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Still testing...
I was hoping to post the results of That Kind of Person today. When I announced the study two weeks ago, I estimated that it would take about two weeks to get enough data. For some reason, traffic on...
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Jurassic mimicry
Botanists have always known what was really in Jurassic Park: gymnosperms and ferns. But this is a pretty neat paleo-story about a Jurassic hanging fly whose wings appear to mimic Jurassic age ginkgo...
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Helpful cats
People without cats just don't know how helpful cats can be around the house. How can beds get made, clothes folded, doors closed (or opened), or shoes tied without their helpful paws being involved?...
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I say "uncle", you say "DaJiu"
Kinship terms (mother, uncle, niece, etc.) are socially important and generally learned early in acquisition. Interestingly, different languages have different sets of terms. Mandarin, for instance,...
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Crimson Tide causes trouble in Australia
You see the headline, Crimson Tide closes beaches in Australia, and you wonder how can Alabama's football team be causing trouble way 'down under'? But clearly this is what that 'Bama team is named...
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Powerball drives traffic to AbC: a Repost
Here's a post I wrote last year that I am rather proud of for two reasons. First, I think it is well written and makes the relevant points effectively. Second, it pissed off a idiot and ended up...
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The Shambulance: Copying Roger Clemens Won't Help You Lose Holiday Pounds
The Shambulance is an occasional series in which I try to find the truth about bogus or overhyped health products. With me at the wheel of the Shambulance are Steven Swoap and Daniel Lynch. The...
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Chemicals in food - Oh My!
The Phactor's opinion about the UK's Guardian online news is generally positive. However, it must be admitted that large portions always remain unread, so hard to judge the overall quality except to...
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Could the Dust Bowl return? It never left.
After watching Ken Burns’ documentary on the Dust Bowl recently broadcast on PBS, the Phactor was intending to write a blog about how easy it would be for those conditions to return, and that the...
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Friday Fabulous Flower - Royal Poinciana
It's the last day of November, and while the local weather is mild, the onset of winter always has TPP longing for the tropics a bit. So here's a fabulous bit of the tropics, and what may well be the...
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Botany and Art
Now gentle readers, the data show that among your diverse interests, the art-botany intersection is not your favorite. Well, TPP will try and try again to introduce some culture and art appreciation....
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Building Skills
Grasping the abstract models chemists use to understand what holds a molecule together — its bonding — is one of the major goals of the general chemistry course I am teaching this semester....
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John Joly tracking Oldhamia
John Joly (1857-1933) was an Irish professor of geology, trained as engineer, who made important contributions to geology, mineralogy, geophysics, tectonics, geochronology, but also optics, chemistry,...
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More leaf windows
It’s a sunny Saturday morning, and one regular chore is watering the house plants. The sunlight was hitting a nice little Haworthia, a succulent member of the lily family (although recent phylogenetic...
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November 2012 data
Wow! Just took a look at the old blog stats and November 2012 was a new record for TPP. The blog averaged about 700 page hits a day for a total of 20,746, the first month the blog traffic has ever...
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54th Carnival of Evolution is up
54th edition is up at ideonexus.com: Carnival of Evolution #54: A Walkabout Mount Improbable. And it's a super-fancy one, so don't miss it, and let everyone else know, too.
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Why I chose journalism over science
Warning: You are about to become victims of my introspection The motivation for writing this is the conversation that was spurred by a post on why doing a PhD to become a science writer is a bad idea....
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The practical value of science
I have endeavored to state the higher and more abstract arguments by which the study of physical science may be shown to be indislensable to the complete training of the human mind, but I do not wish...
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How popular is your element?
XKCD inspires many people. Now it has inspired a periodic table geek XKCD’s latest is a calendar of meaningful dates based upon how often a date is represented in English-language books since 2000....
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Biomechanical Comments about Triassic Dinosaurs from Brazil
Delcourt, R., de Azevedo, S. A. K., Grillo, O. N., and F. O. Deantoni. 2012. Biomechanical comments about Triassic dinosaurs from Brazil. Papáis Avulsos de Zoologia 52:341-347. Abstract - Triassic...
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