Dinosaurs of the British Isles 03/21/2019 (originally published in the journal Fossil News) At their most basic, guidebooks to dinosaurs are spurs for the imagination. They are the breeding grounds of dreams, inspiring new generations of paleontologists and reigniting the passions of professionals and enthusiasts. To flip through their pages is to be awed by the sizes, shapes, colors, and forms that these animals took in life. So often these beautiful illustrations, whether drawn by hand, painted, or digitally generated, exist
(originally published in the journal Fossil News) At their most basic, guidebooks to dinosaurs are spurs for the imagination. They are the breeding grounds of dreams, inspiring new generations of paleontologists and reigniting the passions of professionals and enthusiasts. To flip through their pages is to be awed by the sizes, shapes, colors, and forms that these animals took in life. So often these beautiful illustrations, whether drawn by hand, painted, or digitally generated, exist
The King's New Clothes: T.rex at the American Museum of Natural History 03/08/2019 (exhibition entrance photo courtesy of the American Museum of Natural History) The king is back and looks better than ever as the American Museum of Natural History opens its newest exhibit T. rex: The Ultimate Predator. It may not be on the level of an almost complete redrawing of a dinosaur, as was the case with the change of the Iguanodon from Richard Owen's thick four footed reptile to a more svelt bi- and quadru- pedal herbivore, but the T.rex exhibit at the AMNH will certainly open your
(exhibition entrance photo courtesy of the American Museum of Natural History) The king is back and looks better than ever as the American Museum of Natural History opens its newest exhibit T. rex: The Ultimate Predator. It may not be on the level of an almost complete redrawing of a dinosaur, as was the case with the change of the Iguanodon from Richard Owen's thick four footed reptile to a more svelt bi- and quadru- pedal herbivore, but the T.rex exhibit at the AMNH will certainly open your
Baselines: 'The Death and Life of Monterey Bay' seven years later 02/27/2019 We sit in the living room, my father and I, each locked in our own minds, joined together occasionally by the program on the television – BBC’s Blue Palnet II. It is a timely accompaniment to the book “The Death and Life of Monterey Bay” by Stephen Palumbi and Carolyn Sotka, published in 2011. Palumbi is an ocean conservationist whose most recent scientific paper deals with the DNA analysis of shark fins from a US retail market - a report prepared for the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Sotka is a
We sit in the living room, my father and I, each locked in our own minds, joined together occasionally by the program on the television – BBC’s Blue Palnet II. It is a timely accompaniment to the book “The Death and Life of Monterey Bay” by Stephen Palumbi and Carolyn Sotka, published in 2011. Palumbi is an ocean conservationist whose most recent scientific paper deals with the DNA analysis of shark fins from a US retail market - a report prepared for the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Sotka is a
Review - Princeton Field Guides : Carnivores of the World 01/15/2019 I have believed for some time that there is a beauty in a Princeton field guide that transcends the level of detail and expertise that many other guides provide their users, and the Princeton Field Guides: Carnivores of the World is no exception. In fact, its publication may even set Princeton’s own personal benchmark that much higher. Each of the 250 species profiled in the book is richly illustrated, described and then explored through the subsections of ‘distribution and habitat’,
I have believed for some time that there is a beauty in a Princeton field guide that transcends the level of detail and expertise that many other guides provide their users, and the Princeton Field Guides: Carnivores of the World is no exception. In fact, its publication may even set Princeton’s own personal benchmark that much higher. Each of the 250 species profiled in the book is richly illustrated, described and then explored through the subsections of ‘distribution and habitat’,
The Year of the Fox 01/09/2019 Photo - D. Gordon E. Robertson Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported “Happy New Year.” The Chinese couple spin their stools to face me as I get even to the counter where they are sitting, so trusting, their backs always to the door. We are at the point now, just a week on from the first day of 2019, that these three words have begun to lose quite a bit of their poignancy, but not here, not with this couple. They live in a world bound by their challenges, but likewise
Photo - D. Gordon E. Robertson Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported “Happy New Year.” The Chinese couple spin their stools to face me as I get even to the counter where they are sitting, so trusting, their backs always to the door. We are at the point now, just a week on from the first day of 2019, that these three words have begun to lose quite a bit of their poignancy, but not here, not with this couple. They live in a world bound by their challenges, but likewise
Regarding Darwin's theory of Sexual Selection 11/28/2018 Writing in the book from Oxford University Press Sexual Selection, authors Marlene Zuk and Leigh W. Simmons note that the theories Charles Darwin delineated in Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex were challenging to his audience of both scientific and general readers. The authors write: “While competition among males for the right to mate with a female seemed reasonable enough to Darwin's Victorian contemporaries, virtually none of them could swallow the idea that females – of any
Writing in the book from Oxford University Press Sexual Selection, authors Marlene Zuk and Leigh W. Simmons note that the theories Charles Darwin delineated in Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex were challenging to his audience of both scientific and general readers. The authors write: “While competition among males for the right to mate with a female seemed reasonable enough to Darwin's Victorian contemporaries, virtually none of them could swallow the idea that females – of any
National Ocean Exploration Forum: All Hands On Deck 11/16/2018 Time worked in a double fold way during the 2018 National Ocean Exploration forum at the MIT Media Lab in Boston. The days passed quickly, and yet it feels like so much was achieved in those hours that clock time lost its relevancy, and instead took on the quality of both the movement of the tide and of the quick dancing steps of the shorebird. The theme of the conference was 'All Hands on Deck', and that phrase speaks to one of the most important issues facing us, for the ocean needs all of
Time worked in a double fold way during the 2018 National Ocean Exploration forum at the MIT Media Lab in Boston. The days passed quickly, and yet it feels like so much was achieved in those hours that clock time lost its relevancy, and instead took on the quality of both the movement of the tide and of the quick dancing steps of the shorebird. The theme of the conference was 'All Hands on Deck', and that phrase speaks to one of the most important issues facing us, for the ocean needs all of
A Trip to Another World 10/17/2018 The woods at Jacobsburg State Park are surprisingly quiet in spite of all the cars parked in the lot. Birds are heard but rarely seen as we walk from one environment, a deciduous forest, to another, a coniferous one. Leading us is one of the few birds we do see on this day - a white-breasted nuthatch (Sitta carolinensis). According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's All About Birds website: "White-breasted Nuthatches are birds of mature woods and woodland edges. They’re particularly
The woods at Jacobsburg State Park are surprisingly quiet in spite of all the cars parked in the lot. Birds are heard but rarely seen as we walk from one environment, a deciduous forest, to another, a coniferous one. Leading us is one of the few birds we do see on this day - a white-breasted nuthatch (Sitta carolinensis). According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's All About Birds website: "White-breasted Nuthatches are birds of mature woods and woodland edges. They’re particularly
Learning About Monocultures at SCBI 10/09/2018 A heavy mist pillows and blunts the top of the mountains outside Front Royal, Virginia. Yesterday my son and I rode the foothills of these mountains, our horses gauging their footing on the wet, muddy slopes as we let our hands sit forward on their necks, trusting them to gauge their own steps on what was, to us, unfamiliar land. We rode across the now obscured tracks of horsemen from both sides of the Civil War, as well as those of George Washington. We learned about history on that muddy
A heavy mist pillows and blunts the top of the mountains outside Front Royal, Virginia. Yesterday my son and I rode the foothills of these mountains, our horses gauging their footing on the wet, muddy slopes as we let our hands sit forward on their necks, trusting them to gauge their own steps on what was, to us, unfamiliar land. We rode across the now obscured tracks of horsemen from both sides of the Civil War, as well as those of George Washington. We learned about history on that muddy
