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The cosmological un-constant
Just a couple of abstract:A general line element and a general metric tensor are defined as functions of two parameters $\alpha$ and $\alpha'$. The related Einstein's field equations of a gravitational...
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Whatta weekend!
The gathering began 5 days ago. Slowly people arrived, in ones, twos, and threes, and sometimes more; from out of state, out of the country, drawn by some primal urge, some pheromonal attraction, some...
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More on Spider-Hawks
A couple of years ago, I presented a bit of an abortive post on wasps of the family Pompilidae, the spider-hawks. Despite their striking appearance and relatively high visibility, I noted, it was nigh...
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Robert Oppenheimer, Hans Bethe and the value of balance and compromise
Should you be involved in political causes and activism as a scientist? This was a question that squarely confronted many of the twentieth century's scientists, and it heralded a meld of politics and...
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So Long Paleorhinus and Pseudopalatinae
Long needed redescription of the type material of the phytosaur Parasuchus hislopi from India and a revision of the non-mystriosuchin parasuchid phytosaurs. It will take me awhile to abandon the name...
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Garden wedding aftermath
Everyone has now gone home or elsewhere; one went to Peru, one went to Turkey, one went to San Francisco, two went to Chi-town, actually several live there but these two are from Germany, so you know,...
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Electric get about
Aw, isn't it cute! This is the GEM e2, an urban electric get-about vehicle which is made by the Polaris people who make the ATVs. It does come with doors, hard or soft, and various back carry racks...
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FieldNotes: Science Notes and high school start times
One of the best days of the year for science writing is the day when the students of the UC Santa Cruz program for science writing publish their final works in a collection called Science Notes. Each...
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Scott Walker takes $250 million from the University of Wisconsin, gives it to...
Just two months ago I wrote about Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's dual attacks on his state's flagship university. Walker, who is currently running for the Republican nomination for President, is...
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Gardening advice from Consumer Reports - Not very impressive
How did TPP miss this? The Phactors do subscribe to CR, but no recall of an article on gardening, but then again TPP seldom reads gardening advice columns or articles. At any rate organizations and...
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Serpularia: A Rightly Forgotten Problematicum
I think it may be time to rock out something that hasn't been seen on this site for a while. Horns at the ready...(Credit, again, to Neil from Microecos). And I'm afraid that may just be the most...
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Gardening by-products - butterflies
The Phactors did not set out to plant a butterfly garden, and yet we did as a consequence of trying to generate season long flower color and plant diversity. A number of butterflies have always been...
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Something strange in the neighborhood
Wut happened? Universities are such nice quiet places all summer, and then bam! Something happens! It's noisy, it's crowded, it's a longer line at the coffee shop, it's hard to find parking (if you...
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A Symposium on Southern Hemisphere Bryophytes
This past January I attended the 2015 conference of the International Bryological Association in southern Chile. It was a great conference and an amazing location to visit! The symposium advertised...
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How to run a university - This is your budget (Right!).
One of the good things, a tiny silver lining to a dark cloud, of having no salary or pension that depends upon the state, or not having any budget for running your herbarium, or not having any staff to...
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How to Study: One Approach: Repetition is good
With the onset of a new semester and a new crop of students having arrived or shortly arriving at college, here are some words of advice from someone who had to learn to study the hard way...Here is an...
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Starry starry night
Here's a weather map of two typhoons that are currently forming and getting stronger in the Pacific Ocean, and a double header like this hasn't happened for about 40 years. And people think the upper...
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Five plants to save the world
In botanical circles, especially among those of us who teach about economically important plants, a lot of discussion has centered around how many plants keep us from being naked, miserable, and...
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GOP outreach to women voters
Once again Tom Tomorrow's This Modern World explains GOP voter outreach. How this gonna work?
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FieldNotes: Earthly Octopus Genome, and Elephant Tracking
Octopus Genome Reveals Secrets to Complex Intelligence by Katherine Harmon Courage at Scientific American: The elusive octopus genome has finally been untangled, which should allow scientists to...
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