Other than the first one, (in March 2009) where I discussed the deeply awesome Dorothy Hodgkin, I've utterly failed to do anything about Ada Lovelace Day. Mostly because at least initially it tended towards the technology, engineering, and computing side, and I'm a blue-skies scientist type ( Read more... )

As usual the world has shown its knack for horrific timing. A day after the death of Caroline John who played one of the few Doctor Who companions who could match him in a battle of wits, and who I'm sure did much to inspire many women scientists (and indeed women generally) who saw that yes, you can be whatever you put your mind to even if you're ( Read more... )

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... )

When I was a lad I read every dinosaur book I could get my hands on. And this being 20+ years ago much of what I read then is now out of date. Pterosaurs are now always shown as furry, when then there were somewhat brief dismissive mentions of this "Hairy Devil" from the USSR. Sauropods have been rescued from near-certain death by suffocation from ( 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... )

Just quickly breaking radio silence to mention that "Inside Nature's Giants - The Giant Squid" will be shown on the 14th of October at 9pm on Channel 4. I don't know when it will make it over to "Foreign Parts" I'm afraid, nor if one can access Channel 4 On Demand from such places either ( Read more... )

     Conservapaedia, that bastion of idiocy got its arse handed to it when trying to pick fights with scientists over the Long Term Evolutionary Experiment . This is a multi-million generation breeding experiment involving bacteria, that turned up all sorts of interesting things, including some novel characters of the sort the average creationist ( Read more... )

When discussing the fact that Torosaurus never existed, I mentioned that something similar had happened with Iguanodon.

Iguandon is one of the world's most famous dinosaurs, and its famous for being one of the first discovered. Initially described from teeth, by Gideon Mantell, it was reconstructed first as a colossal lizard, and then as a rhino- ( Read more... )

About a month ago John Scannella and Jack Horner published an article "Torosaurus Marsh, 1891, is Triceratops Marsh, 1889 (Ceratopsidae: Chasmosaurinae): synonymy through ontogeny" in the Journal of Paleontology*

*Note. Ceratopsidae are the "horned dinosaurs", including Styracosaurus, Triceratops/Torosaurus, Chasmosaurus, and Pachyrhinosaurus to ( Read more... )

Apparently this bunch of clowns has won a Quality Badge for "Learning Outside The Classroom". Except, as noted by several people, its got a somewhat questionable attitude to science. Its a creationist zoo. You have to dig fairly deep to get to the creationist stuff, and its probably something they aren't allowed to mention too much in their school ( Read more... )