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The value of long-term vision
Friend and fellow blogger David Kroll has a great profile of Bob Lefkowitz, last year's chemistry Nobel Laureate from Duke. The most striking thing for me was to read about how Duke bent over backwards...
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Comparing the Tooth Enamel Microstructure of the Pseudosuchian Revueltosaurus...
This is a new paper testing the relationships between the pseudosuchian Revueltosaurus callenderi and the hypothesized ornithischian Krzyzanowskisaurus hunti (originally Revueltosaurus hunti) utilizing...
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The semester begins when!?
TPP suffers from a day-date disconnect that only gets when complicated by holidays. Having operated on a M-F schedule for so many decades, it is hard to think in other terms, and things like dates...
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Review on N-methylation
Veteran peptide chemist Horst Kessler (TU Munich) has a good review on the effects of N-methylation of peptides and proteins in a recent issue of Angewandte Chemie. N-methylation has been an...
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Garden catalogs
As soon as the Christmas season is over and you've seen the last of gift catalogs for a short while, well, until they figure out what merchandise they have left to flog off on post-holiday sales, the...
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In Mauritius, religious locations increase generosity
Several studies have found that subconsciously priming people with religious concepts can encourage them to be more altruistic.The strange thing is, this seems to work just as well on atheists. But...
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December avian visitors
Birds hang out where ever they find a combination of shelter, food, and water. This of course is a good description of our gardens from an avian perspective: shelter (including big conifers), food,...
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January 2013 Desktop Calendar
I have decided to continue with the desktop calendars for this year. Apologies for the posting delay. I moved to Davis, California at the beginning of the month and am on a quest to get some new moss...
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Lecantheae and/or Elatostemateae
Elatostema umbellatum var. majus, photographed by Michael Becker. The Elatostemateae is a tribe of plants in the Urticaceae, the family that includes the nettles (Urticaceae in general have been looked...
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Two New Temnospondyl Papers - Phylogeny of Major Clades and Suction Feeding...
Schoch, R. R. 2013. The evolution of major temnospondyl clades: an inclusive phylogenetic analysis. Journal of Systematic Palaeontology...
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Congress is killing medical research
Congress is killing medical research. The tragedy is that they don't want to, but they may do it anyway. While the ridiculous posturing about the U.S. budget deficit drags on, seemingly without end,...
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Growing some haploid ferns
Today's task is to have students start growing some haploid ferns. Your familiar ferns are diploids and they are asexual producing spores. Novices often think they have spores but really they have...
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The Shambulance: Enough Already with the Juice Cleanses
The Shambulance is an occasional series in which I try to find the truth about bogus or overhyped health products. Helping me chart a course are Steven Swoap and Daniel Lynch. Before I learned that it...
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Sustainable community - Sign me up?
What could possibly be wrong with a planned sustainable community? Why not form one with like-minded people? Well, this one is just perfect for the right kind of gun-loving paranoid conspiracy...
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The First Published Geological Map of Petrified Forest National Park
Today marks a momentious day in the geological research history of Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona. 35 years ago work began on a draft geological map of the park. Unfortunately the draft,...
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Titles in evolution
Can you spot the odd one out in today's list of titles in evolutionary biology? The category is open, though. For example, the journal Evolution insists on its titles having all-caps, which annoys me...
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How to run a university – the pseudobusiness model
Our great public university says it is a “student-centered” institution. Wonderful! No arguments from TPP. It also promotes the idea of shared governance where students, faculty, and administrators...
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Hybrid pedal electric vehicle
Oh, TPP would really like one of these little fellows - a Twike. This is a pretty clever electric vehicle that uses pedal power to charge batteries and extend your cruising range. For those of us who...
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Fractionating IQ
Near the dawn of the modern study of the mind, the great psychological pioneer Charles Spearman noticed that people who are good at one kind of mental activity tend to be good at most other good mental...
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Who's happy? Doesn't surprise me!
As virtually all gardeners can attest there is something very satisfying about working with plants. TPP knows a lot of botanists, and virtually all of them love being a botanist, although they may not...
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