One of the most difficult judgements that is made during an archaeological excavation never has to do with the ground: it always has to do with the sky. Is it going to rain? When is it going to rain? Are those dark clouds headed this way? Do we have 10 minutes until they get there, …
For decades, whenever ecology researchers used computer models to study how ecosystems change over time, they often assumed that the species in any given ecosystem are more-or-less fixed. The abundances of each species may change over time — and some species may even go extinct and be replaced by an existing species from another ecosystem …
Last year, I posted about a number of ‘vampire’ burials that had been uncovered throughout Europe. These included a burial of a man with an iron stake through his chest and trauma indicative of stab wounds to the heart from 15th century Bulgaria, and a female skeleton recovered from Venice dating to the 16th century who …
The hot news today is the recent PNAS publication of the results of an extensive interdisciplinary study to learn more about Incan child sacrifice. For a decade and a half, the child mummies excavated from the Andes in Argentina have captivated researchers with the high preservation, unique burial, and lack of visible cause of death. …
Apartment Therapy recently asked, “Do You Still Blog?” With the proliferation of microblogging platforms like Twitter and Instagram, this seems a relevant question to consider. The impetus to document our lives remains, but for specifically blogging Apartment Therapy offers an overview of currently popular blogging platforms, some you’ve heard of like WordPress, and some you …
I am sure this will not surprise most of you, but genetics research can be really hard. I don’t simply mean that doing genetics experiments is hard (which it can be), but interpreting the results from genetic analysis can be difficult. This post is about an interesting story involving the analysis of a a gene …
The typical, or maybe fantastical, writing set-up usually involves a desk, a chair, a clear surface, paper and pens (plural cause you’ll be burning through them), or maybe a laptop, no powercord of course, pristine. I don’t know anyone who writes like this. Most writing usually involves a cluttered desk stacked with books, papers, cups, …
Disclaimer: I refuse to believe anything I wrote below. And so should you :-) I have a confession to make. I think I may have been responsible for the demise of some very eminent scientists. Unwittingly, and unwillingly, of course. But the evidence is really quite damning, and I shudder to think what horrible deed …
Earlier today Reuters reported violent protests in India over the deaths of 21 (and counting) children poisoned by a free school meal. This tragedy is very close to home for almost every citizen in India since the mid-day meal program involves fully 10 percent of the total population, or a reported 120 million children. Could …
Lately I have been looking at tools used to teach young people how to program. That includes environments and languages like Scratch, Turtle Graphics (in Python), Alice, Greenfoot, etc. It also includes full curriculum programs like Girls Who Code, Black Girls Code and online programs through the Khan Academy and Coursera. I’m hitting a wall …
We all know that biology (along with other sciences) is becoming ever more data intensive. Biologists (among other scientists) are not terribly well prepared for this, because of a lack of computational culture, lack of computational training, and a lack of tools. What do they need to know? This question drove us in organizing a …
The Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) idea originated in Japan when a group of women decided to try and figure out some way of supporting small, local farmers. I’m a little fuzzy on the details here this morning and I’m in no mood to go down to the library in order to get my facts straight. …
The digital version of the June 24, 2013 issue of Time magazine contains a viewpoint column by Grace Wyler titled “Washington is a Gerontocracy“. The subtitle adequately conveys her central point: A 20-something can be the CEO of a billion-dollar company but can’t run for the Senate. That doesn’t make sense. Given some of her …
I was recently introduced to Tuckman’s stages of group development, and I’m having one of those how-have-I-never-seen-this-before-? moments. As far as models go, Tuckman’s does not seem particularly revolutionary. What it is, however, is universal. All different types of groups – sports team, research labs, small project teams in elementary school – go through this …