Category: Books • Dinosaurs • History of Science
- Michael has the scoop about a Royal Society podcast about the "true Darwin." Even during his own time Darwin's views were sometimes twisted or misrepresented, and it is certainly important to ask the question "Which Charles Darwin are we talking about?" Have a listen, and then why not pick up On the Origin of Species or The Descent of Man for a re-read? Better yet, why not check out the unfinished manuscript Natural Selection?
- May 13th marked the 176th anniversary of the death of Georges Cuvier. I didn't have time to come up with anything new, but I have written about the famed comparative anatomist before (see here and here).
- When I asked for some help determining the best way to clean a deer skull, a number of you suggested that I invest in some dermestid beetles. I ultimately chose another method, but as a new study published in the journal Ichnos shows dermestid beetles are so ancient that they previously munched on dinosaur carcasses. This isn't the first time that fossil bones have been modified by insects, either; termites from the famous Laetoli site in Tanzania may have made their mark on fossil mammal bones. (Incidentally, I don't have access to the Ichnos paper. If anyone has it and could send it to me I'd be most appreciative.)
Posted by Brian Switek at 1:44 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Cats • Mammals • Photography
Zeff, a female Amur tiger (Panthera tigris altaica), photographed this past March at the Bronx Zoo.
Posted by Brian Switek at 8:41 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Books • Shameless Plug
During the past two weeks I've read a number of books, but few of them have been as enjoyable as those written by Martin Rudwick (The Meaning of Fossils) and David Quammen (The Boilerplate Rhino). Serendipitously, there are new articles out about both authors; the History of Science Society has a biographical sketch of Rudwick honoring his reception of the Sarton Medal, and on the Montana State University website you can find an interview with Quammen.
The works of both authors have been highly inspirational and enlightening to me in my own quest to become a more professional writer, and if you haven't read anything by Rudwick or Quammen yet I certainly encourage you to do so.
[Hat-tip to Michael]
Posted by Brian Switek at 1:23 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Administrative • Books
I'm sorry to say that things with Rutgers are still a mess, but the spring semester is over and now I've got about three months to work on some of my projects. There's a lot I want to do, but most importantly I want to become a better writer and photographer. Towards that end I have set a few goals for this summer, and even though I've stated them before I thought that I would re-iterate what I want to accomplish;
- #1) Finish my book. - I haven't added anything new to my book in a long time, mostly because final exams were much more of a priority. Now that I have much more time to devote to the project, however, there's no excuse for me not to be working on it every day and I really want to have it finished by the end of the summer. In a perfect world it would come out in 2009 to fit in with the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth and the 150th of the publication of On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, but I've got a long way to go before that's a possibility (and the window gets narrower with every day). Still, I think I have something quite different from most of the books about evolution that you're likely to find in a local bookstore, a synthesis that revels in the wonder and excitement of discovering the workings of nature. I've read enough books to know what I don't want to write, and that's actually been quite useful in figuring out what I want to say.
- #2) Publish an article in a magazine - Writing a blog, writing a book, and writing an article for a magazine are all very different animals, and I would like to be accomplished at all three. I know virtually nothing about writing shorter features or support pieces, but it's definitely something I would like to do and what better time than now to learn how to do it? My first article pitch involving restorations of ancient life as "real" art (and not just kitsch) was shot down, but I'm going to keep trying. Maybe that idea will never turn into anything, but trying to push it through will at least make me more familiar with the process, perhaps allowing me to have better luck with other ideas in the future.
- #3) Publish a review paper in a peer-reviewed journal - Truth be told, I had high hopes for doing some research this summer; I wanted to study the taphonomy of long-necked birds like rheas and emus, but I don't have the money, time, or resources to undertake the sort of study I wanted to complete. Given that research seems out of the question right now, the best I can hope to produce are review papers, and I want to create a solid review of the history of discovery of hominin fossils and how those discoveries have changed perceptions about our own ancestry. I'd love for such a paper to be published in something like Evolution: Education and Outreach, but I have no idea whether my efforts will result in anything publishable or not.
- #4) Become a better photographer - I just purchased an expensive new camera so I have no excuse to neglect learning more about how to use it properly and take better photographs. I've taken some so-so photos at zoos and museums, but I definitely would like to become a more skilled photographer for reasons both personal and professional (having the ability to write well and taking excellent photographs is a potent combination). Maybe I'll always remain an amateur, but even if that's so at least I'll be creating more impressive images.
- #5) More books! - Should I accomplish goal #1, I've got a few ideas for some subsequent works that I'd like to undertake. Most of these are little more than vague ideas at the moment, but they generally involve some aspect of zoology, paleontology, or evolution (if not all three). Some of them are a little more than titles with ideas attached (i.e. "The Dolphin's Frown" about marine mammals and "The House Always Wins" about ecology), while others have more to do with specific places or figures (i.e. a history of Koobi Fora in Kenya or a book about the animals some of the great naturalists kept as pets [Linnaeus' raccoon Sjupp, Buckland's bear Tiglath-Pileser, Darwin's pigeons, etc.]). Some of the ideas are probably better suited to short articles or essays than entire books, but I'm trying to keep track of them and not let them dissipate. Even if my interests do not result in anything on paper, they all involve topics that I would like to learn more about and therefore will still provide me with more ideas.
I honestly can't say whether or not I'll accomplish any of these goals, but I certainly want to make the most of my summer. The book is undoubtedly my top priority, although I may be able to generate a few articles here and there if the opportunity presents itself. I still want to become a paleontologist and continue to educate myself, but so many people have asked me "Have you thought about becoming a writer?"* that I figured I should probably give it a try. In fact, I really would like to be a writer, but that's not the only thing I want to be.
*Technically speaking I suppose that I already am a writer, but the people who have asked that question meant "professional writer," not blogger. I write because I enjoy doing it, but if I can roll what started as a hobby into some sort of career I certainly couldn't complain.
Posted by Brian Switek at 10:55 AM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Cats • Photography
A snow leopard pair (Panthera uncia), photographed at the Bronx zoo in 2006.
I've been lucky enough to get a few halfway-decent photographs of snow leopards during my regular visits to the Bronx zoo, but they're absolute rubbish compared to the photography in the feature "Out of the Shadows" in the latest issue of National Geographic. Indeed, snow leopards are among my favorite felids and the photography by Steven Winter shows them at their best.
A snow leopard about to take a cat nap at the Bronx zoo (photographed this past March).
Posted by Brian Switek at 8:57 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Mammals • Photography
A white nosed coati (or pizote, Nasua narica), photographed last year at the Philadelphia Zoo.
Posted by Brian Switek at 7:59 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Dinosaurs • Interviews • Paleontology • Religion
As regular readers of this blog know, I have an extreme affinity for museums and always welcome the news of a long-lost specimen that was locked away in storage turning out to be something new and significant. In 2006 one such discovery occurred when Mike Taylor (seen left, holding the specimen) came across a sauropod vertebra named BMNH R2095, a fossil that would turn out to be something so entirely different that one year later it was assigned the name Xenoposeidon. Mike Taylor has done much more than bring Xenoposeidon to light, however, and I caught up with him to ask a few questions about sauropods, paleontology, and the ever controversial issue of religion vs. science.
Read on »
Posted by Brian Switek at 11:09 AM • 17 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Administrative
I just realized something; I'm not going to be able to put up the special edition of The Boneyard #20 this Saturday as planned. Being that I'll be somewhere along the shores of Delaware trying to photograph some horseshoe crabs I won't be able to see all the last-minute submissions and put them up. So, instead of putting it up on Saturday, I'm going to post the carnival on Monday. That gives everyone who wants to put in an entry a few more days to come up with something (all entires will have to be in before 10AM eastern time on Monday). I've received a few wonderful submissions so far, but I hope that they keep rolling in.
Posted by Brian Switek at 9:25 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Books
Columbia University Press is presently having it's "White Sale" until May 31, and there's a lot of good books going on sale for cheap. The "Science" section has some particularly good stuff, like Slotten's The Heretic in Darwin's Court: The Life of Alfred Russel Wallace, Agusti and Anton's Mammoths, Sabertooths, and Hominids: 65 Million Years of Mammalian Evolution in Europe, Laporte's George Gaylord Simpson: Paleontologist and Evolutionist, and even some more technical material like The Eocene-Oligocene Transition: Paradise Lost by Prothero and New Approaches to Speciation in the Fossil Record edited by Erwin and Antsey.
I already have a huge stack of books that I've been meaning to get through, but I may have to give in to temptation and pick up a few Columbia titles while they're on sale. (Just check other sources to see if you can still get a better price, though. Even though these books are on sale, you can usually get used copies for even less.)
Posted by Brian Switek at 9:07 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
