Council Of Europe Takes On Creationism

Tech Tags: creationism intelligent design Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly science

This could be encouraging (thanks to The Panda's Thumb for picking it up). Next Thursday the Council of Europe will vote on a resolution opposing the teaching of creationism in schools. According to Reuters it should have been voted on back in June, but it was dropped pending some rewording to remove anything that could be deemed an attack on religion. After all, "Freedom of thought, conscience and religion" is Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights, so the COE do have to make sure they're pretty neutral in their language. But apparently "evolution by natural selection" was dropped in favour of "evolution", which I'm not 100% happy about.

Anyway, I've had a quick look through the working document for the Assembly, and it really looks most impressive. I'm also intrigued by the support of Jacques Arnoult, a research scientist but also a Dominican monk, who says in the document:

I confine belief to religion, human relations, indeed intelligence, but not science. Science is a matter of reason, observation and hypothesis, theory and testing. It has its rules and its areas of application.

Well said, that man.

I wanted to highlight this as much as anything to show to my trans-Atlantic buddies that cre(a)ti(o)nism is a wolf at the door of Europe as well as America, and to show that at one of the most senior levels in the European Union we're actually trying to do something about it. That's not meant to be disparaging to your efforts - this is to rally the troops!

I'm going to print off the working document, because it looks like a really good summary of all the reasons why we should not teach creationism or intelligent design in schools, especially not in school science lessons. And it's summarised how all the constituent countries of the EU have been affected by the creationist movement.

But now I'm off to Starbucks to enjoy Free Wi-Fi Friday.

Updated Blogroll

Tech Tags: house-keeping blogroll

I have finally updated the blogroll, as I've been promising to for yonks. So you can now find the links to Apparent Dip, Bio/Rocks, Fish Feet, Make No Bones, Principles Of Parsimony, Self-Designed Student, The Dragon's Tales and Tiefes Leben.

I've also updated the links to Dinosaurs And The Bible: A Creationist's Fairy Tale and On Being A Scientist And A Woman.

And since I was on a roll, there's a link to the shop in the about me section. And some updated links: Resolve a DOI, the CNAH PDF library, Repton 3 and the funniest short dinosaur animation I have seen in ages (still makes me giggle), Weebl's Dumb Dinosaur.

I've ditched the contact form that didn't work, and replaced it with a scrambled e-mail link.

Oh yeah, and I've edited the heading banner so it matches the brand of the Ethical Palaeontologist.

Interesting Animals Meme

Tech Tags: blog meme interesting animals Teddy Diplodocus

Brian has tagged me, so here goes!

An interesting animal I had
He is still very much alive, but the only animal I have ever had has been the family corgi, Teddy, aka the Tedmeister.


We got him as a four-month-old puppy from the breeder - she couldn't breed from him as his knackers were, well, knackered. We thought he'd cry the first night for his brothers and sisters, but he settled right in. He lies on his back with his legs in the air. He has his own teddy bear (who is missing his nose after Teddy decided he preferred the noseless variety). He steals empty plastic drinks bottles from the recycling bin and prefers it if you leave the caps on as he can unscrew them with his teeth. He eats everything except marshmallow (which doesn't feel edible) and Kendal mint cake (which tastes too strong for him). He's used to greeting us on the front doorstep, but one day Mum walked him down to the station to meet us, and he was so absolutely thrilled to discover that we existed outside too!

An interesting animal I ate
I'm not very adventurous. I tend to stick to vertebrates. But in 1999 I did have frogs' legs (they taste like chicken). Elk was a new one last summer - not as rich as venison but more purple than bison. Old Orleans used to do "swamp and turf", but they always managed to run out of "swamp" (crocodile) when I tried to order it. I bet I can find somewhere in Austin to serve me alligator though.

An interesting animal in a museum
Has to be the Natural History Museum Diplodocus. Nothing else quite focusses the attention on the specimen like the surroundings of the main hall. The whole raising of the skeleton's tail (when it was determined that they must surely have carried their tails off the ground) fascinated me, and I love to spend a little time with it, imagining flesh on the bones, and how a herd of them must have looked.


An interesting thing I did with or to an animal
I've dissected a sharp-tailed grouse. It was while I was working at the Mammoth Site. Couldn't bear to dissect the coyote (which is STILL in the freezer!) because it looked too much like Teddy, on its back. I might find some photos of it for your viewing pleasure.

An interesting animal in its natural habitat
Glow-worms are amazing. I have only ever seen them in the garden at the AYH in New York. Some friends and I sat out and watched them. Bioluminescence rocks.

Okay. Tag time. Chris works on arachnids, so I'm pretty sure he can come up with really cool answers. Amanda - consider this your palaeo-blog baptism of fire. LH, I'd like to know your thoughts too! Will can have this too, and finally (because it's not like he has lecturing or talk-preparing to do or anything...) Matt.

Cool Organism Thursday #8

Tech Tags: Cool Organism Thursdays estuarine crocodile Crocodylus porosus Steve Irwin translocation

Crikey! It's that time again. And yes, I'm going with my favourite tiny portion of only one of many phyla (Platyhelminthes, your time will come...). Today I'm most impressed by the new paper out at PLoS ONE: Satellite tracking reveals long distance coastal travel and homing by translocated estuarine crocodiles, Crocodylus porosus. I was initially drawn to it by Bora, who mentioned that it was Steve Irwin's final paper. I haven't successfully downloaded the PDF yet (I do like a nice collection of PDFs...), but the full text and diagrams are online.

The estuarine or saltwater crocodile is the largest of all living diapsids and (according to the paper) the most dangerous. It has the widest geographical range of any crocodylian. The authors fixed satellite trackers (presumably with the help of the Crocodile Hunter) to each of the three crocodiles they captured, and then translocated them, a bit like a giant reptilian pigeon race. They dropped them 56, 99 and 411 km from their capture locations (I presume the final one was for "Let's see how far this bad boy really can travel" reasons as it's over four times the distance). And they all came back! More or less following the coast round. All the maps are on the website. It's brilliant.

If an estuarine crocodile can travel distances like that, perhaps plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs did the same. And it's clear that these crocs have amazing navigational skills, perhaps similar to those of pigeons? How awesome is this for palaeoecological studies of our extinct archosaurian friends!

Presenting The Ethical Palaeontologist Shop

Tech Tags: CafePress online store Don't Be A Dick

A few weeks ago, I posted about the proposed code of ethics for scientists, and there was a brief discussion about putting the new slogan on a t-shirt. Well... I've done it!

You can access the shop at CafePress. I've only put up a few items so far, and I've got to get Paul's alternative code sorted (would you like it on the back of the shirts for $3 extra?), but it's okay so far. Not bad for half an hour's work on the work computer at the end of the day!

Do check out Trilobite Clothing and the Dinochick Store too, because they've been established far longer than I have and their stuff is really cool.

Words. Fail. Me.

Tech Tags: The View flat Earth evolution stupid ignorant women America is going to the dogs

Thank you to the Vert Paleo Mailing List for reporting this one. I feel intense embarrassment for my American friends. I am not surprised, just very very disappointed.

The River Ankh

Tech Tags: Ankh-Morpork Cambridge River Cam macrophages but will it kill the lampreys

While I'm sure there are some Terry Pratchett fans who think that the city of Ankh-Morpork is based on Bristol, London, Prague, Edinburgh etc, there has never been any doubt in my mind that Ankh-Morpork is Cambridge. Cambridge University is Unseen University. We had professors with odd titles, a bursar who could have done with more dried frog pills, librarians whose cooperation I'm sure could have been bought with bananas and a senior wrangler. Garrett Hostel Lane must have inspired The Shades.

And the River Cam IS the River Ankh. Readers who remember how Gaspode the Wonder Dog was chucked into the Ankh in a sack weighted down with bricks, only for him to be able to crawl out of the bag and walk to the riverbank may chuckle at this. It looked seriously nasty. Despite me managing to cram my ample arse into a cox's seat for a term, I fortunately never went in the river (the joys of coxing an eight that never wins...). I never wanted to.

So I didn't quite know what to think when I saw the BBC news - River Cam bugs to beat infection. The Cam is lethal even to bacteria. I just sent the article to Paul. His verdict: "brilliant and terrifying in equal measure". I expect to see patients from Addenbrookes being ferried to the Backs and chucked in the river to cure them of their superbugs.

Young Science Writers

Tech Tags: Colin Barras Telegraph Science Writer Award science communication echinoids

Just wanted to point you in the direction of some excellent science writing in today's Daily Telegraph by Colin Barras. Colin came second in this year's Telegraph Science Writer awards. You can also read some of his work on the BBC website here and here.

I'm delighted to see him doing so well. Many years ago we were founder members of the London Evolutionary Research Network, while I was doing my MRes in Biosystematics and he was doing a PhD on echinoids. Doctorate in hand Colin went on to do a MSc in Science Communication. It looks fascinating, and but for the fact that I really have enough masters degrees and far too many debts to consider another self-funded degree, I'd be tempted to do it myself in a few years' time. I'm certainly considering having a stab at the Science Writer award myself next year, before I'm too old to be considered a "young scientist" *sob*.

I'm so glad we're getting more qualified scientists in the business of science communication, and for my part I'm particularly happy that Colin, a palaeontologist, has chosen to go down that route. I am 100% confident that the word "boffin" or "dino-detective" will never appear in any article of his. I know I've moaned and complained about the poor quality of palaeontological press coverage, but when the people writing the stories may be more used to sensational gossip columns, overuse of exclamation marks and annotating photos of scantily-clad women we can't expect miracles. What we should expect is clear reporting, scientific accuracy and a style of writing that makes the news accessible, informative and memorable.

Good on you Colin - I hope to see sea urchins feature more prominently in the pages of the broadsheets.

Monday Lunchtime Whinge

Tech Tags: whinge grad student part-time study self-pity

All grad students are pessimistic - I have never met a grad student who couldn't be persuaded to complain with gentle prompting or addition of alcohol. So you should expect the odd whinge from me. Today is whinge day. It's not helped by the fact that my nasopharyngitis has morphed into a stinking cough, and my co-workers must be fed up with me trying to clear gunk from my lungs.

Anyway.

How on earth do part-time grad students manage it? How do I stand any chance of doing any work whatsoever? I know plenty of people who hold down part-time jobs while they are students, or who can easily do an undergrad degree while working, but when I was an undergrad I had evenings free. When I was a full-time grad student I felt guilty for taking an hour off to watch "24" once a week.

If I'd wanted to go to a conference, when I was a full-time student, I could. If I needed to visit a collection somewhere, I could. Now, I can't actually go to see any specimens until 1 January 2008 because I have no annual leave left. Not so much as an afternoon free. And from past experience there is no way the NHM will allow access after 6pm or at weekends to the collections. I would expect all other big institutions to feel the same way. Maybe negotiating to take unpaid leave is the answer, although as I'm forking out £200 a month on tuition fees I don't know if I can afford to.

It sucks because I feel as though I'm missing out when I can't go to conferences. Especially when my fully-funded full-time friends say "Oh you should come, it'll be so much fun". No I can't come. Yes, I am aware it will be fun. Yes, I'd love to see Uppsala in December, but sorry, no can do. And I will miss my friends.

At some point in the next few years I have to fit in visits to Germany, China, numerous museums in the USA (thankfully most of them are Eastern Seaboard) and God knows where else. I might be limited to 2-D data just because that is all I'll have time to collect. I could photograph a specimen per day, but I'd need Paul to be my own personal Igor and heft bones for me. And the poor lamb wouldn't even touch Cetiosauriscus when it was sitting on the shelf in the sub-basement in case it spontaneously disintegrated. It took me three weeks to photograph, measure and describe Cetiosauriscus. If I don't describe it, I can probably do one specimen in a couple of days, but I don't know - I've never tried speed-data.

I've just about got over my feelings of inadequacy over having to be self-funded (a sharp talking-to from Darren Naish and Dave Hone did the trick). I funded my masters. My dad paid my undergrad tuition fees because he felt it was only fair as I was being charged them because of his income, but I relied on my student loan. The debts I acquired are mine and mine alone, and I am paying them back. On good days, I sit back and feel incredibly proud of myself for getting this far on my own money. On bad days I wonder what the point is, because I'm still a secretary, and I could have done that if I'd left school at 16 with a handful of GCSEs. Sadly, winning the lottery is still featuring in the grand plan. £50k would do the trick - pay off all the debts we have and leave us with a decent deposit on a house. I wouldn't turn down the £4.6million jackpot of course, but I'm just saying my expectations aren't very high...

So my main gripe is that I'm having issues with the work-study balance. We have a one-bedroom flat - the desk is in the lounge and it gets used so infrequently that I'm contemplating removing it and replacing it with shelves. I seriously cannot work in the bedroom. No. Just no. And while I could set up in the kitchen and type, the proximity to the kettle is too much of a temptation. So I think I'm going to have to join the local library. I'm also going to apply to join the Geological Society of London. Mainly because it's five minutes' walk from where I work, it has a well-stocked library with some palaeontological journals, and I noticed a wi-fi box when I went to a talk last week. It's easier than getting to Birkbeck or UCL immediately after work. And since it's impossible to study at my desk during my lunch hour (I have been mid-bite of a sandwich and had things thrust towards me) I have no choice but to get out of the office if I want to study.

One of the other Birkbeck students said during her presentation about student life that "Life gets in the way". I knew it would be like this, but I didn't think life would have already got in the way not six months into my course. But on the plus side, I have an institution to put on my SVP name badge, a swanky student discount card and business cards that say "graduate student".

Fluorosis

Tech Tags: fluorosis bone cancer Laki fissures dinosaurs Yellowstone

I was watching Supervolcano: The Truth About Yellowstone (I've felt so ill today I've flicked between Discovery and NASN and haven't moved from the couch in six hours). The narrator was telling us about the doom and gloom set to befall the USA should the Yellowstone supervolcano erupt. And they cited fluorine gas as a potential hazard. We had a description of the victims of the Laki Fissure eruption in Iceland - of people with spiny growths on their ribs and limbs. And an archaeological excavation revealed these growths to be fluorosis caused by fluorine gas.

Those people who did not have enough un-diseased supplies of food to last them through these times of pestilence suffered great pain, their bodies became bloated, ridges, growths and bristle appeared on the rib joins, the backs of their hands, their legs, feet and joints, sometimes eight, sometimes ten were buried in a single grave.

My question to you who probably know more about these things than I do is: how would one diagnose fluorosis versus bone cancer histologically with only the osteological evidence? How do these present differently? It seems to my non-life sciences-trained brain that both can cause sclerosis and abnormal growth of bone.

And if the two are related, then hypothetically speaking, if increased incidences of bone cancer had been found in end-Cretaceous dinosaurs, could this in fact have been fluorosis caused by volcanism? I haven't done a literature search on this - I'm just churning out a wild idea...

Scary Turkey

Tech Tags: Velociraptor quill knobs AMNH Turner Makovicky Norell

It's a funny thing, the media. You say something off-the-cuff (about T. rex being as fast as a Premiership footballer, or about 500 dinosaurs...), and they take it and run with it. In this case, someone happens to have compared the Velociraptor to a turkey. The fallout thus:

TURKEYSAURUS

Daily Mirror

VELOCIRAPTOR WAS 3ft TURKEY
Jurassic Park Dinosaurs: The Truth

The Sun

VELOCIRAPTOR WAS JUST A SCARY TURKEY, SAY SCIENTISTS

Guardian

Yet for all that, the only quote common to all the articles is from Mark Norell:

If animals like Velociraptor were alive today our first impression would be that they were just very unusual looking birds.

So maybe the newspapers are just trying to pick up on the pre-Christmas hysteria that's sweeping the country - Paul and I saw yule logs in the supermarket at the weekend with BBE dates sometime in mid-November - so you can't even buy them now and save them for Christmas.

The specimen of Velociraptor mongoliensis in question is 1.5m long and probably weighed about 30kg. This is not news - palaeontologists (and anyone unfortunate to bring up the Jurassic Park films in the presence of a palaeontologist) have been saying for nearly 15 years that the Velociraptor in Jurassic Park was far too big. But we can't have Alan Grant being terrorised by a pack of ankle-nippers. May as well have set a load of corgis on him.

What is news is the presence of quill knobs on the caudal margin of the ulna. Which bone is the ulna? Hold out your arms, palms down, as though you were making wings (you can flap them a bit if you like. It won't help, but you'll amuse everyone around you). The bones of your forearm that are facing backwards - they're the ulnas. The radii are in front. So if you consider that, the caudal margin of the ulna (the backwards-facing long surface of the bone) is a good place for feathers. And because there are quill knobs we know these are pretty decent-sized feathers. Protuberances like that form on bones where ligaments and muscles attach. You can feel a big one in the centre of your shin, a couple of centimetres below your kneecap (I'm getting such a big kick out of knowing you're all flapping your arms and feeling your knees!).

On the basis of these, the authors surmise that there were 14 secondary feathers anchored along the ulna, which compares with the 12 of Archaeopteryx. The feathers have been retained in an adult specimen (going against some previous research that suggested the larger dromaeosaurs secondarily lost feathers or retained them only in juveniles - remember Dave?), and the authors propose that the feathers are retained from smaller ancestors that may have been able to fly.

Full text is available here, at least for the time being. Check out the high-resolution photograph of the bones.

Turner, A. H., P. J. Makovicky & M. A. Norell. 2007. Feather quill knobs in the dinosaur Velociraptor. Science 317: p1721. doi: 10.1126/science.1145076.

It's Just Dino-Tastic Today!

Tech Tags: bone cancer dinosaurs K-Pg extinction event ionising radiation

You wait ages for suitably dinosaurian articles to appear, and then three come along at once. As well as the Psittacosaurus study below, we've got bone cancer (or not, as the case may be), and quill knobs (more on that later).

This week's New Scientist has a deceptively simple study by Natarajan et al. (although I can't see where this paper has actually been published - am I being dumb?). Examine modern vertebrates for bone cancer. Examine end-Cretaceous dinosaurs for bone cancer. Find no statistical difference. Conclude that bone cancer was not a factor in the K-P_g (I'm learning, Jerry!) extinction event. The authors cite previous studies that show that the bone is the third most common organ for secondary cancers, after the lung and liver, so it does seem to be a reasonable proxy for the presence or absence of cancer.

So, they reproduce a table, showing that if dinosaurs developed cancer at the same rate as "reptiles" (my inverted commas, not theirs), then there is a 36% chance of finding no dinosaurs with cancer, and a 36% chance of finding one dinosaur with cancer out of the 708 bones surveyed. If they developed cancer at the same rate as birds, then there is a 71% chance of finding no dinosaurs with cancer and a 24% chance of finding one dinosaur with cancer. The odds of finding more than one dinosaur in the sample are very low indeed. Of the 708 dinosaurs surveyed, one (a malignant tumour on Edmontosaurus) was found to have cancer.

The authors say they cannot negate the null hypothesis (that the rate of cancer in dinosaurs is not higher than either rate), but they also say that if the null hypothesis had been "not lower rate" they couldn't exclude it either. So it does seem that the study is a little inconclusive. And I have some issues with the sample size, the use of human incidence and an extrapolation to the rate in "reptiles" and birds (!), and where the samples came from. I also didn't think ionising radiation was considered to be a theory for the K-P_g mass extinction. Does anyone know if the radiation is supposed to have been caused by the Chixulub meteor? If so, is it not a little redundant using specimens that existed before the impact? But I do like the idea, and I can appreciate the thought processes that went into this. I'm just not sure of the quality of the data.

Natarajan, L. C., A. L. Melott, B. M. Rothschild & L. D. Martin. 2007. Bone cancer rates in dinosaurs compared with modern vertebrates. <http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.1912v3>.

Dinosaur Nursery

Tech Tags: Psittacosaurus social behaviour Palaeontology Zhao Barrett Eberth

Didn't get this written yesterday, so I'll try to manage something coherent today. Sadly I have a stinking nasopharyngitis (how ironic, given that for the past three weeks I've eaten more fruit and veg than ever before, and seriously cut down on caffeine, alcohol and junk food - is this a sign that it was the latter three items keeping me healthy?), and really would like to be snuggled under the duvet right now.

I don't always get to read the papers, and it's very rare indeed that I manage to read the paper before reading the "boffiniferous" tabloid news articles, but the recent Psittacosaurus story was an exception. There was a picture and caption only in the Metro, and BBC News had a radio interview with PB, so I e-mailed him and asked for a reprint. Then I saw the full article on the BBC website, and the NHM press release.

Six complete Psittacosaurus youngsters were discovered in the Lower Cretaceous Yixian Formation in NE China (⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar date 123.2 ± 1.0Ma). The sediment is a volcanic mudflow or lahar, and it's associated with volcanic tuff, which can be dated radiometrically, since all the radiometric "clocks" were reset in the eruption. The juveniles are all facing in the same direction, and the authors suggest that they were all overcome by the lahar. Poor little mites, trying to run away!

It's really refreshing to see some good old thin sections of the sediment, and analysis of the clay minerals. They conclude that the burial site was significantly downslope from the volcanic centre, and the gradient was 10° or less. Then they get onto the age profile, using a technique called Developmental Mass Extrapolation, calculating the body mass from the lengths of the femur. They got ages of 2.98, 2.49, 2.11, 1.75 and 1.45 years (± 0.03-0.09). With the usual caveats for such estimations, they still show that there are approximately 1.5 years between the oldest and youngest, which implies that they were from at least two different clutches.

The authors propose that the six juveniles are the first piece of direct evidence for "post-nestling gregarious behaviour" in a basal ceratopsian - so a nursery, effectively. And it shows (along with existing evidence for parental care in Psittacosaurus) that complex social behaviour preceded the development of cranial frills and horns.

Which is an interesting conclusion. I'm looking forward to seeing how that theory complements the rest of the current thinking on ceratopsian herding/display - it seems to fit in pretty well, but I'm sometimes guilty of having the "sauropod blinkers" on, so I don't always take too much notice of non-sauropod research if it doesn't have a direct application to what I'm doing. I'm certainly not very up-to-date on basal ceratopsians, put it this way.

Zhao, Q., P. M. Barrett & D. A. Eberth. 2007. Social behaviour and mass mortality in the basal ceratopsian dinosaur Psittacosaurus (early Cretaceous, People's Republic of China). Palaeontology 50(5): 1023-1029. doi: 10.1111/j.1475-4983.2007.00709.x.

On Being A Female Science Blogger

Tech Tags: gender equality tenure or kids science bloggers women scientists

It's been picked up by a few bloggers already - the lack of science blogs written by women in TheScientist's favourite life science blog list, and in people's blogrolls. And indeed the fact that TheScientist did not pick one prominent female blogger to tell us about her favourite blogs. Thus Spake Zuska is understandably outraged. Chris at Catalogue Of Organsims has mentioned it (and I scribbled out some initial thoughts in his comments), and the other Chris at Highly Allochthonous has commented.

As I said to Chris #1, I have 4-5 female bloggers in my science blogroll, and 18-19 male bloggers (one or two are gender indet.), and three of each gender (I think) to add, once I have access to Dreamweaver again. So Probably not doing too badly - maybe seven women and 21 men? A 2:1 male:female ratio seems like pretty good odds to me. I've just done a quick tally of attendees at last month's SVPCA and there were about 30 women and 60 men. If that's representative of the science, then my blogroll is similarly representative.

But most of the women I link to have very female-centric blogrolls. They blog far more about being a female scientist. I'm guilty of this too - I can't say I've ever read a post from a male blogger bemoaning the difficulties of being a bloke in academia. Hell, I'm doing it now. Yes, we get the modifier "female" in front of our professions in a way the men don't. Do we write about being female scientists because of this, or are we labelled as female scientists because we draw attention to this fact?

Being a woman in academia is undeniably tough. It's hard being a man in academia too, but I think women have another dimension of difficulty added to their plight, through necessarily having to take some time off to give birth. It certainly seems to be a case of sacrificing children or tenure - especially in the USA (far more manageable in the UK - my director of studies had her second child while I was a student, and never let either stop her from enjoying the other). Sexual harassment of male students by female professors is almost unheard of, but harassment of female students is rife. Kudos to the women who write about it, who get it out in the open.

But there are differences between blogging about science and blogging about being a scientist. I try to do both. Chris #2 (Highly Allochthonous) does both. Most of the others I subscribe to shift the focus more onto the science and keep it less personal. But the majority of the female bloggers I subscribe to blog about being a scientist. And maybe that's why. I think to a great extent the subject matter is just not of interest to someone who wants to read about the science. To protect their jobs/family/reputation a lot of the "female scientist" (I'm really sorry for labelling - I really only mean it as a shorthand) bloggers remain anonymous, not even discussing which field they're in. Which means they can't talk about their science (a notable exception being Grrlscientist, who manages to maintain a degree of anonymity while happily blogging about science).

I reckon the blogosphere is about equally represented. Perhaps there are fewer women blogging, but I think that's down to fears about security of information. I think also many more women than men prefer to use the internet for community, so they join forums rather than start blogs. My best friend is a fiendishly good knitter (who has promised me Latvian mittens for Eurovision next year), and she reads knitting blogs. I suspect if prominent knitters were asked for their favourite blogs, said knitters would all be female, and the majority of the blogs they picked would be by women. Sure, TheScientist should bloody well have picked at least a couple of prominent women bloggers - Grrlscientist, Janet and Zuska herself would all have been worthy interviewees, on a par with the men chosen. That's a given.

But what's the definition of a science blog? One that talks about science, recent discoveries and developments in the field? Or one that is written by a scientist? If the former, then I only have one female scientist blogger in the blogroll. If the latter, I have 4-5. What do female scientists blog about, compared to male scientists? Do women and men blog equally about their kids (I doubt it)? Do men and women mention their spouses and partners in equal measure (I suspect so, although I'm the only blogger I know of whose spouse regularly comments on their blog). If you look at the ratio of science to non-science posts in male bloggers and female bloggers, are the results equal?

Depending on the results of the suggested surveys above, we may or may not have a gender bias problem. I just don't know. What do you think?

Cool Organism Thursday #7

Tech Tags: Cool Organism Thursdays platypus Ornithorhynchus anatinus things that can kill you

Well it's got to be the duck-billed platypus, hasn't it? It's got the beak and feet of a duck, the body of an otter, the tail of a beaver and the reproductive system of a reptile. And on top of that it's got poisonous claws. How can that not be cool? And it's the single greatest argument against intelligent design. There's no way any intelligence went into it. If God created it, let's just say he must have created hash and mushrooms the day before.

Quoth my husband on the way to work this morning, as I pondered what to base Cool Organism Thursday on. Darren at Tetrapod Zoology has comprehensively described the Monotremata already this month - I enjoy learning new things about the organisms I pick for COT, and this one is no exception. I had no idea the platypus hunted with its eyes and nostrils closed.


So, the platypus - Ornithorhynchus anatinus. One of the few poisonous mammals alive today - something else in Australia that can kill you. It uses its tail for fat reserves. It swims with only its front feet, using the back feet to steer. Despite having a pair of ovaries, only the left one is functional (Why? Why?). Milk is released through the pores of the skin, and it collects in grooves for the young. A platypus has ten sex chromosomes. I could go on, but as I blatantly just pulled out the best bits from the Wikipedia article, you may as well read it yourself.

The platypus - very cool.

The Famous Boneyard Five

Tech Tags: Boneyard Carnival palaeontology goodness

Gosh! The Boneyard Carnival has crossed the Atlantic for the first time today. So do accompany me on a smashing adventure through the palaeontological blogosphere, washed down with lashings and lashings of ginger pop.

First up, dinosaurs. Brian aka Laelaps is teasing us all, promising tales of tyrannosaurs. Expect much greatness from him soon. Meanwhile, Rebecca, the one and only Dinochick, is digging up Apatosaurus bones in Wyoming and being quoted in the newspapers.

Big in the news this week is the discovery of Mahakala omnogovae, and Zach at When Pigs Fly Returns and Carl at The Loom" have kindly obliged with illustrations and summaries of the discovery. Yes, Carl, it is beyond cute! For more dinosaurian eye-candy, have a look at Coherent Lighthouse for an excellent Pachyrhinosaurus mural.

Pondering Pikaia reports on the possible discovery of the origin of the Chixulub asteroid. For the mass extinction at the other end of the reign of the dinosaurs, check out The Dragon's Tales. The end-Triassic mass extinction is often forgotten, sandwiched between the very famous K-P_g extinction (as Jerry Harris said) and the Permian "Great Dying", when nearly all life became extinct, and this makes for fascinating reading. Thinking of volcanicity, although it isn't palaeontology, Chris at Highly Allochthonous has posted some awesome footage from Mount Etna.

Moving away from dinosaurs, Darren has managed to squeeze in a post between conferences about pterosaurs, complete with a brilliant painting by Mark Witton. I've left six weeks between conferences and I'm not presenting at either of them, so I don't know how Darren does it! You've already seen my take on the SVPCA conference, but Darren has also obliged (with a much clearer photo).

Leaving diapsids behind, you must check out Laelaps' The branching bush of horse evolution. The evolution of horses is one of the better documented in the fossil record, but it still very much deserves a closer look. As I've often advised with Brian's essay posts, print it off and curl up with a cup of tea to read it. Moving to the primate branch of the mammal tree, Greg Laden has summarised the recent paper on the evolution of colour. As one of many millions of Western women who have a real love of the colour pink, I have hoped that it's not just down to culture, and perhaps it isn't. And to one very special primate. Lucy, our most famous ancestor, is on tour. Mike Dunford at The Questionable Authority went to see her.

Phew. Over halfway through my list!

Scoot over to Catalogue Of Organisms, where Chris has a great description of the Rhodocrinitidae. Crinoids are one of my favourite invertebrate fossils (so easy to find in the Carboniferous limestones of North Yorkshire), and a fascinating organism to watch in motion. And he got in just before the deadline with tubular fossils. Serpulids, gastropods and hyoliths, to name but a few. Well worth a read, especially for the vertebrate palaeontologist who gets bogged down in their own clade a little too often (I'm as guilty as anyone else).

Doctor Vector is ANGRY. VERY ANGRY. Read his rant about museums to find out why. Slightly less sweary but no less effective is Laelaps' most recent sciencey post. Plenty of fossil photos and, as always, quotes from the great and the good. Brian has also talked about convergent versus parallel evolution, and the importance of admiring nature in all its forms. See, I'm making up for his modesty in previous weeks by making sure he gets five weeks' worth of posts in here. I responded to the "Grandeur" post, with the story of Hopalong Cassidy.

A newcomer to the Boneyard, but very welcome, is Fresh Brainz, with the life story of Alfred Russel Wallace. And Doctor Vector is back again pondering the ethics of selling genus names.

Something a bit light-hearted to finish. The Bayblab boys are asking what sort of student you are. Nice to know that there's nothing wrong with my late start-late night style of study. Neil at Microecos has found inspiration in an earlier post of mine, and dug out more dino-tunes for our listening pleasure. And have some lolraptors, courtesy of Secretcode.

Finally, a quick plug for the new Trilobite Clothing CafePress shop. There are some funky designs on here - I know at least one palaeontologist in upstate New York who will probably bounce in her seat, and may even squeal "woot!" when she sees everything, and I envisage myself buying a wealth of dinosaur-themed baby kit for my friends' lad.

And relax. It's a long one this week, but how do you decide between so many excellent posts? Palaeontologists are a very talented lot, you know...

Cool Organism Thursday #6

Tech Tags: Cool Organism Thursdays Colletes floralis mining bee Western Isles

Here we go again. Well, Paul is scaring the bejeezus out of me by watching "Pan's Labyrinth", so I thought I'd terrify him right back through Cool Organism Thursday.

When he was very young, Paul began his fraught relationship with bees, wasps, hornets and in fact anything yellow and black or occasionallly just buzzy. Being chased round his grandparents' garden by such a bee, his grandfather tried to calm him down. "Don't be frightened of him," he soothed. "That's my pal Jimmy Bee". And that worked. Until he was back at home several hundred miles away. And Jimmy was there. They went on holiday and Jimmy followed him. Rather than helping Paul overcome his fear of bees, the heartwarming tale of Jimmy made it even worse, because now the poor little boy was being stalked by this psychotic apid. This story alone tells you all you ever need to know about Paul's psyche.

But onto bees. The particular bee I'm thinking of is Colletes floralis, the Northern collete mining bee.



So it turns out that the little creatures have found themselves quite the ecological niche, on our very own Western Isles. I'm very ignorant of invertebrates, and I actually thought all bees were social insects. But C. floralis is solitary, burrows (rather than forming hives) and has no workers. The UKBAP defines the insect as rare, and I can see why, as they have such a specialised habitat - the marram zone, machair grasslands and sandy clay cliffs (for pictures of Barra, in the Western Isles, click here.

Anyway, burrowing bees who can thrive in some of the most remote, unforgiving landscape in Britain. Very cool. See you Jimmy.

Justified - An Afterthought

Tech Tags: Code of Ethics science justified valid

And what does "justified" mean anyway?

Ensure that research is justified and lawful

My research is legal, but is it justified? This goes back to the Not Curing Cancer? discussion. "Justified" implies there is some need for the research to be done.

I do not need to analyse the morphometric variation in sauropod vertebrae. I want to, I think it would be cool, and who knows - the techniques I use and develop may have a wider application in time. But I would have a hard time "justifying" my research, especially to a non-scientific audience.

But "valid" on the other hand, that's more like it. "Valid" means there's a gap in our understanding; it's not repeating anyone else's results (at least not without good reason). There is less judgment associated with "valid" versus "justified". Maybe I'm talking semantics here, but "justified" is an awfully strong word for work that I'm sure many students carry out "because it's there".

Update On The Ethics Code

Tech Tags: Code of Ethics science academic integrity

I should have checked the article I linked to yesterday - it's now been updated, and the code listed for your viewing pleasure:

• Act with skill and care, keep skills up to date
• Prevent corrupt practice and declare conflicts of interest
• Respect and acknowledge the work of other scientists
• Ensure that research is justified and lawful
• Minimise impacts on people, animals and the environment
• Discuss issues science raises for society
• Do not mislead; present evidence honestly

Prof Sir David King has also been quoted thus:

Place yourself in the position of a scientist who works for a tobacco company, and the company asks you to counter evidence about the health impacts of tobacco.

That scientist would be able to look at the code and say, "I can't do that".

Now maybe I'm just being naive, but I don't think the tobacco company would have any qualms about firing that scientist's ass, regardless of the code of ethics! And if they don't have any qualms about that then they won't have any qualms about hiring someone who is prepared to waive their participation in the code. I don't see that this achieves very much at all. I suspect I'll have to sign the thing (either through Birkbeck or through SVP), but in joining a college of the University of London I became incorporated into their Mission Statement, and if those points don't count as "academic freedom, intellectual integrity and equality" then I don't know what does. It'll become something else we just sign at the start of the academic year, just going through the motions.

Perhaps we could go for a pithier slogan: Don't be a dick. It sums all seven points up, it alliterates nicely, and it'll have about as much effect on scientific practice in the UK and around the world.

Upcoming Post

Tech Tags: peer review open access public science Nature Precedings

I want to write something about peer review and the accessibility of scientific research. I've been thinking about it for some time. But I'm going to hold off for just a little while longer.

Basically because of this: I had a really nice e-mail from one of the publicity/outreach people at Nature Precedings, and I want to respond to her and check if it's okay for me to quote some of the information she gave me. But she e-mailed me in and around the computer dying, bit by bit (there are a lot of people whose e-mails I downloaded but ended up not being able to respond to - patience please if this was you too!). So I need to have my new computer all set up before I can get access to my .pst folder.

All my e-mails are safe - we got a hard drive enclosure at the weekend and I took a screwdriver to the underside of my laptop/paperweight. But they're backed up onto Paul's PowerBook, and Macs don't like dealing with .pst folders. The laptop I'm using at the moment is a) running Vista (which doesn't seem to like trying to be compatible with an XP system, which is what's on my hard drive) and b) borrowed, so I can't do too much with it. Much like house-sitting for someone - it's okay to bring round some books and CDs, but rather poor form to hang pictures.

Not much to say other than that, but it keeps my post count up, and keeps you all reading. Stay tuned for Cool Organism Thursday.

Some Ethics For A Change

Tech Tags: BA Festival of Science Code of Ethics seven principles

The one thing that's really been getting on my nerves about this BA Festival of Science is that we've had all these wonderful stories but no papers and no longer articles to mention what's actually been said.

Today is no exception.

The government's Chief Scientist (I'll be honest with you, I didn't realise we had one...) is to outline "seven principles" making up a universal code of ethics. He spoke on Radio 4's Today Programme at about 7:15-ish this morning (neither clock in our bathroom is accurate, so I have to estimate on the basis of where I am in my ablutions). It will incorporate the importance of not falsifying data, of rigorously testing others' work (I can't remember if that's Kuhnian or Popperian, but I do remember my HPS class concluding that if we all spent our time trying to test and falsify our colleagues' data we'd never get any real science done), and of considering the impacts of research on society and the world as a whole.

Sadly, there's nothing online with the full details, save for this short description of the talk. It must be over by now, and perhaps there'll be something up on the DIUS website soon (sorry, it still looks like a contraceptive).

So, what do you lot all think? Would you sign up for a code of ethics? Do you think we need to have this (and Prof Sir David King did imply in his radio interview that he thought this should be a global thing, so it may affect my foreign readers) to prove to our colleagues and to the public that we're not abusing our power as scientists? Do you think the code would stop anyone contemplating falsifying their data from doing so? What if the code was made compulsory with fines levied for anyone breaking one of the principles? Do you think it's a bit patronising?

I eagerly await the publication of the proposed code. I might have more to say then, but my initial thoughts are that scientists should behave ethically but they should not be bound by a code (certainly not globally), because I think this code may impose a single ethical standpoint that is not right for all branches of science.

And now, I open this to the floor...

The Trouble With The Media

Tech Tags: Wash U Record BBC News misrepresentation of research misquote media press

I'm on my lunch break, browsing the BBC News, and I saw this post: When science and journalism collide. Yesterday, you may remember, I mentioned the research carried out by Peter Hammond on facial shape analysis in my Not Curing Cancer? post. Dr Hammond has apparently been misquoted in the media (no doubt the Sun called him a "boffin"). He's understandably upset about some of the things that have been attributed to him.

I know how he feels - I'm still living down the "only 500 dinosaurs left to be discovered" comment attributed to me in 2004. Waaaay back in 2003 I had a poster at GSA, on Estimating the completeness and congruence of the dinosaur fossil record: phylogenetic approaches. You'll see the text of the abstract. Just after the conference I gave an interview to the Wash U Record, and Dinosaur fossil record compiled, analysed was the result, albeit several months later. Now I'm pretty sure that I said that if the new discoveries merely filled the gaps and didn't push back the divergence dates for any of the clades I used, then another 500 species would probably fill up the gaps in the fossil record. And to his credit, Tony Fitzpatrick did say "there might be 500 or more yet to be discovered" (although you'll notice some parts where he quoted straight from the abstract!).

Now you and I know that all it takes is one Upper Triassic neosauropod, and the whole thing collapses, leaving palaeontologists looking for all the missing data between the Upper Triassic and the Middle Jurassic. So yeah, on the basis of pushing 800-900 genera, with the analysis as it stood back in 2003 (it's changed now, so this figure is no longer valid) putting the dinosaur fossil record at about 67% "complete", another 400-500 genera could fill the gaps. But they won't. And in fact we will never find all the dinosaurs - it just won't happen. There must have been millions - they were the dominant terrestrial animals for nearly 200 million years.

But then the BBC got hold of it, and rather than bothering to interview me, or even ask me for a couple of soundbites, they rehashed Tony's interview, quoted me only where Tony had quoted me, and then said "Up to 500 dinosaur groups may remain undiscovered... The figure of 500 may seem a lot, but this is a maximum possible value"! See what they did there? From me saying to Tony that there could be 500 or more to be discovered, the BBC translated it as no more than 500. Minimum to maximum in the space of one anonymous BBC science writer.

And after a particularly bitchy comment from Mike Keesey on the Dinosaur Mailing List followed by a couple of jokes, it died and was buried. But the BBC story occasionally gets resurrected and linked to from whatever big dinosaur story is on the front page at the time.

I can well understand Dr Hammond's frustration. Misquoting and misreporting research can damage the scientist's reputation on two sides. You lose the trust of the public (one wonders if, should I be featured on the BBC News again, readers will remember me as the nutter who thought there were only 500 dinosaurs left) - which isn't a great hardship as the majority of the public will forget who did the research, and they take the Sun as gospel anyway. But you do lose a bit of respect from your peers. I didn't say anything on the DML afterwards (what point is there in defending yourself when someone's just being sarcastic?), but it was a while before I bothered posting on there.

In an ideal world, we would be able to tell the public what we're doing ourselves, but unfortunately even when a piece of research makes it into Science or Nature, we still depend on the mass media to generate interest. I suppose being made to look like a wally is the price we have to pay for needing the press so much.

The Big Picture

Tech Tags: Cetiosauriscus Natural History Museum cuddly toy dinosaur Hopalong Cassidy

I'm catching up on blog posts from my friends, and I've just been reading Brian's post There is a grandeur in this view of life. It's a wonderful piece of writing, and Brian has written straight from the heart on this - his passion for nature in all its forms is evident (although I'm with his commenter Hasufin - lampreys still look nasty).

One sentence leapt out at me, and I thought I'd use it as a starting point:

It would be a mistake to paint all practicing scientists with such a broad brush, but the danger of becoming so objective that the melodies of songbirds and the soft rushing of streams become muted is a very real one.

Over six years ago, I spent a significant portion of the summer vacation in the sub-basement of the Natural History Museum palaeontology department, measuring and photographing the bones of Cetiosauriscus. A solid week and a half's work in, and I was getting thoroughly sick and tired of measuring vertebrae. I was bored, and I was fed up, and I was starting to wonder if this was really what I wanted to do with my life. After my lunch, I went to the museum shop and wandered around playing with the dinosaur toys. Always a fan of the benefits of retail therapy, I bought myself a little grey generic sauropod toy. I think it was supposed to be a Diplodocus - there seems to be a sort of unspoken code that Diplodocus toys have to be grey.

So, back at my desk, I plonked the toy in front of me, and instantly my mood lifted. I was reminded that I wasn't just objectively measuring bits of bone (well, technically it's ALL rock - extra brownie points if you can tell me which movie that's from), but the remains of a huge animal that once lived on the Earth, about 20 minutes up the road from my own university. The sauropod reminded me of the big picture, to see how awesome and wonderful the owner of the bones had been in her day, and to get that excitement back - the next week and a half flew by! This little cuddly toy, with all its flaws (the feet only have three toes, the tail is short even for a cetiosaur and the legs are short and stocky), snapped me out of my self-pity and gave me back the love I have for palaeontology.

My mother had already nick-named the skeleton Hopalong Cassidy, not for any cowboy references, but rather because BMNH R.3078 has a left hindlimb and a right forelimb and the idea of a two-legged sauropod hopping along tickled her (the principles of taphonomy have yet to make it to the dinner table when I visit). So the toy assumed the name too.

And ever since then, Hopalong Cassidy has sat on top of my computer monitor wherever I've worked. She serves to remind me of the big picture whenever I'm getting bogged down in details or thinking about packing in the palaeontological dream. And she scares the living daylights out of our housekeeper whenever he walks into the office because he thinks there's a big pigeon sitting on my screen.

Boneyard #5: Taking Submissions NOW

Tech Tags: Boneyard Carnival blog carnival submissions

I'm hosting Boneyard #5 on Saturday 15 September. For those of you who don't know, the Boneyard is a blog carnival covering "all things palaeo". So if your blog post is relevant to palaeontology in some form or another, send it my way!

You can submit links in one of three ways:

1. Add the link as a comment to this post, and I'll pick it up.
2. Go to my contact form, fill it in and click "submit".
3. .

I'm looking forward to seeing what you send me!

Exercise Your Right To Vote!

Tech Tags: Write Stuff short story competition Paul Anderson shameless plug nepotism my husband is great

Some of you may be aware that the hubster is an aspiring writer. If you're aware of this then you probably know that I happen to think he's really rather good. Hell, I gave him a Thinking Blogger Award for his blog Clamouring To Become Visible.

What you may not be aware of is that Paul has entered his first writing competition. He had to submit a short story, not longer than 1000 words, and he chose The Angel And The Path. I happen to think it's quite special, and it gives me shivers.

Well, my lovely readers, as thanks for me selflessly giving up a day of work to write so many blog entries for you, would you be so kind as to vote for him? He needs a bit of a boost, as he only has 5% of the votes so far!

Vote for him at the Write Stuff blog. His name is Paul Anderson - make sure you get that right because there are a couple more Pauls in the competition too. And I know with the current exchange rate the $25 Amazon voucher prize is worth about 70p, but it's the prestige, daaahling! You have until 8:00am Central Time on Wednesday 12 September (THIS Wednesday!) to vote. It's not IP-address-specific...

Thank you all very much!

Not Curing Cancer?

Tech Tags: geometric morphometrics palaeontology extended eigenshape analysis Peter Hammond facial recognition software BA Festival of Science

A certain you know who once successfully deflated the hopes of his lab by perpetually proclaiming "it's not like we're curing cancer, you know, we're not doing anything important". Way to go, mate. No, vertebrate palaeontology does not cure cancer, but it is important. It helps us to form a more complete picture of what our planet looked like through time - it's educational. It's good for the soul - it grounds us in our long and deep past, which is far more impressive than the Abrahamic Lineage. It's also fun - we are curious and inquisitive animals, and there's nothing quite like being the first organism to set eyes on the beastie in question for several million years.

The same certain you know who also told me that I shouldn't do geometric morphometrics because people would read the journal article and decide they couldn't do it because it was all computers, so my ideas would fall on deaf ears. I hope all the other readers of Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology feel a bit miffed that he accused you all of being computer-illiterate and incapable of understanding mathematics, especially since one of his students did offer to explain to the assembled masses at SVP in 2005 the Pythagorean theorem.

But I digress... Anyway, I said nuts to him and studied geometric morphometrics anyway. And my presentation at SVP in 2004 inspired Jaime Headden to write "I swear, she almost got a standing ovation" (I really don't remember - I was barely aware of my husband clapping and that was it). Since then I have noticed many more geometric morphometric studies, although I don't presume to have caused that by any means. See, palaeontologists DO like computers, especially if the programme means they don't have to learn non-Euclidean geometry (I'm not sure how many people use PAUP* without knowing the ins and outs of the algorithms it uses - I suspect the answer is "most").

So this was inspired by hearing on the news (and then seeing in every single paper) that a researcher at UCL has developed a technique for assessing possible genetic diseases on the basis of facial features. You can read the article on BBC News - Science/Nature, and Peter Hammond has just finished giving his talk at the BA Festival of Science. You can read the abstract in the supplementary programme on page 6. He doesn't mention what the technique is. I guess I will have to Wait For The Paper. I don't think this is a geometric morphometric technique, although it would certainly be straightforward (not easy, but straightforward) to make 3D images and treat them as extended eigenshapes (despite the "average faces" created, I assume Hammond still has all the input images). One would then have clusters of children with, say, Fragile X Syndrome, or Williams Syndrome, and a distribution of unaffected children. Take an undiagnosed child, scan their face and see which cluster it falls into. I appreciate that a more visual comparison piece of software is more useful to doctors (after all, in the initial stages of a diagnosis it's all about observed symptoms), but morphometric programmes can be made to have a user-friendly interface. It's just a matter of demand.

A long time ago, I subscribed to the MorphMet mailing list. I remember a report of one of the more senior researchers in the field (possibly Jim Rohlf?) had appeared as an expert witness in a murder trial. The defendant was pleading not guilty due to diminished responsibility - he claimed to have a specific serious mental illness, one of the symptoms of which is a particular deformity in the shape of the brain. The researcher was called by the defence to show, through, geometric morphometrics, that the shape of the defendant's brain was within the range expected for this disease. I believe the defendant was sent to a psychiatric hospital to receive treatment, and (as I think it was a state with the death penalty) saved from the chair. Whether or not you agree with the death penalty, that man's life was saved by geometric morphometrics.

So we can save lives with the technique. What's next? Computer programmers can do amazing things on their own, but in partnership with a scientist who says "I like this bit of software but you know what, it would be fantastic if you could get it to do this" great advances are made. Who's to say that the next palaeontologist who says "I wish Morphometrika could do X" won't unwittingly be responsible for the creation of a piece of software that, when adapted to the biomedical sector can help diagnose, treat or cure cancer?

This is speculation, but I want to say - don't dismiss a computer-based technique, and don't dismiss a scientific discipline that appears not to have any relevance in the 21st century. Exciting things are happening - almost every talk at SVPCA involved computational techniques of some sort, and only a select few palaeontologists can get away without at least a cladogram, and I'm delighted to be part of the next generation of students taking it forward.

SVPCA - The Deflowering

Tech Tags: SVPCA Glasgow I've found my arse now

Here it is at last, only a week later than I promised... I'm sorry, loyal readers. Bad blogger.

I was an SVPCA virgin. I've been to loads of SVP meetings - four in fact - but never SVPCA, even though it was on the doorstep (and I'm gutted because I'd have loved to have dinner under the Diplodocus in the Natural History Museum. In 2002 and 2003 I was in the USA. In 2004 and 2005 I didn't have any holiday left. And in 2006 I was on my way back from honeymoon and trying to find a new job. So it was all done in a very roundabout way, and it was commented on, not least by my supervisor PU.

We started off with the annual auction, where I was proud to have won (among other things), "Classification of Vertebrata: Recent and Extinct" by Hans Gadow (1898 - I love really old books for the insight they give us into what was known at that time, more on the history of palaeontology), "A Method of Illustration of Zoological Papers" by H Graham Cannon (1936), and a Jackalope, which made Brent Breithaupt (the donor of said Jackalope) very happy. You can find two wonderful photos of yours truly staring slack-jawed at the auction on the SVPCA website, although I probably didn't make much of an impression because my name isn't on the bottom.

We headed straight into talks on Wednesday, me fortified by a non-fat almond latte (buy me one of these from Starbucks if you ever want a favour) and a double espresso chaser. Highlights of the day were Per Ahlberg's talk on the pectoral fin of Panderichthys (with the ever-cool CT scan animations), and Leslie Noè's presentation on the Leeds Collection (of which Cetiosauriscus is a member - fascinating to see Leeds' correspondence, and I think I shall celebrate Cetiosauriscus' birthday on 21 February each year now), and although I had seen Marc Jones give a similar talk at LERN a few months ago, I never tire of seeing his rhynchocephalian morphometrics in action.

Then we were herded onto the Clockwork Orange. This was something of a novelty for the London-based palaeontologists, who looked altogether too happy to be on the Subway...



We were very hungry after the Lord Provost's reception (although the wine was good), and Marc redeemed himself for the Great Tapas Bar Incident of 2003 (buy me a beer sometime or pester me relentlessly in my comments and I'll fill you in) by finding a great tapas bar for us to eat in.



The second session on Thursday was diverse, including great presentations from Paul Barrett on Mesozoic dinosaur diversity and Nizar Ibrahim on North African dinosaurs. But the show-stopper came from Vincent Fernandez, who performed the most amazing 3D imaging of embryos - if my memory serves me there was applause as he stripped away the substrate to reveal the egg's tiny occupant.

It was theropod, theropod, theropod, not-theropod, theropod after lunch (the second of those being my first opportunity to see Darren Naish of Tetrapod Zoology in action), followed by a discussion on what to do in 2009 when SVP comes to Blighty. I was knackered, and not a fan of whisky, so I skipped the evening activities and went back to the in-laws for food and sleep.

Refreshed by a good night's sleep and more coffee, I was ready for Friday's talks. I was really excited to see Neffra Matthews' presentation, and I'm wondering whether photogrammetry is perhaps a less expensive way of getting 3D data than a 3D digitiser. It would certainly be easier to photograph a sauropod femur than to try to digitise it. Hot on her heels was Brent Breithaupt, discussing family groups present in footprints - this was the research we saw a snapshot of in the BBC's "My Pet Dinosaur". Paul Upchurch ate humble pie (but only for a second or two) over Euhelopus and Richard Butler discussed the plant-dinosaur database he's been constructing for his postdoc.

After lunch I decided to give the talks a miss and head to the Hunterian Museum to geek out.



I think my favourite exhibit of all had to be the Dicynodon. The coolest trace fossil ever - a mould of "a curious hole" in a lump of New Red Sandstone!



I came back in time for the final session, and for Jeff Liston, he who organised the whole gig, to show us Leedsichthys in all its glory:



We assembled for dinner at the Arisaig. I was accompanied by the hubster and his brother, who did well to avoid the all-seeing camera of Richard Forrest (just look at the Galleries!). One of the French students foolishly asked Paul what haggis was made of, and Paul foolishly told her exactly what it was. His accent must have been almost inpenetrable for her, but she definitely understood what offal was!



We decamped when they shut the restaurant to the Living Room next door but one, and stayed there until they shut. I think the party then continued at the halls of residence. I reckon Paul will be up for a city break in Dublin in a year's time. Who knows, by then I might even have something to present. PU mentioned "data collection" when I went to see him this week, so that's quite promising.

I'll tell you this though - it's more tiring than SVP, going to SVPCA. At SVP you can duck in and out of talks - you pick and choose your sessions. You're also normally in the conference hotel (after a mile walk in Arizona there's no way I'm doing anything other than the conference hotel again!), so you can pop back to your room, or even sit in the hot tub between talks. It saved me a fair bit of money staying at the in-laws, but it was a long commute and added at least two hours onto my day compared to everyone else's.

But I'm buzzing and raring to go for SVP. I was delighted to have so many of my readers coming up to me and saying how much they enjoy reading The Ethical Palaeontologist. Thank you all of you for giving me a massive ego boost.

That Was The Week That Was

Tech Tags: finding my arse with both hands I'm really crap normal service may be resumed

Sorry readers. I really did mean to get the SVPCA photos up here. I need to resize them a bit (as 2MB often offends), and I want to do a good write-up.

I'm going to give Cool Organism Thursday a miss this week. I'm shattered, and don't have the effort. Why is it that after a week off work (in a non-academic role) I still have double the amount of work to do this week? I thought the whole point of handover notes was so that one's colleagues could do all the bits that needed to be finished, rather than wait for a week then have a go because I haven't done them? Needless to say there were no sweeties from me - this wasn't a holiday. I'll buy them cactus candy from SVP.

While I'm recovering, why not have a look at Laelaps? Despite starting school again, he's managed to come up with several detailed posts. His vigour is putting me to shame! I also have some new people to add to the blogroll, who've been kind enough to put me on theirs - Bio/Rocks and Tiefes Leben. I'm ashamed to say I'm having to read the latter through Google Translator, but a bit of German is good for the soul (as I'm sure my future sister-in-law will agree, as she's just started training to be a secondary school German teacher). When the computer is sorted (new computer may be imminent!) I'll be able to edit my blogroll page and put them on. If, in the meantime, you know of any really good open source web design software (something to replace Dreamweaver), please let me know. I'm looking to go as open source as I can, which means OpenOffice and Gimp. Also if you know any replacements for Adobe Illustrator or CorelDraw, I'd be really grateful if you could point me in the right direction!

Catching Up

Tech Tags: SVPCA Boneyard Carnival Thinking Blogger Award

I'm back from SVPCA to a chorus of "Did you have a nice holiday?" from my well-meaning workmates (they have no idea - I need another week off!). My computer is well and truly dead, so we'll see if I can get myself a new one by SVP. Eek. Prepare for a long-ish post (but not as long as Laelaps manages on a very regular basis!).

So what's been happening? Well, Boneyard #4 is up at When Pigs Fly Returns. It's a great one, and nice to see some of Laelaps' posts in (he's too modest for his own good!). Must stress, at least until Zach can change it, that it's my husband's uncle's blog he's linked to, not my husband's - Paul wants me to reiterate that there's no way he looks that old...

I'm hosting it on 15 September, so send me anything you want to go in, or you can e-mail me - will get a proper mailto sorted (Paul's got a cool anti-spam job, and I want the same), but for now send it to "julia" at this domain. I'm already collecting some fine specimens.

A very pleasant surprise while I was at SVPCA was to be nominated for a Thinking Blogger Award by Chris of Catalogue Of Organisms. Thank you very much Chris - I have learned more about spiders in the couple of months I've subscribed to his blog than I ever knew before. As is the law, I must nominate five blogs that make me think, so...

1. Ask Doctor Vector
I first met Matt Wedel at SVP in 2003, when I'd just given my talk on Cetiosauriscus. Really liked his recent post on discovering one's Cope-Marsh number.

2. Clamouring To Become Visible
It's not nepotism if the blogger's work would blow you away even if you weren't married to him. Paul is my husband, and an aspiring writer. I think his fiction is brilliant (if a little disturbing), but he always makes me think (even if sometimes it's "should I be scared by this story?"). His recent short story The Angel And The Path nearly made me cry.

3. Atheist Perspective
I'm not brave enough to have formed the conclusion that there is definitely no God. But nonetheless I thoroughly enjoy reading Michael's blog, and he always manages to pick out ways that supposedly religious people shoot themselves in the foot.

4. Highly Allochthonous
Chris picks up where I and my palaeontological buddies freak out at the sign of an igneous rock. He and I did geology at Cambridge together, although he was in the year group above me. Although my abiding memory of him is stuffed Pokemon toys flying round the library during exam term, I find most inspiration in his very honest tales of life as a postdoc.

5. On Being A Scientist And A Woman
I don't know ScienceWoman, and would never expect to know who she is, for that would ruin her extremely honest blog. Occasionally, some of the woman-in-academia blogs I read get very defensive and quite bitter. I'm guilty of bitterness myself. ScienceWoman takes a different approach. Somehow her writing style, and her entire mindset in fact, gets across all the various hurdles she has to overcome (how many male professors have to make sure they've expressed enough milk for their baby before they go to work?). So if you ever read this, ScienceWoman, thank you for helping me to see things differently.

Now, I deliberately left out blogs that already have Thinking Blogger Awards (or at least those who have displayed the symbol), because I want to highlight some that may not have a lot of traffic (at least of the nominating variety). But of course, you have to check out these too (already recipients or honourable mentions): Laelaps, Catalogue Of Organisms (my nominator), Tetrapod Zoology (nice to meet you Darren!), Fresh Brainz, On With My Life... and Microecos.

More on SVPCA coming up, along with photos, but only when I get home. The plants have done well in my absence - not only surviving but positively flourishing. Now I know every parent wants their children to be okay if they have to go away, but I think my Asplenium scolopendrium, after a month of nothing, is taking the piss frankly by sporing AND growing new fronds.