had this presented to us.

For the past five days, I have listened to, watched and read the news on FMD with absolute disbelief. On Monday, farmers were saying the footpaths were still open. One farmer, speaking on Radio 4, had three public footpaths on his land, two of which went through one of the infected farms! In fairness, I am sure farmers in Yorkshire and further north are safe (at least for now), and there is no reason for footpaths to be closed that far away from infected farms, but you'd think they'd block access to and from infected farms, wouldn't you?

I don't understand why we don't vaccinate against FMD on a regular basis. In Farmers Weekly magazine there are adverts for vaccines against Chlamydophila abortus, Rotavirus, Corona virus, E. coli and Leptospirosis, and treatments against blowfly strike, flukes and worms. At the peak of the lambing season there are adverts on every page for all the immunisations farmers need to give their herds - it is surely more economical to vaccinate a herd than to deal with the cost and compensation needed when that entire herd has to be slaughtered and incinerated. I know the US would ban the import of British meat, but really - how many Americans would choose British beef over a nice big juicy Texas-raised steak? British beef is more expensive, and I have yet to see a 14oz steak available for purchase in a UK supermarket, unlike the US. Does the UK meat industry depend so much on trade to America? Doubt it.

I remember the 2001 outbreak. I remember the reports of suicides, of farmers breaking down because they had lost everything. Guildford is not very far from the areas affected by the floods. If this spreads, then farmers who have already lost much of their livestock in the floods may lose the rest of the herd to FMD. I seriously think Defra have mishandled this. They mishandled it last time with appalling consequences, and I have a horrible feeling it's going to happen again.

I hope I'm wrong. I hope in a month's time I have lots of people commenting on this post saying that I over-reacted, that I am pathologically anti-government with no real reason for being so, and that I have no idea what I'm talking about. Please let them be right and let me be wrong.

Crystal Palace Dinosaurs Now Grade I Listed Structures

Tech Tags: Crystal Palace dinosaurs listed Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins sculptures

Despite some of Margaret Hodge's more interesting ideas (for "interesting" read "bloody stupid"), she's come up trumps on this one. In her capacity as Culture Minister, she has upgraded the Crystal Palace dinosaur sculptures from Grade II to Grade I listing, so they are now considered to be "buildings of outstanding or national architectural or historic interest". They now have special protection (even if there should be a great need for more houses in Penge it'll be almost impossible to get permission to build on the site), and the owners are legally bound to maintain the structures. I'm also glad to see that the geological formations on which the dinosaurs were built have also been assigned to the listing.

The dinosaurs are very different in shape to what we now know Iguanodon and Megalosaurus looked like. But I like the Crystal Palace dinosaurs because they're part of the history of the science. I only finally got to see them for the first time in February 2006 - the day before my birthday, in fact. Twice I had tried to see them, and twice they were under renovation and I couldn't see a thing - I had been trying since 2001! Somewhere at home I have a photo of me grinning like a loon with a Megalosaurus in the background.

Brian mentioned in his Laelaps blog a few months ago, that there may be dinosaurs in Central Park - more of Waterhouse Hawkins' sculptures buried somewhere. This is a dinosaur dig I would love to be part of...

It takes the edge off the very sad news that the Yangtze River dolphin has been declared extinct. Not our finest hour.

Christine's Back

Tech Tags: Fiat Punto Christine repairs carbon footprint low mileage

I collected Christine, my Punto, from the garage this evening. She had so much wrong with her: flywheel sensor was the main problem, but the offside rear suspension arm, cambelt cover and rocker gasket cover had gone. Four new spark-plugs, two new indicator lights (one had gone but the other had had the pain stripped off so it was white rather than yellow - go figure...), and an oil washer. Whole thing, including full service and MOT came to £680.

When I bought her in 2005, I got her for £1100. Not cool.

Thank goodness for huge and well-timed tax rebates! I console myself with this - two years later, she's not worth an awful lot less than she was back then. Compare this with a brand new car which can depreciate by double what Christine cost in the space of a year. If we had bought a new or used car on finance, we'd have been paying between £120 and £200 a month for it (although perhaps insurance would be included for free, so that would absorb £40 of my expenses). So we'd have forked out double the cost of the repairs in a year just repaying the finance. And there's not an awful lot left of Christine to replace. The engine, battery and ECU are still original, but almost everything else has been replaced or repaired over her 10-year lifespan.

We could get rid of her, but she's probably only good for scrap, which isn't very eco-friendly. And this evening it took us 50 minutes to drive to Tesco, do the shopping and come home again - and that included putting her through the car wash (Tesco recycle the water). Last Tuesday on the bus it took over two hours, and we nearly missed the bus (buses only every half hour after 8pm). Green is good, but shopping using public transport could actually be worse - we would never buy a 5kg bag of pasta unless we had the car with us, we'd probably need several journeys to do smaller shops, and I know for a fact we buy fewer vegetables when we've got to walk from the bus stop.

Plus, since the last MOT, I have driven her only 2204 miles. In a year. Including a trip to Cornwall, a week at Center Parcs and several visits to my parents' house (I've shied away from driving her to Scotland to see Paul's family, as the last time we did that her head gasket went!). We drove more than that in the space of our 10-day honeymoon in August 2006, and we'll drive three-quarters of that distance on holiday in Texas this October. I'm going to carbon offset it - it's only fair. Now to get me pay-as-you-go car insurance, and I'll start making the cost of the service and repairs back.

Weekend

Tech Tags: Boneyard blog carnival palaeontology Transformers movie sweet pea

First things first - Boneyard #2 is up at Laelaps, so if time is of the essence, stop off there for another excellent summary of palaeontological happenings. As Brian says, I'll be hosting an upcoming edition of Boneyard.

I've been trying to make the most of the weekend, so haven't been on the computer too much. My beloved 97 Punto (my first car, although I only bought it 2.5 years ago, so it has all the sentimental attachment) is very poorly indeed. The guy from the AA who tried to fix it and then towed her to a garage reckons it's the crankshaft sensor which has gone, but the good news is that it's not very expensive to fix. Unfortunately he couldn't tell whether the ECU is okay. And that is expensive. So I'm hoping to cash in on some of the good karma I got for giving 400 bread rolls to a food bank two months ago. Please let the ECU be fine. I promise I'll be good.

The Fiat specialist in question was in Surrey, and it was quite eye-opening. I thought we'd done pretty well finding somewhere in West London north of the river with a village-like atmosphere, but West Molesey blew all over our home town. We did pick out which house we want when we win the lottery though. So we went into Kingston, did a bit of shopping, and then saw Transformers.

I really enjoyed it, although I didn't like the epilepsy-inducing cuts during all the fight scenes. Since they decided to ditch all the nice bright colours and follow the fact that everyone has a silver car nowadays (you only need to look in our flats' car park to see evidence of this - Christine is quite unusual being blue), it's impossible to tell Autobot arse from Decepticon elbow. Paul was very disappointed, but he knew it wasn't going to be Transformers for him. But as far as cool movies about robots that can turn into cars go, he was happy. I just hope there weren't any parents of small children who decided to take them to see the film on the basis that they had really enjoyed the cartoons when they were young. This film is not suitable for children! Beheadings, dismemberings, amputations, and if you don't want to have to answer the question "Daddy, what's masturbation?" avoid like the plague.

Today I need to get some bamboo canes. We have sweet peas in the front garden, but because the property managers are at best lazy and at worst neglectful, no one looks after the plants. So I'm going to cane them up, and then weed around them. I contemplated planting more, but I suspect come autumn they might actually send someone round with the instruction to rip up all living things from the front. But now I need to make my husband some breakfast.

Cool Organism Thursday #1

Tech Tags: Cool Organism Thursdays Phrynosoma solare regal horned lizard squirting blood

I mentioned this yesterday in comments on my coelocanth post, starting a "Cool Organism Thursdays". Hey, Pharyngula has a Friday Cephalopod, and Sciencewoman has Mommy Mondays, so why not Cool Organism Thursdays?

I want to use this to showcase animals and plants (I think I might be pushing it to find cool microbes but I shall try!) that really are very cool indeed, but perhaps not particularly well-known. I'm aiming to make it a non-avian dinosaur-free zone, but please forgive me for starting off with a diapsid: the group of animals known as horned lizards. Specifically the regal horned lizard, Phrynosoma solare.

I first saw this on Nick Baker's Weird Creatures a couple of months ago. Their suite of defensive features is amazing. Firstly they match their substrate perfectly, by looking rock-like or flattening their bodies to blend with the dirt. Secondly, their arsenal of sharp spines make for a painful deterrent. And thirdly (the most impressive of the lot), they squirt blood from their eyes. Seriously. Okay, now I have my little brother's attention (possibly a first - herpetology articles would only interest him if they had the title "Horned lizards and their role in national socialism"). We're good to get onto the REALLY cool stuff. Have a look at this video:

I'm really looking forward to the Texas roadtrip. I'll be looking out for some of these chaps, although I would never try to get them to squirt at me - it would be distressing for them.

So that's my first cool organism. I'll have a look for some more, pretty much the only criterion being that they have to have made me say "Wow" when I first saw them.

Non-Redundant Structure

Tech Tags: Minneapolis bridge collapse non-redundant structure

I've just read the New Scientist article Search begins for cause of US bridge collapse, and am a bit taken aback to be honest with you. Perhaps some engineers can interpret this in more realistic terms, but when something is described as "fair", that sounds to me like "meh, it's okay I suppose". And I wouldn't want any object that, if it failed in any way would kill me, to just be okay. And that's even more important given that:

A University of Minnesota Civil Engineer report to Minnesota Department of Transportation, commissioned in 2001, noted that the bridge should be considered a "non-redundant structure". This means that if any key structural feature fails, the bridge would collapse completely.

So if any particular section was to go from "meh, it's okay I suppose" to "ooh that could do with being fixed" (which doesn't strike me as being a very great step), then the bridge would be in danger of collapse. And if the reason for the bridge being under repair (I gather the eight-lane freeway was down to two lanes for construction) was that an engineer had spotted something and said "ooh that could do with being fixed", then why on earth was that bridge open to traffic when a failure was almost guaranteed to result in deaths?

Much like with the all-too-frequent rail crashes we seem to get in the UK, I suspect when the dust has settled it will come back to a cutting of corners by the contractors employed by whatever governmental body is responsible for that particular section. And corners are cut when there is a lack of money.

I am truly very sorry for the people of Minneapolis. I hope the fact that it was summer, and perhaps the fact that the cars were doing no more than 20mph has reduced the loss of life that might otherwise have occurred, although this is no comfort to those who have lost loved ones. The images I have seen look terrifying.

Titanosaur Osteoderms

Tech Tags: Nature Precedings Thiago da Silva Marinho titanosaur osteoderms

I wasn't going to write anything about this piece of research, as Laelaps has done such a good job already, but he persuaded me otherwise (flattery will get you everywhere, Brian). Thiago da Silva Marinho has been kind enough to submit a poster presented at the Rio de Janeiro Day of Palaeontology to Nature Precedings, and the article has been well-received so far, certainly with more publicity than the average abstract at a conference ever receives. The possibility of having one's preliminary research published in the popular press certainly makes Nature Precedings seem a more attractive receptacle for my old presentations.

Marinho reports the discovery of titanosaur embryos in Patagonia - unfortunately it's unclear which embryos these are, although I assme they're the Auca Mahuevo set. The lack of references (as one expects with a brief presentation) is a little frustrating, but I know Marinho has commented on Laelaps' blog so maybe I can persuade him to shed some light on this. The embryos were fortunately preserved with skin patches, and these show as-yet unossified tuberosities, which Marinho proposes would have developed into osteoderms. While osteoderms in adult titanosaurs provide absolutely no protection from predation, they would have been larger and more closely together relative to the small size of a juvenile sauropod, and as such would have formed an armoured region across the back.

Laelaps picks up on the fact that while the osteoderms would provide a tough (if not totally inpenetrable) barrier to carnivores, all the juiciest, most vulnerable areas (the belly and neck) are left unprotected. Yet I am sure they must have conferred some advantage on the babies. I have to admit that my heart was in my mouth when the baby sauropods hatched, both in Dinosaurs: Giants of Patagonia and in episode 2 of Walking With Dinosaurs. I'd hazard a guess that the sauropod nests had about as many eggs as the theropod nests that have been found, and we have evidence that theropods cared for their young (and indeed still do!), which has to have reduced the infant mortality rate. So unless sauropods looked after their nurseries (the Auca Mahuevo nests are, I believe, too close together for an adult sauropod to have walked through without crushing eggs), there must have been some kind of advantage, reducing the possibility of being killed before adulthood. Perhaps osteoderms were enough, perhaps growth was rapid enough that juveniles rapidly became too big to be prey.

I was very intrigued by Marinho's assertion that osteoderms would have formed a calcium reserve in adult titanosaurs rather than armour. I can't find any articles mentioning the function of osteoderms as calcium reserves. Nor can I envisage why titanosaurs would need calcium reserves, as the mass of the osteoderms would not be sufficient to facilitate the sort of growth rates sauropods must have shown.

But for all that, I found the abstract interesting, and I would certainly have stopped to ask Marinho more if I'd seen this poster at a conference. I'm looking forward to the paper, as I know there's so much that can't go into a conference presentation, and I am sure all will become clear in due course.

Marinho, Thiago. Functional aspects of titanosaur osteoderms. Available from Nature Precedings <http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/npre.2007.508.1> (2007)

Nature Precedings

Tech Tags: Nature Precedings dilemma publication peer-review

I'm thinking of submitting some of my single-authored presentations from SVP and GSA to Nature Precedings. I wasn't aware this online publication existed, but the concept seems like a great idea. The presentations I have in mind are the Sphenodontians GSA talk from 2004 and the Ornithopod Skulls SVP talk from 2003. I won't submit the Sauropod abstract from 2006 as I never presented it at SVP (had to withdraw due to financial issues - getting married is bad for your wallet). And the most eagerly-anticipated piece of work is of course Cetiosauriscus, which is certainly not getting submitted (although you know you can always e-mail me or use my contact form and ask for a copy of the presentation).

I can see some advantages - it gets the research out there, and because it's under creative commons (and will have a publication date attached to it), it means my work is shielded from plagiarism. It happens on a more regular basis than we ever like to admit, but suffice to say plagiarism featured strongly between August 2003 and May 2004 - possibly even beyond.

But it isn't peer-reviewed. Of course the actual abstract in each case has been peer-reviewed, in order to be presented. But the presentations have not been subjected to critical review. And I cannot include any material for which I do not own copyright, so I wonder whether I can actually put the Ornithopod paper online because I do not own copyright of the 40+ images I extracted from The Dinosauria. So I'm wondering whether I should go for it.

Comments, criticism or advice?

Old Four Legs

Tech Tags: coelocanth Evolution & Development Latimeria chalumnae

The BBC has just announced the discovery of only the second coelocanth to be found in Asia. Hundreds of them pop up close to the Comores and the east coast of Africa, but when the first specimen was found off the coast of Indonesia, it was found to differ from the African species, Latimeria chalumnae and named Latimeria menadoensis. I would have thought it fairly likely that this new specimen will belong to the latter species, although let's face it - any outcome is going to be an exciting discovery for science. If it's L. chalumnae then the species' range could be very much greater than researchers have ever calculated. If it's L. menadoensis then it confirms that there is a population of Asian coelocanths. And if it's neither, then that blows the mind of everyone who studies the creatures!

Must be a good week to be a coelocanth researcher, with the discovery of a mid-late Devonian coelocanth fin. I like to see lots of non-dinosaur (and non-tetrapod, and indeed non-vertebrate) palaeontology articles in the press. All fields are as active as the others, but dinosaurs, because of their popularity with children, always get the big spreads in the newspapers, and coverage in the "dead donkey" slot on the news (Mum always texts me to tell me when the 8am dinosaur story has been on Radio 2, but I'm usually heading out of the house by then).

Now as a dinosaur worker you might find it odd that I want more publicity for non-dinosaur research. Well, it's all part of trying to be taken seriously; of trying to convince a potential PhD advisor (or a current MRes supervisor who's helping you think of PhD topics) that whilst plesiosaurs or gorgonopsids or early tetrapods are very cool indeed, nothing fires up the old neurones like a massive sauropod vertebra. And that you're not just defaulting to dinosaurs because they're popular or cool. I want dinosaur palaeontology to be taken as seriously as non-dinosaur palaeontology, and I want non-dinosaur fossils to get the publicity their toothy relatives tout. Can we level the playing field a bit?

Finding coelocanths (and indeed Wollemi pines) is as palaeontologically significant as finding Triceratops alive and kicking in the middle of South Dakota. And it would be really great if the discoveries got the same level of publicity that a live dinosaur find would.