The Ethical Palaeontologist

End Of An Era

noreply@blogger.com (Julia) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:41:00 +0000

I learned last night that Professor Barrie Rickards, expert graptolite researcher, has died at the age of 71. It was reported this morning on PaleoNet, the palaeontology listserve.

My year group affectionately named him Darth Rickards, Dark Lord of the Schist. I recall sitting in a stream section somewhere in the Howgill Fells in the summer of 1999 trying to find graptolites with my fellow geology students (and nursing the mother of all hangovers), led by an ever-enthusiastic Barrie in his huge full-length wax coat.

Barrie also taught me everything I know about palaeobotany. And I wish, I wish, I had paid more attention in his classes.

The State Of The Lecturer, 4th November

noreply@blogger.com (Julia) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:08:00 +0000

It's finally shaping up to be wintery here. Well, wintery by Soft Southern Nancy standards anyway. A chill in the air, blustery winds and crisp mornings to dry out soggy leaves.

For me, the first week of November heralds the official start of the Christmas countdown (I refuse to think about the C-word until this time). I refer, of course, to the arrival of the Starbucks Red Cups, and in particular, that nectar of the Flying Spaghetti Monster - the eggnog latte.

My first eggnog latte of the season, and I was salivating like Pavlov's dogs as I took this photo...

Today's high #1 - actually getting one of the students (who, whilst he is not wholly feckless could certainly do with having a little more in the way of feck) interested in malacology. I nearly fainted!

Today's high #2 - mentioning the word "vagina" several times in the course of my A2 class about epithelial cells and managing to not induce giggles in the teenagers. Truly I have become a biology teacher.

Today's low - buying the new Bon Jovi album on CD and then realising I had nothing to play it on, so high-tech is our home life.

Things I Learned From My Students #1: Autumn 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Julia) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:38:00 +0000

It's really uncool and old-fashioned to call it a "pen-drive" rather than a "USB".
No one born after 1991 has ever heard of "2001: A Space Odyssey".
Arsene Wenger speaks nine different languages.
There's a lot of really complicated stuff going on in "Eastenders" at the moment.
Deep questions like "How do snails have sex?" are really fascinating.
Everyone likes to look at bones and formaldehyde specimens, and even the dullest class can be rescued with "Who wants to play with a skeleton?".
The word "dinosaurs" can be spelt in a gazillion different ways, none of which are the correct ones: dinosours, danosouer, dinisours, dinosauras, dinosuars, dinosaurus, dinasours, dinosauris, dinosourse.
Charles Darwin looks an awful lot like Santa Claus.
The CSI Effect should never be underestimated.
A student who says they can get hold of some human hearts for next term's dissection class should be given a wide berth after dark.
Robert Pattinson is apparently a hunk.
A lack of forward planning on the students' part ALWAYS constitutes an emergency on my part.
Something will happen every day to surprise you. Sometimes it will be a good surprise. Sometimes it won't...
Every teenager has a Hotmail address that they're really going to regret when they go to university.
The age of 29 is considered positively Jurassic (or at least it would be if any of them knew what Jurassic meant).
You will learn more about your student at parents' evening than you will ever find out from them in class.

Hello Internet

noreply@blogger.com (Julia) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 16:25:00 +0000

Well. It's been a while, hasn't it? I have just survived my first half term in what I suspect is one of the hardest, yet most rewarding professions in existence. There must be harder jobs, but I bet there aren't too many tough jobs that are as much bloody fun as teaching.

An advantage of living pretty much next door to the college is that within 10 minutes of leaving the office, this is what I was looking at:

To my father, sister-in-law, mother-in-law, cousin, and the numerous friends I have who teach and lecture, that bad-boy margarita is for you. Cheers!

You'll have noticed that internet activity from me has been patchy to say the least. The odd strangled scream via Facebook or Twitter, the occasional e-mail to say "I'm really busy right now". And you can forget about forum, mailing list or chatroom presence. It's half-term now, which means I can relax a little. And for the first time in a while, I've felt energised to blog. I'm sorry if I've ignored your comments - if you're hoping for a response, please comment on the thread you initially posted on, and that'll bump it up for me to reply.

I think my blogging will be more sporadic now. This teaching thing is handing my arse to me on a plate, along with teacher training and my PhD (busy much??). But what has been touching is to see that my blog still gets a pretty good number of visitors each day. I'm glad it serves a purpose even with the older material.

But for now, La Senorita Margarita calls. And if any of my students are reading this, why aren't you doing your homework? Didn't I give you enough for the whole week?

Second Annual Palaeo-Bloggers Nerdgasm

noreply@blogger.com (Julia) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 10:40:00 +0000

This evening, from 6:30pm, come and meet the palaeo-bloggers in The Berkeley, opposite the Wills Memorial Building at Bristol University.

This is an opportunity for bloggers and blog groupies to meet, chat, and then whip out their Technorati ratings and see whose is biggest. There will be a special appearance by chief Ethical Palaeontologist groupie Paul Anderson, which should be exciting for all those of you who have been wondering where he's been this week.

The beer is great, the food is filling, wholesome and cheap, and the company will be exceptional. See you there!

Surviving In Britain #5: Driving

noreply@blogger.com (Julia) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 07:33:00 +0000

As I am still barely containing the panic, Paul Anderson (or Mr Julia Heathcote as he's often known at SVP) has very kindly written a final post for all you colonials on the perils of driving on British roads.

Most people coming to SVP will take public transport, but for those brave souls who intend to get a rental, the prospect of driving in the UK may appear daunting. It isn't nearly as scary as you might think. Sure, everything's on the wrong side of the road, the cars are smaller, the roads narrower and twistier, and nothing is set out on a sensible grid system, but apart from that...

Your car

Most cars in the UK are manual transmission, although you may be lucky and get an automatic. The first thing you'll notice is that the driver's seat is on the right, not the left. The gear stick will be at the driver's left hand, which may take some getting used to if you drive a manual transmission in the States. [Ed: you will also need to use the hand brake, situated behind the gear stick. Pull the hand brake up before you release the foot brake to ensure the car does not roll away.]

The car will also generally be smaller than in the US, but more fuel efficient. This is a good thing, because the price of petrol in the UK is far higher than you will be used to. 105.9 pence per litre is about the average at the moment (and it will be higher at motorway service stations), which is approximately $6 to the gallon. As well as being more fuel efficient, you will also be driving shorter distances, so hopefully this won't break the budget. Most cars take unleaded petrol, but be careful in case you get a diesel engine - you don't want to mix them up.

On the road

We drive on the left. Always on the left. Please do not forget this.

The UK equivalent of the interstate is the motorway. These are multilane fast roads, identified by an M followed by a number. Signs on the motorway are white text on a blue background. The maximum speed limit is 70mph, lower depending on conditions, roadworks etc. Junctions (offramps) are numbered and signposted.

After motorways, the UK has A roads and B roads. A roads are the major roadways, but can vary from single carriageway to multilane dual carriageways. Some A roads have more lanes than some motorways. Speed limits on A roads vary from as low as 30mph all the way up to national speed limit (this is 70mph on dual carriageways, but only 60mph on single carriageways).

Within towns, cities and built up areas, the speed limit will usually be 30mph unless otherwise marked.

Speed limit signs are black text on white circular signs with a red trim, with the exception of the national speed limit sign, which is a white circle with a black bar running diagonally from the upper right to the lower left. If you are changing from a lower speed to a higher speed, then you may only travel at the higher speed from the point of the sign. If however you are going from a higher speed to a lower speed zone then you must be travelling at the lower speed by the time you reach the sign.

Traffic signals and other road markings

The sequence of traffic lights is red for "stop", red + amber for "get ready" then green for "go". When changing back again, the sequence is green, amber, red. At pedestrian crossings, after a red light there will be a flashing amber light. You may pass through an amber light only if there are no pedestrians crossing the road at that point.

Sometimes there will be filter arrows that allow you to turn, even if the traffic light is at red. These will apply only to the turn lane, and will be marked by a green arrow that lights up in conjunction with the red light.

Please be aware that unlike in the US, it is not permitted to turn on a red signal even if there is no traffic coming.

Stop signs are few and far between in the UK. More common is the give way sign (yield). It is a red and white triangle with the point downwards, and the road marking is a double white broken line. You must yield to traffic coming from your right.

As well as traffic light pedestrian crossings, be on the lookout for "zebra crossings". These are marked by black and white lampposts with a yellow flashing light at the top, and the road will have white stripes across it. If pedestrians are standing at the crossing waiting to cross, then you must slow down and stop for them if safe to do so.

The most common road signs you will see in the UK can be found here.

Roundabouts

These are not nearly as terrifying as you might suppose. Always travel in a clockwise direction around the roundabout, and the golden rule is that if there is traffic coming from your right, you do not enter the roundabout. Only when it is clear for you to do so should you enter. Once on the roundabout, you have priority over other traffic waiting to enter.

If you wish to turn off at the first exit from a roundabout, approach it whilst signalling left, in the furthest left lane. If you wish to exit from the second exit, do not signal left until you have passed the first exit. If you wish to exit from the third exit (or any further exits) then approach the roundabout signalling right. Once on the roundabout, keep signalling right until you are approaching the exit you need. Only then should you signal left to indicate that you are about to exit.

Roundabouts vary in size from mini-roundabouts in towns, to massive multi-exit roundabouts controlling entry to motorways. Some roundabouts also use traffic lights to help regulate traffic flow.

Parking

UK towns and cities are densely populated, and as such parking is often restricted. If there are double yellow lines down the edge of the road it means you may not park there at all. Doing so risks, at a minimum, a parking fine. But in some places it may mean that your vehicle will be clamped, and possibly removed.

A single yellow line indicates that parking is restricted to certain times, which will be signposted close by.

Often there are parking bays marked - usually in conjunction with metered parking. Most towns and cities have several dedicated pay car parks - these will be signposted on road signs. Look out for a white letter P on a blue background.

Some safety reminders

It is against the law to use your mobile phone whilst driving.
Police traffic enforcement officers may stop any driver they suspect of not giving due care and attention to driving - eating, reading a map etc can all constitute failure to give due care and attention.
Wearing seatbelts is compulsory.
Please do not drink and drive. It is against the law, and it is taken very seriously by the police.

Surviving In Britain #4: Etiquette

noreply@blogger.com (Julia) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 18:41:00 +0000

Because I'm having a Week Of Doom at the moment, the wonderful Paul Anderson has agreed to guest-write this post, and probably the next one (about driving on the left hand side of the road!). He rocks.

If you know anything about the British, then you know that we are famed for politeness and good manners.

In Hollywood movies anyway. In real life we can be as crass, arrogant and rude as the next nation (the next nation is France - enough said). Here's a crash course in surviving the bewildering world of etiquette in Britain. There are whole books dedicated to this subject. This is just a taster.

Dining and Drinking

One of the delights of dining in America is the excellent service that you will receive, regardless of the eating establishment. From fine dining to fast food, service is fast, with a smile, and designed to please you. A very good reason for this is tipping. You don't dare incur the wrath of your customers, in case they don't tip, and if you are in the service industry, you need those tips to get by.

Not so in Britain. Thanks to the minimum wage, the service industry does not rely on tips. So lesson one, is that tipping is purely customary. Some restaurants may add a service charge to a table with a large party, but in general anything under 8 will not see a service charge added to your bill. At this point tipping is purely at your discretion, and a good tip is considered to be 10% of the bill. There are also no sales taxes to add on at the end, so don't worry about having to add that on when working out how to split the bill.

The downside of this of course is waiting staff may not be quite as attentive to you as you are used to. This doesn't excuse rudeness of course, but you aren't going to get quite the same level of service as you might expect in the US.

Also worth noting is that tips are generally placed in a pool and divided amongst all the staff on duty for that shift - your own particular server will not get the whole tip.

When in bars you may tip at your discretion - it is always appreciated, but again is not expected. Whilst in the US a dollar per drink is the normal rate, in the UK a couple of pounds per round is perfectly acceptable (unless the round is particularly expensive, or involves difficult drinks to mix, in which case you may consider the 10% option). [Ed: I tend not to tip in the average chain pub, but as Paul says, it is always appreciated.]

Taxis

Outside of major cities like London, it is rare to see public taxis that you can flag down in the street. Most local councils have licensed taxi ranks from which to get a cab, or you can phone a private minicab company to arrange pick up. Please, for your own safety, only travel in licensed private minicabs or from licensed taxi ranks. There have been a number of cases of unlicensed cars picking up customers, particularly lone females, and assaulting them.

Once again, it is not customary to tip your driver, but you may do so if you feel the service was particularly good.

Queuing

Note the spelling. If there's one thing the British know how to do, it is forming an orderly queue. Woe betide someone who cuts in line. You will be subjected to a chorus of tutting and repressed hostility. People may even mutter something about "bloody foreigners". The exception to this appears to be on public transport, when it is every man for themselves.

In crowded places like bars, there may appear to be no organised queuing system, but patrons have a general sense of who was there before them. Be aware of this. Often a barman will start to take an order from someone who will indicate that you were before them. Be gracious. If you truly were, then thank them. If you weren't, then say so and allow them to go before you.

Politeness

It is still considered impolite to discuss religion and politics with strangers. And no matter how much you hear a British person complain about public transport, our food, our government, or our sporting performances, we're allowed to do so because they are ours. The instant a non-Brit starts complaining, we'll close ranks. Remember, you're a visitor, so in a sense you haven't earned the right to moan yet.

Oh, and for god's sake, don't mention the war. Any of them.

Surviving In Britain #3: The Language Barrier

noreply@blogger.com (Julia) — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 11:45:00 +0000

George Bernard Shaw said that the US and UK are "two nations divided by a common language". Here's a brief guide to avoid embarrassment.

When you say "pants" you are referring to attire for the bottom half of your body. We call them "trousers". What we call "pants" are underpants. Be careful with this, especially if clothes shopping.

It should go without saying that you will be laughed at in the streets if you wear a "fanny pack". Over here, they're called "bum bags". However, you should also note that "fanny" is a word describing the female genitals and not the backside.

If someone asks if they can bum a fag off you, this is not an invitation to a homosexual act. They are merely asking if they can have a cigarette. While "fag" is a term for a gay man, even over here, it is also more commonly used to mean "cigarette".

The word "bugger" has a stronger meaning here than it seems to in the US. The verb "to bugger" means "to have anal sex with". Calling someone a "bugger" or telling someone to "bugger off" is a friendlier, softer insult than many you might come across, but be careful if you don't know the person very well.

Here, when we have "chips" we're having "fries" - they may be thick or thin cut. It is the British way to have thicker cut chips than other Europeans or Americans do. If you want what you would refer to as a "packet of chips" you want a "packet of crisps", or perhaps a "packet of tortilla chips".

Soda and pop is referred to as a "soft drink". We only use "candy" to describe boiled sweets - any other confectionery is a "sweet" or a "chocolate".

If we're in a restaurant and wanting to pay for our meal, we ask the waitress for the "bill" and not the "check". Here, a "cheque" (note the different spelling) is something you write from a "chequebook" to pay for an item. You will not be able to use your "chequebook" (or even "checkbook"!) over here.

The paved area of the road allocated for pedestrians to walk on is called the "pavement" here and not the "sidewalk". We usually refer to the "asphalt" as being "tarmac".

Oh yes, and our pints have 20oz in them...

If you have any language queries stick them in the comments and I'll try to answer them!

Surviving In Britain #2: Eating Out

noreply@blogger.com (Julia) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 21:14:00 +0000

Oh you Americans. You have both the best and the worst restaurants on the planet. You will find most of them in Britain. You have probably heard it said (or maybe said yourself) that the British only had the Empire for the cuisine (totally failing to take into account the fact that American food without the immigrant influences is pretty dire). So here is my guide to eating in the UK.

Breakfast

The fundamental unit of breakfast is the Full English Breakfast. If you have booked a Bed & Breakfast room, this will be included in your rate. Otherwise I heartily recommend finding a café or "greasy spoon" which serves breakfast. You will receive, for about £3-4, eggs (fried, sunny side up - don't even contemplate asking for them any other way because we don't know what those other ways are), sausages (not frankfurters!), bacon (real bacon with actual meat on it rather than fried fat), baked beans (these are more like the beans in "Pork 'N' Beans" than your own baked beans), fried bread (hey, don't criticise - you put syrup on your sausage), possibly fried tomatoes or mushrooms, and if you're really lucky, black pudding. Black pudding is basically a blood sausage, and you'll get a couple of slices of it. Don't knock it until you've tried it. If you're a vegetarian, just have muesli or something - the Full English is not for you. The coffee will not be brilliant, and you will certainly not get free refills from anywhere unless explicitly stated. I suggest drinking tea for the week.

Lunch and Dinner

Since you'll probably be going to the same sort of places for each meal, let's combine the two. First up - soft drinks, soda, pop, whatever you want to call them. With a few exceptions (Pizza Hut, TGI Fridays, Subway) you will rarely get free refills on soft drinks. Some restaurants will charge an extortionate amount of money for non-alcoholic drinks. If you go to a Chinese restaurant, your best deal is to have green tea, as that is usually refilled for free. If you ask for water, make it clear that you want tap water, since restaurants have to provide you with free tap water if you want it. Our water does not taste of chlorine.

Our meal portions are generally smaller than yours, and more expensive for what you get. You will not have free chips and dip while you wait for your main course, or all you can eat salad. However, what you see on the menu is what you pay. Tax is included (and this applies to all prices for any goods or merchandise). Your only additional charge will be the waiting staff's tip (more on that with etiquette). If you're on a limited budget, try Wetherspoons pubs (if you can find one). They usually have two meals for £7-8, and they're filling. Wetherspoons also have real ales on tap (you will never go back to Budweiser), and they're often under £2 a pint, which is a price I haven't seen since my student days. If you are at a nicer restaurant though, you can usually get a doggy bag for your leftovers. It never hurts to ask.

What you won't be able to get

You will not be able to get Mountain Dew or root beer. You can get Dr Pepper though. You can buy lemonade and you can buy a Milky Way chocolate bar, but they will not be what you're expecting. You will be unlikely to find iced tea. Bread does not taste sweet over here. Our cheese is delicious. We're not big on items flavoured with peanut butter, although we're increasingly seeing Reese's products available. Kebabs are what British people eat at 3am when they're drunk and have the munchies. Do not consider going into a kebab shop prior to this point.

Surviving In Britain #1: Public Transport

noreply@blogger.com (Julia) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 10:39:00 +0000

It has been an exhausting few weeks, and I'm only just into my first week of teaching at a Popular Further Education College. But I promised myself and some fellow palaeontologists that I would do a short series of posts on how to survive in the UK.

The reason for this is that SVP is coming to Bristol next week - it's the first time the conference has ever been held outside North America, and this is to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of the publication of Origin Of Species. The most popular question I've been fielding from American and Canadian friends has been sorting out our terminally bewildering public transport system, and mostly the trains.

Firstly, to prepare yourselves for travelling in the UK by train, read the guide at The Man In Seat Sixty-One. He can explain how our system works far better than I can, and to be honest I'd only be rehashing what he says. As a general rule, flexibility is inversely proportional to the cost of the ticket - if you get a very cheap ticket it is likely to only be valid on the specific train you want to book.

Monday to Friday before about 9:30am is peak travel time, and you probably won't be able to get discounted rates. Some companies also restrict travel between 4pm and 6pm as that's the afternoon commute. It is impossible for a train to sell out of tickets, but you may not be guaranteed a seat, and they really can pack you on like cattle on the way to the slaughterhouse. We used to have a lovely national railway system called British Rail, but then it all got privatised (this has made a lot of people very angry). This is why there are so many different companies, all calling their tickets different things, and with such variation on routes and prices.

However, if you're booking travel from London to Bristol, then this route is served by First Great Western from London Paddington station. You can book with non-UK credit cards, and you can collect your tickets from the self-service points at the major stations.

If you're planning on spending a week or so in London (and especially if you're planning to take buses around the city), you will find it cheaper to buy an Oyster card. This can be loaded with a weekly pass (or longer) or simply loaded with cash to pay as you go. It will save you 50p a day on a daily travel pass for whatever zones you travel in, and if you take the buses only it will cost £1 per journey rather than £2. This will make it well worth the £3 deposit you have to pay to load it.

Beware that the London Underground is not 24-hour, although it is only really shut for five hours tops overnight. We do have night buses, but they aren't frequent and unless you're a jammy sod like me and have a night bus stop at the bottom of your road, you'll have a long and increasingly sober walk from wherever the bus gets you to. Taxis are expensive, but a licensed black cab is trustworthy. We have had problems with unlicensed mini-cabs, and if you are a young woman on your own just get the black cab.

Most of the city of London is pretty safe, and applying the same common sense to London as you would to any American town or city is sensible. Don't go down dark alleys if you're on your own, don't flash your cash around or wear your very expensive DSLR round your neck, and keep alert for disturbances or fights. I personally would not go to Finsbury Park, Hoxton, Brixton or anywhere with a postcode beginning with an E alone after dark. But I have many friends who live in or near those areas who are similarly terrified of the area of London in which I live!

Coming up, eating out, the language barrier and etiquette.

Millennium Vulture

noreply@blogger.com (Julia) — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 18:50:00 +0000

This is a brief post to celebrate International Vulture Appreciation Day 2009.

Back in March of this year, I spent 10 days in northern Spain as a driver for a UCL fieldtrip. The primary focus of the fieldwork was the brilliant sedimentology, structural geology and sequence stratigraphy of the area. I was also fascinated by the botany of the region, and some of the other drivers were keen birdwatchers. I deliberately hadn't brought my SLR camera with me, and rather regretted it, as I'd probably have been able to borrow the other guys' lenses and get some better shots than this one with my digicam:

I think these are griffon vultures (Gyps fulvus). But to be honest this was as close as we got to them! What I would have loved to see was a Lammergeier (Gypaetus barbatus), known locally as a quebrantahuesos, but we never went high enough into the Pyrenees to see them. On a free morning, I visited the Eco Museum in Ainsa Castle, home to the Fundación para la Conservación del Quebrantahuesos (the site was down when I visited just now - maybe it'll come back online later), where a skeleton was on display:

I bought a cuddly quebrantahuesos (I prefer the Spanish name - it rolls off the tongue), named it Steve, and stuck it in the front of my van so the students could spot our vehicle amid the other identical ones. And because I had a fair percentage of the UCL Sci-Fi Society in my van, by the end of the week the seven-seater Renault Espace had been renamed "The Millennium Vulture". Which beats "The Vomit Comet" and "Clutch Lady's Car", its previous incarnations...

Back To School #2: Alternative Lunchbox

noreply@blogger.com (Julia) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 10:49:00 +0000

Palaeontologically correct it may not be, but I thought the use of googly eyes made this superior to the lunchbox of a few weeks ago:

The Palaeontologist At The Airport

noreply@blogger.com (Julia) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 15:58:00 +0000

Over at Ask Doctor Vector, Matt has recounted his recent experience transporting a cow shinbone through an airport. It reminded me of an incident as I was returning home from SVP last year.

I loaded my bags onto the conveyor, did my usual striptease (since almost everything I own or wear has at some point set off the metal detector), and proceeded through to collect my bags. The Homeland Security officer was looking aghast at my bag's image on the screen, running it backwards and forwards, zooming in, flicking between different views.

Until she turned to me, looking extremely confused, and said "Ma'am, do you have a dinosaur in your bag?". When I replied in the affirmative, she just let it through with no further questions.

This was the dinosaur in question. Rather makes one wonder what the officer would have done if the answer had been "No"...

Science Online - Aftermath

noreply@blogger.com (Julia) — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 16:33:00 +0000

As I said, yesterday I went to the Science Online London 2009 conference at the Royal Institution. Last year it was called Science Blogging, and the decision had been made to push the boundaries a bit further.

And it was bloomin' brilliant. The full programme is available online, and for me, the highlights were very much Blogging For Impact, Legal And Ethical Aspects Of Science Blogging and the live demo of Google Wave.

For starters, I was almost paralysed with awe as the blogging powerhouses Dr Petra and Jack Of Kent guided us through the legal and moral maze that is the blogosphere. Most of what they said would be applicable to any sort of blog, not just a science blog, but of course as it's legally sensitive information, if I told you what was discussed I would have to kill you.

Blogging For Impact swapped places with the legal talk, and the voice of Dave Munger, speaking through Second Life, boomed through the speakers - quite a religious experience. I hadn't really experienced the power of Second Life before, and found the fact that the slides advanced for us on the projector and for the Second Life "attendees" within the Second Life meeting place at the same time totally astonishing.

My dad said he realised a few years ago that he was getting old because he was starting to be bewildered by technology and fail to understand it. I feel exactly the same way about Google Wave, so I think this makes me officially old. But who knows - it might take off in such a way that in five years' time I'm using it like it's second nature. I know if, five years ago, you'd told me I would be using HTML tags seamlessly in my text I'd have laughed at you and attempted to get you to buy me a drink while you were clearly not in your right mind.

After a marathon booze-up with Chris and less than four hours' sleep the night before the conference, I didn't feel particularly perky by the time it had finished, so retreated home for a balti. By the looks of things the party continued for quite some time!

I won't be able to make it over to North Carolina for ScienceOnline 2010, but maybe given how easy it looks, I'll be able to join in via Second Life. My gratitude goes to the organisers - it was an excellent conference and the content and discussions more than made up for the surprise absence of breakfast...

Science Online - Blighty Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Julia) — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 06:42:00 +0000

Righty-ho, I'm off to the Science Online London conference in a few minutes (once I've finished my cup of tea). I'll see some of you there, but for the rest of you, follow me on Twitter for the occasional sarcastic comment and the really occasional insightful comment.

Help Me Choose More OpenLab Posts

noreply@blogger.com (Julia) — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 19:17:00 +0000

Submissions are flying in for OpenLab 2009. I could submit my own posts, but I've held off for now as I'm woefully bashful and awful at self-promotion, and I've been hoping that someone would actually think enough of my posts to submit one or two.

I was looking at the entries so far and was overjoyed to see that my post for a previous Accretionary Wedge, Back To The Jurassic, has been submitted by a very kind reader. Thank you whoever you are - you don't have to identify yourself, but just know it means an awful lot to me.

So I've wondered whether any of my other posts might be good enough to be considered, and I've come up with a list of eight that generated a fair bit of comment, got shared, reposted, retweeted etc, and that crucially weren't just a copy-and-paste job on a press-release with a pissy little one-liner comment:

If any of you agree, I'd be really grateful if you'd click on the button below and submit one or two on my behalf:

And keep reading, because I'm sure I can manage at least one more half-decent post before the end of November...

You Owe Me, Bitch

noreply@blogger.com (Julia) — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 11:18:00 +0000

My sister-in-law posted this to my Facebook profile yesterday evening.

It's from Kawaii Not, "the webcomic for cute gone bad". Which reminds me - have you hugged your gut flora today?

Sometimes Humanity Sucks

noreply@blogger.com (Julia) — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 20:11:00 +0000

The Natural History Museum isn't just the South Kensington site - its bird collection, for example, is housed north of London in Tring, Hertfordshire. Many of the non-British readers might have been unaware of this; unfortunately the thieves who broke into the collection on 24th June and stole several rare bird skins were not ignorant of this fact.

A statement from the Museum is online here. Professor Richard Lane, the Director of Science at the NHM, said:

"The birds that were stolen formed part of the nation's natural history collection, painstakingly assembled over the last 350 years. The 70 million specimens looked after by the Natural History Museum are a resource of international importance in the development of scientific knowledge. Our ornithological collections are amongst our most heavily used and are consulted by researchers throughout the world, who either visit Tring or request loans from us. The knowledge gleaned from these collections can help protect endangered species and answer questions about the biodiversity of the world around us."

In this technologically advanced age, Hertfordshire Police now have an official YouTube channel, and released this video:

I didn't know we had a National Wildlife Crime Unit, but I'm pleased they exist and are involved in the investigation. One thing is clear - this is not the sort of thing that opportunistic burglars steal. These bird skins haven't been nicked in order to fund a crack habit. To my mind (uneducated as it is in criminology) this is far more organised - stealing to order, for rich private collectors perhaps. If that is the case, then perhaps there will be more leads than one gets with the average house burglary (although as I discovered, not even the irrefutable DNA of the burglar left in our house could make up for the incompetence of Ealing Police - ask me about that sometime...). I'm sure we'll all be hoping to hear shortly that the birds have been found and the thieves caught.

Happy Left-Handers Day, Fellow Southpaws!

noreply@blogger.com (Julia) — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 08:48:00 +0000

Today, 13th August, is a cool day for me. It's my "half-birthday", meaning I am now just six short months from the big 3-0. It is also International Left-Handers Day, where (if you choose to celebrate) the 10% of us who have to exist in a right-handed world can turn the tables and designate a "Lefty Zone" (don't worry Paul, given this morning's smoothie incident you have enough trouble coping with ambidextrous and right-handed equipment, let alone stuff designed for a lefty, so consider yourself spared!).

So here's a list of everyday equipment that I have to struggle to use, use with my non-dominant hand or try to find a left-handed version:

Pens (we need quick-drying ink or a pen that will adapt to the different way a lefty has to hold a pen to see what they've written, and the nib has to be able to cope with a lefty pushing rather than pulling the pen across the page - biros saved our lives!)
Rulers (I have a left-handed ruler now, where the "0" is on the right hand side)
Scissors (using a right-handed pair makes it very difficult to see the line that needs to be cut)
Cake forks (never any point in giving me a righty cake fork because I won't use the "blade")
Kettles (the level indicator is almost always set up so the handle is on the right hand side - I've adapted to using it right-handed)
Computer mice (once upon a time there wasn't an option to swap over the buttons, or spend ages in computing classes switching the mouse to the other side of the keyboard so I learned to use it right-handed)
Microwaves (all the buttons are on the right hand side)
Can openers (thank goodness most of the plastic ones out now are ambidextrous)
Ticket barriers (I still have a fumble at the ticket barriers as I remember to swap hands or cross my left arm over my body)
Hockey sticks (despite an average of three lefty students per class my school had no lefty hockey sticks, so I played with a right-handed one and sucked badly at hockey)
Computer keyboard (the sodding number keys are always on the right hand side, making fast data entry difficult for the lefty)

However, while these things are an annoyance (and probably much more so for people who cannot use their right hand for anything - I'm at least moderately ambidextrous with some things), I wouldn't be so foolish as to expect massive design changes in things like ticket barriers and microwaves. I'm sure if it bothered me enough I could get a left-handed keyboard, and stationery and kitchen equipment is well catered for at Anything Left-Handed.

A couple of years ago I mentioned research on the LRRTM1 gene, which may go some way to explaining why three members of my family were or are left-handed (out of 10 of my grandfather's descendants plus himself). It'll be interesting to see which hand Grandpa's great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren use, and whether the world will be a little less frustrating for them to live in.

Newsflash

noreply@blogger.com (Julia) — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 19:01:00 +0000

Paul found my lost handlens. It wasn't in Norfolk after all but in our magazine rack in the living room.

Palaeontology Benefitting The World

noreply@blogger.com (Julia) — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 10:15:00 +0000

As I have frequently ranted about on here, palaeontology is often seen as a frivolous pastime of no real benefit to the rest of science, let alone the world at large. Some people feel the same way about the Space Race, teflon frying pans notwithstanding. But here's an example, in New Scientist today:

How to digitally iron out chewed-up photos
A sophisticated imaging technique used to enhance fossils and ancient engravings may soon help you erase rips and creases from old photographs, using just an ordinary flatbed scanner. Tom Malzbender of Hewlett-Packard Laboratories in Palo Alto, California, and his colleagues pioneered a method of taking scores of digital photographs of a textured object from slightly different angles to create a computer model of the object's bumps and ridges.

There you go, a technique developed in the course of palaeontological and archaeological research could be a mainstream feature of flatbed scanner software in years to come.

Back To School #1: Kit

noreply@blogger.com (Julia) — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 17:04:00 +0000

Lunchboxes ain't what they used to be. 25 years ago, when I started school, I had a plastic Peanuts lunchbox with a thermos inside. Now look at what you can buy:

And on the back is a load of NHM-sanctioned trivia:

Here's the question. Can a respectable biology lecturer at a further education college get away with having her sandwiches in this?

Survey On Women Geoscientists And Blogs

noreply@blogger.com (Julia) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 07:02:00 +0000

I'm sure I share most, if not all, the same readers as Kim at All Of My Faults Are Stress Related, but in case any have slipped through...

Kim and colleagues are running a survey to investigate how blogs and blogging might help women geoscientists. There is a full statement over at ...Stress Related, and while female and minority geoscientists are the subjects of the survey, they need a control, so as they say, anyone is welcome to participate.

The Daily Show Does Physical Anthropology

noreply@blogger.com (Julia) — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 20:25:00 +0000

Does "interesting" mean something different in a scientific field than it does in normal life?

I saw this bandied about the interwebs a bit today (thanks to everyone who posted it), and laughed and laughed. This was a segment on yesterday's Daily Show, which I was able to watch this evening.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Human's Closest Relative

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Spinal Tap Performance

Now, there was a teeny tiny bit of me that wondered if the people featured on John Oliver's interviews were actors. Well, that teeny tiny bit of me has been shut up once and for all, because here is Professor Jeffrey Schwartz of the University of Pittsburgh, and here is Professor Todd Disotell of NYU.

The disagreement itself is out of my field, and I am sure it's been extensively covered elsewhere (can't find more than rehashed press releases though). But here's something I'm wondering: there can scarcely be an educated American who has not heard of Jon Stewart and the Daily Show. Are the interviewees genuinely under the impression that they're being interviewed for a serious (i.e. non-satirical) news report, or do they know that this will be gently mocked on a late-night cable show?

And do NYU have a rule that faculty must wear an NYU polo shirt when giving television interviews, or is it a personal choice by Prof. Disotell? That's quite a nice touch.

Neither anthropologist is portrayed in a particularly flattering light, although no interviewee of John Oliver ever is. I feel as though I should be pissed off with this, not least because I rail against tabloid mockery of scientists as "boffins". But I'm not. I wonder if it's because Oliver sends himself up as an interviewer too.

Exposure To Science In Magazines

noreply@blogger.com (Julia) — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 15:15:00 +0000

Just under two weeks ago, I posted about a quiz testing the science knowledge of the average American, with results broken down by demographic. I noted that the only questions where women scored more highly than men were the life/health science stories, and we got a nice bit of discussion going as to why this might be. KJHaxton hit the nail on the head:

I wonder if it is to do with they types of media each gender is exposed to - women's magazines may be more likely to carry health information, programs (esp in the US) pitched at men focus on more physical things.

So I was tickled to see an example of this in action today.

Fellow palaeo-blogger and far-too-occasional drinking buddy Dave Hone is having a busy week, partly caused by this article. I've only just asked Dave for a PDF (and he might not even have a copy himself yet!), but here's the gist. Adult dinosaur bones are not commonly found with predator tooth marks, nor are adult bone fragments found in the stomach contents of predatory dinosaurs. Add in a distinct lack of juveniles preserved in the fossil record (along with the caveat that a fair bit of this may be attributed to taphonomic bias) and observations of extant predators tending to go for juvenile prey as an easier target than a sick or elderly adult and certainly easier than a healthy adult, and one can hypothesise that adult theropods were preying on predominantly juveniles.

Dave's got a comprehensive post on the paper on his blog, and he says himself it's almost as long as the paper, so I recommend going over and having a good read. But this is the bit that tickled me: it got picked up by GQ Magazine!

I don't know how many countries GQ has reached, but (originally short for Gentlemen's Quarterly) it is at the higher end of the spectrum of men's glossy magazines. It has the articles that all you boys say you read Playboy for. It has fairly intellectual (for a glossy) journalism, and a low tits quotient. The article itself is pretty good - there is no mention of the word "boffin", they've spelled "palaeontologist" correctly, remembered to capitalise the genus name of the dinosaurs concerned, and pretty much explained the journal article for non-scientists. This may be the very first time the word Lethaia has featured on any men's magazine website, but let's hope it's not the last.

Here's the kicker though - there is no way, if I go to the Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan or Glamour websites, that I would see this article or anything like it. I searched for the word "dinosaur" on each website, and all I got was a designer's fashion show where he/she had been "inspired" by One Million Years BC.

*facepalm*

It really does seem as though women are only allowed to be interested in science that directly affects them as wives and mothers and consumers of expensive cosmetics. It's okay to inform men about cool science that (sorry Dave) won't have any impact on their daily lives, because men like cool stuff. Maybe dinosaurs would make it into the women's glossies if they were suddenly found to have been bright pink.

Your thoughts, oh loyal readership?