Clik here to view.
Botanical Geek Tour in Florence - Giardino dei Simplici
Chronological order is just so demanding, so let's back up a few days. Veronica (a very botanical name) works here at the villa and as a natural history student she recommended, once she discovered our...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Do all species form the same way as songbirds?
As niches are filled up by new species speciation slows down. Comes to a halt, even. This makes sense, as the niches are ways of life that organisms can have, if there are no other ways of life...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Children with a religious upbringing have difficulty telling fantasy from...
There’s a long-standing debate over whether we humans are naturally predisposed to believe in the supernatural, or whether it’s learned. Well, here’s a study that shows the importance of young...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Mathematics is a unique aspect of human thought
http://t.co/h9CCSAaER0 #IsaacAsimov about #mathematics Mathematics is a unique aspect of human thought, and its history differs in essence from all other histories.As time goes on, nearly every field...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Bread - most disappointing thing in Italy
Bread is great, and TPP has always been a big fan of it. Mrs. Phactor bakes a mean loaf of French bread for which she has some renown. The bread in Italy looks fantastic, and we've sampled a good bit...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The time the cops pulled their guns on me
This post is not about science.I'm writing this because the horrific news out of Ferguson, Missouri—the killing of an unarmed man and the subsequent assault on the populace and media—has been bringing...
View ArticleClik here to view.
To become an elite sportsperson, you need to win the genetic lottery
A review of The Sports Gene by David Epstein Winners, it is said, are not born but made. That, however, is not the whole truth, as David Epstein, an investigative reporter with Pro Publica, shows in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The 3 Dumbest Products Sold By Whole Foods Market
Whole Foods "Whole Body" products.I have a love-hate relationship with Whole Foods Market. On the one hand, I love their fresh produce, their baked goods, and many other food choices there. On the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Gelato Challenge
As a partial compensation for having dumped on Italian bread, TPP will admit that gelato is great stuff. Personal challenges can be highly motivating, so far be it for TPP to ever suggest that Mrs....
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Eater of Light
The Waitomo harvestman Forsteropsalis photophaga, from Taylor & Probert (2014).A little less than a year ago, I was contacted by a student at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, asking me...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The solar efficiency of Superman
by @ulaulaman http://t.co/WGbVdfv0nk about #Superman #physics and #solar #energy In the last saga of the JLA by Grant Morrison, World War III, Superman, leaping against the bomb inside Mageddon says:...
View ArticleClik here to view.
In vino veritas
Italy makes a whole bunch of wine, a bundle bunch, and most of it is quite good, and astoundingly quite reasonable in price. To investigate the Tuscan wine scene a bit more thoroughly, a field trip was...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Sweetest of Lips
Oblique-banded sweetlips Plectorhinchus lineatus, copyright Richard Ling.In an earlier post on this site, I referred to a fish of the family Lethrinidae being known by the name of "sweetlips". However,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Death by Vespa
The most dangerous thing in Italy other than the narrow mountain roads enclosed by rocky walls are Vespas. There are two ways to die by Vespa, at least as TPP sees it. Death of the first kind deals...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Fiat - now and days of yore
The Phactors rented a Fiat 500L diesel, and it's been an impressive car to drive, not at all what TPP expected, but then he hadn't driven a Fiat since a friend had a Spider way back in the mid-1970s...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Bryology Logo Competition
Want to combine your artistic skills and your love of bryophytes? Design the new logo for the International Association of Bryologists. Information about the logo competition is below....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Friday Fabulous Fern - A botanical resurrection
Any tourist to Florence Italy will get their fill of resurrection because of the abundance of religious-themed art. But there’s another kind of resurrection that is very common in these parts; so...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The discover of Morniel Mathaway
http://youtu.be/OoYkZyZ6XSU a radio drama by William Tenn Following Deutsch and Lockwood(1), there are two types of time paradoxes: inconsistency paradox and knowledge paradox.An example of the first...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Classic Italian botany
Here’s some historical Italian botany; an illustration by Jacopo Ligozzi on display in the Palazzo Pitti and photographed without flash in keeping with museum policy. Always impressed by how well this...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Tortoise Sorting
Indian star tortoise Geochelone elegans, copyright P. G. Palmer.As a whole group, the 'true' tortoises of the family Testudinidae are easily recognised, with a usually terrestrial habitus (though at...
View Article