Readers may have noticed that I have a bit of a thing for science communication. When its done well its beautiful to watch. Some scientists have a real flair for presentation (admittedly some don't- being an educator is hard.) But I haven't met a scientist yet who hasn't enjoyed talking to people about the research they do and why they do it.

Its ( Read more... )

Given that there's a new one, and the price of the old one has dropped a bit on the second hand market I've decided to get a used Canon EOS 5D. Its a full-frame camera, so all my lenses do what they did on the old EOS-1 film body I have, rather than having a 1.6 crop as on the cheaper bodies. Also it won't be killed by the voltages from the flash ( Read more... )

I am a massive fan of speculative zoology. I adore the whole "what if the dinosaurs hadn't died out" ideas, and like many people of my generation I owned lots of books about dinosaurs many of which were written by Dougal Dixon. Who, back in 1981 wrote "After Man: A Zoology of the Future". He also subsequently wrote "Man After Man", which is ( Read more... )

Day 23 - A YouTube Video ( Read more... )

Day 22 A Website

I've already mentioned Mike Everhart's Oceans Of Kansas website elsewhere, so I'll point you somewhere else instead.

Palaeos is one of the greatest websites I have ever found. It discusses pretty much the whole of palaeontology, covering thousands of taxa, providing primers on cladistics, morphology, biogeography, etc, etc. And ( Read more... )

A Hobby of Yours ( Read more... )

They've remade The A Team?


I'm not sure mid-air tank fights are going to save it however.

Clash of the Titans

Click to view

While they've dumped Ray Harryhausen's stop motion maquettes (could they not at least have got him to design and build the monsters and then CGI'd them?) they have at least preserved the original's penchant for getting big name actors in for ( Read more... )

Today is the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin. Best known for formulating the theory of evolution by means of Natural Selection (which explains how the peacock got its wings), less well known for coming up with the theory of Sexual Selection (which explains how the peacock got its tail), and totally ignored for explaining how coral reefs formed ( Read more... )

Was really very good, but it did confirm my personal dislike for Ricky Gervais. However the host, Robin Ince was very, very good, with his Hannah-Barbera Feynman impressions, and humorous rants about Anne Coulter, Stephen Green and all the other people who provide a reason for the "New Atheists" to be so vocal. Plus he gave a shout-out to Tycho ( Read more... )

This blog seems to have turned into a TV/Media reporting site recently. Never mind.
The Beeb have a new series out called "Fossil Detectives". Presented by Hermione Cockburn it is an 8-part series made by the OU. (So that should be a good indicator of quality.) Sadly, unlike the OU shows I remember as a child there's a distinct lack of beards, and ( Read more... )