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A tropical interlude
It's single digit temperatures outside (and in F degrees that's really cold), and snowy, and with a huge wind chill factor making it seem even colder, and TPP still has a flu-like substance. What's...
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CoE #78 is up
A very short edition of Carnival of Evolution is up today. A new blogger is hiding behind a pseudonym, David Hume, with two excellent posts on molecular evolution. That's the good news. The bad news is...
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In a Pufferfish's Garden
Bullseye puffer Sphoeroides annulatus, copyright Geoffrey W. Schultz.I don't know if it applies in other parts of the world, but one animal that you are guaranteed to see in the estuary here in Perth...
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Wut Happind?
Blog data is funny stuff. It always amazes me what blogs continue to generate the most traffic. The Phytophactor blog generates a modest amount of traffic, somewhere around 250,000 page reads a year....
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Book Review: Elizabeth Kolbert's "The Sixth Extinction"
Elizabeth Kolbert combines the sharp observational powers of a field biologist with the literary skill of a seasoned and thoughtful writer. In her previous book “Notes from a Field Catastrophe”, she...
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Do bananas have seeds?
A curious reader has submitted a question? So TPP will give this curious primate an answer. Yes, bananas have seeds because they are seed plants. Now you've all eaten bananas and you probably did not...
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Garden sculpture - kinetic and komfortable
Oooo! TPP has got to get himself one of these Kate Brown garden sculptures/seats. They look really cool, and at first glance it did not occur to TPP that these were anything but art. But they are...
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January 11, 1771: The Birthday of Lake Alleghe
The lake of Alleghe in the valley of Cordévole is today exactly 244 years old. The "birthday" of this lake is well known, at 7:02 in the morning of January 11, 1771 the river flowing through the valley...
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Nicolas Steno and the Origin of Fossils
In October 1666 a large shark was captured by a French fishing boat in the sea of Livorno (today Italy, at the time County of Tuscany), pulled onto the shore, the animal was beaten to death and...
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What do gardeners do when they can't garden?
When gardeners can't garden they cook. Nothing on TV but foot/basketball and old movies, so that leaves the kitchen to keep us winter gardeners amused. Even then it's been nothing too amibitious. The...
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Recently On Field of Science
January 6, 1912: Happy Birthday Continental Drift! - HG »A Flat White! Yes, please! - TPP »In a Pufferfish's Garden - CO »Book Review: Elizabeth Kolbert's "The Sixth Extinction" - CW »
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Betting with flat Earthers - Alfred Russel Wallace
Alfred Russel Wallace has always been a favorite historical figure of TPP's. He independently arrived at the idea of natural selection, much to Charles Darwin's dismay. Here is a link to an episode in...
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Research on artificially engineered flu strains expected to kill 2000 people...
2,000 deaths expected for each year of research on how to turn avian flu into a more deadly virus. That’s the estimate in a new analysis by Harvard University’s Marc Lipsitch, professor and director of...
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From Nukes to Ship disasters - how Forensic Seismology helps to understand...
On July 25, 1946 the United States detonated the first underwater nuclear weapon in history – code name “Baker” – at the Bikini Atoll. The explosion generated a gas bubble that pushed against the...
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The Rosy Birds
Violet-necked lories Eos squamata, copyright Niels Poul Dreyer.In taxonomic days of yore, it was a not uncommon practice for new genera to be baptised under the names of classical figures: gods,...
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Give your subconscious a chance to be creative
A discussion on NPR the other day gave TPP pause, yes, it was about cell phones, and similar devices, robbing you of your creativity, and it most certainly is true. Many years ago a book told a story...
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Electric mushrooms
Fungi illuminated; this is one great photo essay of mushrooms. While TPP admires these photos he's quite envious about those little LED lights. Several years ago, one of my students had a nifty idea...
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A good year for science movies
Felicity Jones and Eddie Redmayne's remarkable performances make "Theory of Everything" soar Movies about scientists get made quite rarely, so by those standards 2014 was definitely a bonanza year for...
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Is this the dawn of a golden age of private science funding?
Paul Allen is just one example of billionaires who are productively funding cutting-edge and important science (Image: Forbes)Last year, the BICEP2 experiment dropped a bombshell in the physics world...
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"Mad about Geology" - Geologizing with Darwin
"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."Chinese proverbJanuary 16, 1832 the H.M.S.Beagle, with Charles Darwin on board, arrived to the barren "Quail Island" (today Island of Santa...
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