laelaps

"The Barefoot Professor", a behind-the-scenes look at the new Nature paper. Humans that had to escape from saber-toothed cats, giant hyenas, and charging mammoths did not wear Nike or Adidas sneakers. They ran barefoot, but don't feel too bad that they did not have good running shoes to help…

A calf (Bos primigenius taurus), photographed in suburban New Jersey.

A few weeks ago the first packet of edits for Written in Stone was slipped under my door. I did not know exactly what to expect. As I opened the mailing sleeve I started having flashbacks of returned elementary school writing assignments, the pages cut and bleeding from the merciless slashes of…

An osprey (Pandion haliaetus), photographed in Yellowstone National Park.

So many books, articles, and documentary films have been produced about the life of Charles Darwin that it is difficult to keep track of all the Darwiniana, but the recently-released feature film Creation is something special. It is not a straight biography, nor is it an entirely fictionalized…

A pregnant female elk (Cervus canadensis), photographed in Yellowstone National Park.

A polar bear (Ursus maritimus), playing with a plastic ring at the Bronx Zoo.

I got a nice little surprise this week. It turns out that my twitter feed (@Laelaps) was recommended by Scientific American in their latest issue. The scan I have (kindly sent to me by Anne-Marie Hodge) makes the endorsement a little difficult to see, but it simply reads; Brian Switek, science…

The view from behind Jackson Lodge in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming.

A mother mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) and her ducklings, photographed in Cape May, New Jersey.

Last weekend I attended the annual North Carolina sci-shindig (called ScienceOnline2010 this year), and it was the best iteration of the conference yet. I am still reeling from everything that happened during the three days I was there. Rather than post a session-by-session discussion of what…

A group of sanderlings flees from an incoming wave, photographed in Spring Lake, New Jersey.

A Pachycephalosaurus, photographed at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.

A ring-tailed lemur (Lemur catta), photographed at the Bronx Zoo. Who doesn't love lemurs? The strepsirrhine primates, or wet-nosed cousins of ours, are favorite documentary subjects and extremely popular zoo attractions. And, in one of those bits of zoological trivia that everyone knows,…

A stuffed Virginia opossum (Didelphis virginiana), photographed at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.

The restored lower jaw of Arcanotherium (formerly Numidotherium savagei). (From Delmer, 2009) Unlike the folks at this past weekend's ScienceOnline 2010 meeting, fossils don't come with nametags. The identification of preserved bits of ancient life relies upon careful comparison with what is…

A stuffed fox squirrel (Sciurus niger), photographed at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.

The wonderful thing about this past Saturday's ScienceOnline session on going "from blog to book" is that my co-panelists and I were able to highlight the ways in which the web is becoming increasingly important for authors. The only drawback was that there was so much to talk about that we could…

A restoration of Acrocanthosaurus, photographed at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.

A dolphin skull, photographed at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.

The skeleton of a blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus), photographed at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. (Notice the foramina, or small holes, in the upper jaw. In life these housed blood vessels that nourished the whale's baleen plates. They are also useful anatomical clues in…

If there is any problem with my upcoming panel discussion with Tom Levenson and Rebecca Skloot tomorrow morning it is that there is too much to talk about! There is no way to get to it all. In the spirit of the conference, then, we are going to let the questions of our audience guide the discussion…

A turkey vulture (Cathartes aura) landing to scavenge a deer carcass. Photographed in suburban New Jersey.

A California sea lion (Zalophus californianus), photographed at the Central Park Zoo.

I heard, but did not see, wolves when I visited Yellowstone National Park this past summer, but the Nature film team had better luck during a winter in the same park. The above clip is a portion of the footage they shot and will be featured in the upcoming documentary "Clash: Encounters of Bears…

For the third consecutive year I was surprised to find that one of my posts made it into the annual science blogging anthology The Open Laboratory. Not only was the number of submissions very high (760!), but my essays were up against some stiff competition (and I should know since I sifted through…

An Atlantic ghost crab (Ocypode quadrata), photographed at Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge, Delaware.

Restoration of the skull of Thylacoleo. From The Ancient Life History of the Earth. Thylacoleo was one strange mammal. A close relative of living koalas, kangaroos, and wombats, the largest species of Thylacoleo were lion-sized carnivores that stalked the Australian continent between 2 million…

An eastern box turtle (Terrapene carolina carolina), photographed at Cape Henlopen State Park, Delaware.

Just under three weeks. That is all the time I have left to finish my first book, Written in Stone. Although I must admit that I have had my share of "Oh crap, that paper is due today?" moments during my academic career, I am happy to say that I am fully prepared to meet my deadline for the book.…