The days are short, the nights are long, the only solace we can take from the coming cold and darkness is to give each other gifts. If you’re a nerd like us maybe you want those gifts to have a science bent? Well we are here to help you out with that with our annual gift guide for the geek in your life! Each of the Paleopals (in alphabetical order) has contributed something to this list to make your holiday shopping season as easy as can be, so let’s dive right in!

Abe suggests:

What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Monroe

When it comes to science and comedy, few out there can integrate the two in the way that Randall Munroe does with his webcomic XKCD. Any nerd out there can appreciate the scientifically accurate humor in his work. Give the nerd in your life endless hours of entertainment with this totally 100% scientifically accurate guide to the most absurd questions in life!

Ben suggests:

A Pebble Smartwatch

pretty happy with mine!

lots of apps already exist

there’s a whole ton of nerds on a board who will make you any app you can think of if it doesn’t exist yet.

An 11th Doctor Sonic Screwdriver

someone should buy me TWO so i can play with one, and turn the other one into a laser pointer

Over the Garden Wall Season 1

this is my favourite thing this fall

Charlie suggests:

In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick

[Charlie talks about why he loves this book so much on our annual Thanksgiving show (out soon), but suffice it to say here that he thinks it’s very very good.]

Jacob suggests:

Boston Terrier Brewing Co. poster print

I have an adorable Boston Terrier named Bubbles. I also have this print. If you can’t get your own Boston Terrier, this print is still very nice.

Kelly suggests:

Pre-order Augie and the Green Knight (expected out around February)

Augie and the Green Knight is a children’s book about a precocious, adventurous, and risk-taking young girl and her adventures with the Green Knight. It contains beautiful artwork by artist Boulet, and is written by Zach Weinersmith. More info about the book can be found here and Ryan spoke with Zach about the book on the show which you can listen to here.

Gulpo decal

Are you tired of the endless creation-evolution debate occurring on the back of cars? Do you believe that there is no way a plastic Ichthys or Labyrinthodont will ever settle a metaphysical question?

Look no further, my friend. Introducing GULPO: The fish who eats concepts

Patrick suggests:

Knowledge if Beautiful: Impossible Ideas, Invisible Patterns, Hidden Connections–Visualized by David McCandless

I really like data. I like it even better when it’s presented well. This book does it better than just well, it presents complex data in visually stunning tableaus. An excellent coffee table book to impress the next nerd you have over for coffee.

Forbidden Island

Maybe while you’re friends are visiting you can interest them in a cooperative tabletop game? I like this one, maybe you will too.

Ryan suggests:

I suggest building your own Augmented Reality Sandbox. I built one, here’s what it looks like in action.

There are two pieces of hardware you’ll need but probably don’t already have are

an Xbox Kinect

and a Short Throw Projector

The software (which is free) and all the instructions to make it can be found here.

Didn’t find quite what you were looking for? Check out guides from previous years! We’ve been doing this long enough that there has to be something in there for you.

• 2013 – Everyone
• 2012 – Everyone
• 2011 – Patrick
• 2011 – Ryan
• 2010 – Jacob
• 2010 – Patrick
• 2010 – Ryan

Thanks for reading and have a great winter solstice!

I recently encountered some strange behavior from R when using the cut.POSIXt method with “day” as the interval specification. This function isn’t working as I intended and I doubt that it is working properly. I’ll show you the behavior I’m seeing (and what I was expecting) then I’ll show you my current base R workaround. To generate a reproducible example, I’ll use this latemail function I gleaned from this stack overflow post.

latemail <- function(N, st="2013/01/01", et="2013/12/31") {
 st <- as.POSIXct(as.Date(st))
 et <- as.POSIXct(as.Date(et))
 dt <- as.numeric(difftime(et,st,unit="sec"))
 ev <- sort(runif(N, 0, dt))
 rt <- st + ev
 }

And generate some data…

set.seed(7110)
#generate 1000 random POSIXlt dates and times
bar<-data.frame("date"=latemail(1000, st="2013/03/02", et="2013/03/30"))
# assign factors based on the day portion of the POSIXlt object
bar$dateCut <- cut(bar$date, "day", labels = FALSE)

I expected that all rows with the date 2013-03-01 would receive factor 1, all rows with the date 2013-03-02 would receive factor 2, and so on. At first glance this seems to be what is happening.

head(bar, 10)

     date                 dateCut
1    2013-03-01 19:10:31  1
2    2013-03-01 19:31:31  1
3    2013-03-01 19:55:02  1
4    2013-03-01 20:09:36  1
5    2013-03-01 20:13:32  1
6    2013-03-01 22:15:42  1
7    2013-03-01 22:16:06  1
8    2013-03-01 23:41:50  1
9    2013-03-02 00:30:53  2
10   2013-03-02 01:08:52  2

Note that at row 9 the date changes from March 1 to March 2 and the factor (dateCut) changes from 1 to 2. So far so good. But we shall see some strange things in the midnight hour.  

For additional locations where I see the expected behavior you can check

bar[ c(259, 260, 294, 295), ]

259  2013-03-08 23:22:15  8
260  2013-03-09 00:11:08  9

294  2013-03-09 23:59:11  9
295  2013-03-10 00:56:19  10

Now the weirdness.

bar[320:326, ]
320  2013-03-10 22:14:22  10
321  2013-03-10 22:28:03  10
322  2013-03-11 00:08:27  10
323  2013-03-11 00:30:08  10
324  2013-03-11 00:56:23  10
325  2013-03-11 01:19:54  11
326  2013-03-11 01:22:43  11

At row 322 the date changes from March 10 to March 11 but the dateCut factor doesn’t change until line 325. After 1:00 AM things seem to behave as expected. At first I thought maybe some sort of floor rounding was going on which was rounding midnight back to the previous day, but notice that the previous examples included times between midnight and 1:00 that were cut as expected. More weirdness examples:

bar[398:405,]
398  2013-03-12 23:56:20  12
399  2013-03-13 00:53:47  12
400  2013-03-13 01:30:33  13
401  2013-03-13 01:45:31  13

bar[430:435,]
430  2013-03-13 23:45:48  13
431  2013-03-14 00:28:40  13
432  2013-03-14 00:46:24  13
433  2013-03-14 00:55:16  13
434  2013-03-14 01:33:19  14
435  2013-03-14 02:02:45  14

I see even stranger behavior when I truncate to just the date.

bar$datetrunc=trunc(bar$date, "day")  
bar$truncCut <- cut(bar$datetrunc, "day", labels = FALSE) 

Again, things work fine for a while

head(bar, 10)
   date             dateCut datetrunc truncCut
1  2013-03-01 19:10:31 1   2013-03-01  1
2  2013-03-01 19:31:31 1   2013-03-01  1
3  2013-03-01 19:55:02 1   2013-03-01  1
4  2013-03-01 20:09:36 1   2013-03-01  1
5  2013-03-01 20:13:32 1   2013-03-01  1
6  2013-03-01 22:15:42 1   2013-03-01  1
7  2013-03-01 22:16:06 1   2013-03-01  1
8  2013-03-01 23:41:50 1   2013-03-01  1
9  2013-03-02 00:30:53 2   2013-03-02  2
10 2013-03-02 01:08:52 2   2013-03-02  2

But eventually wind up worse than ever.

bar[320:330,]
    date               dateCut datetrunc truncCut
320 2013-03-10 22:14:22  10  2013-03-10  10
321 2013-03-10 22:28:03  10  2013-03-10  10
322 2013-03-11 00:08:27  10  2013-03-11  10
323 2013-03-11 00:30:08  10  2013-03-11  10
324 2013-03-11 00:56:23  10  2013-03-11  10
325 2013-03-11 01:19:54  11  2013-03-11  10
326 2013-03-11 01:22:43  11  2013-03-11  10
327 2013-03-11 02:29:34  11  2013-03-11  10
328 2013-03-11 02:34:23  11  2013-03-11  10
329 2013-03-11 02:51:47  11  2013-03-11  10
330 2013-03-11 03:11:00  11  2013-03-11  10

The timeCut factor changes 3 rows too late but the truncCut factor stays stuck at 10 for a long time (47 rows). At row 369, the timeCut factor changes to 12 (correctly) and the truncCut factor finally turns over to 11.

bar[365:375,]

    date              dateCut datetrunc truncCut
365 2013-03-11 19:49:05  11  2013-03-11  10
366 2013-03-11 21:19:31  11  2013-03-11  10
367 2013-03-11 21:31:58  11  2013-03-11  10
368 2013-03-11 22:06:44  11  2013-03-11  10
369 2013-03-12 02:45:14  12  2013-03-12  11
370 2013-03-12 03:14:56  12  2013-03-12  11
371 2013-03-12 04:02:03  12  2013-03-12  11
372 2013-03-12 05:12:03  12  2013-03-12  11
373 2013-03-12 05:31:53  12  2013-03-12  11
374 2013-03-12 05:56:08  12  2013-03-12  11
375 2013-03-12 06:40:45  12  2013-03-12  11

My initial sidestep involved the rank() function (it achieved the desired result, but was S L O W). I won’t torture you with it here. I consulted with Dr. Erin Hodgess and devised this work around, which is pretty speedy.

foo <- unique(bar$datetrunc)
bar$truncMatch <- match(bar$datetrunc, foo)

Here’s that strange section where the truncCut factor behaved so poorly. No problem for my new truncMatch factor.

 

bar[320:330,]
    date            dateCut datetrunc truncCut truncMatch
320 2013-03-10 22:14:22  10  2013-03-10  10   10
321 2013-03-10 22:28:03  10  2013-03-10  10   10
322 2013-03-11 00:08:27  10  2013-03-11  10   11
323 2013-03-11 00:30:08  10  2013-03-11  10   11
324 2013-03-11 00:56:23  10  2013-03-11  10   11
325 2013-03-11 01:19:54  11  2013-03-11  10   11
326 2013-03-11 01:22:43  11  2013-03-11  10   11
327 2013-03-11 02:29:34  11  2013-03-11  10   11
328 2013-03-11 02:34:23  11  2013-03-11  10   11
329 2013-03-11 02:51:47  11  2013-03-11  10   11
330 2013-03-11 03:11:00  11  2013-03-11  10   11

#create a vector of random values

 foo <- rnorm(n=100, mean=20, sd=5)

#randomly choose 15 indices to replace
#this is the step in which I thought I was clever
#because I use which() and %in% in the same line
 ind <- which(foo %in% sample(foo, 15))

#now replace those indices in foo with NA
 foo[ind]<-NA

#here is our vector with 15 random NAs 
 foo

Not especially game changing but more elegant than any of the solutions I found on the interwebs, so there it is FTW.

Admittedly R might not be the most obvious choice for free GIS options, combinations of QGIS (http://www.qgis.org/), GRASS (http://grass.osgeo.org/), PostGIS (http://postgis.refractions.net/), or OpenGeo (http://boundlessgeo.com/solutions/opengeo-suite/download/) might pop up in google searches before R. R might not even be the first general purpose programming language you think of for GIS, especially now that ArcGIS relies on Python for much of its modeling. However, all of these tools have a significant learning curve, and I was farther along in R than any of these alternatives, so I started googling and watching tutorial videos. So should you be using R for analyzing and displaying spatial data? If you already know a little or a lot of R, if you need a cross platform solution, or need to do some fairly heavy stats applications to your spatial data, R just might be a good solution for you. It turns out R has lots of support for spatial data and does a great job displaying it too.

There are a number of packages useful for analyzing and displaying your spatial data. I think the 4 most useful right out of the gate are sp, rgdal, maptools, and raster. If you haven’t installed packages before do this…

install.packages(“sp”)
install.packages(“raster”)
install.packages(“maptools”)

…and if you are on a Windows machine…

install.packages(“rgdal”)

If you’re on a Mac, installing rgdal is a little tricky. Give this a try

setRepositories(ind=1:2)
install.packages(“rgdal”)

If that doesn’t work read this over.

Installing rgdal on a Mac

After installing the packages, if you want to use the functions contained in that package you need to load the library. To use the functions in the sp package, you should type

library(sp)

to load the rgdal package…

library(rgdal)

etc.

More details about the event can be found on our Eventbrite page here: Science… sort of DC Meetup 2014

For those who RSVP on the Evenbrite page, your first drink of the evening is on us. See y’all soon!

’tis the season to consume! But for this part of the year, as the Winter Solstice approaches, we consume not for ourselves, but for others, and that’s generally a good thing. Each year we here at Science… sort of like to put together a list of suggestions for the science-inclined in your life. Whether you’re looking to give the gift of science, or fleshing out your own list to send to your regionally-appropriate gift giving elf-spirit, this list should have you covered.

We begin with Patrick, who really went above and beyond with contribution, earning him well-deserved top billing.

Nerds are hard to shop for. You have to walk a fine line between getting them something not nerdy enough and insulting them by buying another Star Trek Enterprise Key Chain.

Here I present to you stuph for nerds of all ages that hopefully will be recognizably nerdy without crossing the line. Like this beanie, unless somebody’s really paying attention, they won’t even know the person wearing it is a nerd.Winter is Coming.

For your budding maker nerds: littleBits Premium Kit.

littleBits are basically a cross between the circuits board kit (that you had when you were 11) and legos. The little magnetized units fit together in all kinds of different ways to power awesome miniature projects. These things have won all kinds of toy awards and the woman that invented them, Ayah Bdeir, is a pretty astounding person as well. I’ve linked to a middle of the road kit but you can step up or down in bits included in the kits (and price).

If you have a more advanced maker on your list, consider getting them an Arduino starter kit. This has become the essential piece of rough tech for all sorts of electronics projects and prototyping. If your listee needs more power you can spring for the Raspberry Pi starter kit, which is basically a full on computer on a board but will require some real programming chops. If you aren’t sure which of these to buy, this article can fill you in a little bit more, but I’m guessing the Arduino.

If your tinker would like to see some results in a hurry, you could pick up a wall outlet with USB ports (I have 3 of these). They are great because they still give you two standard outlet plugs plus two USB ports for charging. You can now get rid of that power strip on your nightstand! Minimal electrical skills are required (mostly knowing how to shut off a breaker and how to use a screwdriver). P.S. you’ll probably need a different wall face plate after you switch out the outlet.

If you figure the people on your list to be more on the software side of things you could introduce some of the young people in your life to coding through the play-i robots (although they are only available through Kickstarter in November, and don’t ship until June or so — really more of a summer solstice thing). But for someone a little older you could pick them up the most recent edition of How to Think Like a Computer Scientist. This has become a classic as an introduction to the Python language.

Maybe your nerd is a little more sedentary and prefers thinking to all this doing I’ve been hawking so far. The Western Digital My Cloud might be for you. If you’ve got multiple computers and other smart devices (iPods, phones, TVs) you probably struggle getting all your music/movies/photos/etc to be available on the device you have in your hot little hands and any one time. Enter the myCloud. Basically it’s like a server for you local WiFi network. Hold all episodes of Battlestar Galactica on them and watch them on any of your devices. Another first world problem solved.

Finally, I’m very intrigued by S., a novel by J. J. Abrams. It’s sort of a found footage kind of a story. Wired magazine’s review claimed it was like downloading Lost to your brain. Having not read it yet, I gotta say it reminds me of the video game Myst. This should keep your nerd (or you) occupied for quite some time.

Next up, Charlie is in the market for a new camera, but how about this slick Sony QX100 Smart Lens, which puts a DSLR lens on your smartphone! Tell me that doesn’t seem better than just a camera, right?

Kelly thinks you’re not reading about insults enough and thus suggests:

For the nerd in your life who is looking for some clever insults, how about 2^7 Nerd Disses: A Significant Quantity of Disrespect? But what if you can’t find the right position while reading in bed? Does your neck hurt when you prop yourself up for too long? Then grab yourself a pair of periscope glasses! These glasses allow you to read while laying down flat, which may give you a few more hours of reading!

It should surprise no one that Jacob wants you and your nerds to have more toys:

So for nerds like me, this time of year is always exciting and disappointing. Exciting because there’s a lot of great deals on very cool electronics, but disappointing because I STILL CANT BUY THEM.

… But maybe you can! So here’s my list of super-awesome things for Winter Solstice 2013

The GoPro is always a great gift for the active nerd in your life, and the latest iteration is no exception. The HD Hero 3 has some great features to interface with your smart phone, and the “Black Edition” comes with a remote control so you can time your shots perfectly!

Does your tamed nerd have too many remote controls for you to keep track of? Is their assistance required to get the sound to work when your Home Theatre PC is playing TOTALLY LEGAL copies of blu-ray movies? Well nip that in the bud with the Logitech Harmony Remote! It can control all of your devices (even game systems and computers) so that even grandma can use it!

And finally, for the budget conscious nerds among you, this is what I’M going to buy this holiday season – The Google ChromeCast. It’s a stupid-simple device that can play media on your TV. It plugs into your HDMI port, and plays Netflix, HuluPlus, and most everything else you can think of! And the best part, it’s only 35$ (30$ on sale!)

Ryan might have taken the “survival” part a bit literally:

Having recently done some stupid things to test my supposed invincibility, I think you and the nerds in your life should be prepared to survive in a blizzard at night on a mountain. Don’t ask why, just trust me.

Now depending on how hard it’s snowing, you may need to wear snowshoes. They look intimidating, but you really do just strap them to your feet and walk around. Piece of cake.

When it gets dark (which happens at least once a day) you’ll want light. I like this Petzl headlamp, it’s powerful, has a good number of modes, and a little red light which you can use to preserve your night vision or read in the dark without blinding anyone else in camp.

You may also need to start a fire, so you’re going to want a fire starter.  Doesn’t get much simpler than a bit of magnesium and some metal to spark it with, but with this you’ll definitely want to practice at home before trying it out in the wild. (Kids, don’t play with fire.)

Once that fire is going you’ll need to stay warm. The lightweight and stylish way to do that is with reflective Mylar blankets!

You’ll burn a lot of calories trekking around the alpine terrain, so don’t forget to bring a big bag of trail mix.

And finally, a machete, because machete’s are awesome. I have actually used, and can therefore recommend, this particular Gerber model. Good grip, the saw part actually works, and the blade is sharp enough to cut through it’s own case. Again, don’t ask.

Finally, Ben wrote this:

look how cool this is
i want it for xmas

It’s possible that Canadian AIs don’t quite get how these kinds of articles are supposed to work…

Didn’t find quite what you were looking for? Our lists from previous years likely still apply, so check those out at the links below:

• 2012 – Everyone
• 2011 – Patrick
• 2011 – Ryan
• 2010 – Jacob
• 2010 – Patrick
• 2010 – Ryan

Thanks for reading, and have a happy and scientific solstice!

Solid science:

• Here’s a story that’s near and dear to my heart: the first use of iron in Egyptian history came from a meteorite. I really love this article as it’s the perfect combination of science and history and it’s written (mostly) free of jargon. And it’s free through Meteoritics and Planetary Science. 
• Continuing with the news on space stuff, this article from Scientific American talks about Comet ISON and how studying it can yield clues about the formation of our solar system.
• One of my favorite geologists, and personal friend, Dana Hunter, has a great story about the glacier-sculpted geology of Discovery Park in Seattle. She focuses mostly on the South Bluff, which is this thick with layers of mud and sand that record the formation of the Sound. And there’s a picture of the back of my head from my last trip when she gave a tour of the area.

Not 100% science, but still awesome:

• This one from Patrick- After the fall of the Taliban, biologists were able to get into the more remote areas of Afghanistan and study species that were are either endangered or thought extinct. This article from the Washington Post looks at biologists efforts to save the snow leopard.  
• One of greatest nerdgasms to occur at Comic-Con this year came from the trailer of the revamped Carl Sagan classic, Cosmos. The new version will air in 2014 with and will be hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson. After watching the trailer on YouTube, you should also read the post over at Wired about the importance of this program
• Scanning electron microscope+film software+everyday insects= creepy, but gorgeous films of every day insects. Definitely worth a watch.

Not even close to being science:

• This gem comes from the bastion of woo and science illiteracy, the Huffington Post: yet more rumors of a giant, gaseous, undiscovered planet in the outer solar system. I’m putting this one into the not science section for two reasons: 1) it’s the Huffington Post and 2) We barely understand the composition of Pluto, let alone some hypothetical planet that’s supposedly made of hydrogen and helium and has moons because “all outer planets have them”.  Gizmodo and other online sources have reported on this, and it seems that HuffPo just mashed together a story from those sites. Worse yet, none of them have an actual, cited scientific article to back up their stories. This is the perfect example of poor science reporting.   /endrant

Things that are science:

• The Giant Impact Model has long been the go to hypothesis for how the moon formed. But this National Geographic article shows that the debate is far from settled. 
• It’s long been understood that any element heavier than iron was likely produced in a super nova. Now scientists are seeing evidence that gold may have its origins in the collision of neutron stars.
• Of all the risks we take sending people to Mars- Microwaved by solar radiation, malfunctioning equipment- none may be as deadly as human boredom
• Ed Yong has a really cool article about the ongoing debate of whether or not the pachycephalysaurus used its dome for headbutting or more ornamental purposes.  

Things that are sort of science:

• Darren Naish over at the Scientific American blog network discusses and debunks the various photos used to validate the supposed existence of the Loch Ness monster. 
• Gizmodo has an interesting look at how a metal essential to our electronics- copper- makes it from ore to smart phone/tablet/computer/what have you.
• If you’ve yet to have the good fortune of reading or listening to something by Richard Feynman, start with this blog post on Brain Pickings. He was a noted physicist and lecturer who taught not only about physics, but the role of science in society and what makes it such a compelling way of life.

And things that wish they were science (but just as equally fun):

• Finally, someone puts together a love song that will make the nerd kingdom swoon. And there’s a kitten involved. I think the internet has finally fulfilled its calling. 
• Speaking of nerds, this week marks the annual pilgrimage of my people to their holiest shrine: San Diego Comic-Con 2013.  Boing Boing and io9 cover the convention in all its Mountain Dew fueled glory.

Things that are science…

• One of the more enduring controversies in meteoritics is how the rounded silicate inclusions in chondrites, chondrules, were produced. Some have argued that they condensed from the early solar nebula, while others contend that they originated from the guts of the earliest exploded planetesimals. The latter explanation is gaining momentum.
• Slate has an excellent article on why testicles are kept in such a vulnerable position on most mammals.
• National Geographic brings us some gorgeous photos of the Mexican volcano, Popocatepetl.
• This article from BBC News looks at the science of pessimism and how one can become an optimist. Take some of it with a grain of salt, but still a fun read.
• Astronomers are working to figure out the origin of radio bursts that occur nearly every second every day. Some proposed ideas are evaporating black holes (my personal favorite) or black holes devouring neutron stars.
• Forget the Six Million Dollar Man. Bring on the new super food, the five million dollar broccoli! 

Things that are sort of science…

• Not a true science story, but one that talks about the implications of the water war occurring in southern Oregon.
• Ira Flatow tackles the reality of alternative medicine in this edition of Science Friday.
• Kyle Hill over at Scientific American put out an awesome post on why the Flash is the only person actually living in the present.

And things that wish they were science…

• In keeping with the “things that wish they were science” theme, io9 has a post about a preacher that’s convinced the new Star Trek movie will lead humans to really love their animals.

Month after month, one of the most popular posts on the Paleocave blog is the How to Read a Cladogram post I did some time ago. I always intended to follow it up with more cladistic fun. So, hold onto your butts, we’re going to let the dinosaurs loose.

Birds are dinosaurs. We’ve all heard this. But does that phrase make any sense? Not really. Dinosaurs, for the most part, are things that were really big, were mostly scaly, had fantastic teeth, and are extinct. Birds, on the other hand, don’t have teeth, are generally small, and are covered in feathers (I know that you know that lots of old school dinosaurs had feathers too, but whatever). So, why do we say that birds are dinosaurs? The answer involves evolution and the meaning of taxonomic names in biology.

Let’s start with what the name of a group should mean. Why would we call one group of animals ‘birds’ and another group of animals ‘dinosaurs’? Presumably all the animals called ‘birds’ should have more in common with each other than they do with the animals in the group called ‘dinosaurs’. Now we could categorize things based on any attribute we want. We could sort all orange animals into a group and call that group ‘tacos’, but I don’t know how useful that would be. Biologists have decided that what taxonomic names should represent is shared evolution, or relatedness. With that in mind, what the group Dinosauria should contain is all animals that are evolutionarily more closely related to each other than they are to non-dinosaurs. Let’s examine that using a cladogram (more on how to read those here).

Ok, moving from left to right, we’ve got crocodilians (represented by an alligator), pterosaurs (represented by a Pteranodon), an ornithiscian dinosaur (represented by Triceratops) and two sauriscian dinosaurs (represented by T. rex  and a pelican). Group names are located at intersections of the cladogram and the name applies to all the animals from that point upwards. The whole lot of animals on this cladogram are in a branch of the reptiles called the Archosauria (that’s why the name is down at the bottom-most node of the cladogram). Further up the cladogram we have the name Dinosauria. Next I’ll circle up all the animals that belong in the group Dinosauria.

No surprises here (unless you forgot that pterosaurs aren’t dinosaurs). Birds are in the circle because they are in the group Dinosauria. But do they really belong? Well yes, actually they do. If you know how to read the diagram correctly it says that the pelican and the T. rex are the two most closely related animals depicted. Triceratops is the next most closely related animal to those two. Did you catch that? T. rex and the pelican are more closely related to each other than T. rex is to Triceratops. They are both in the group Theropoda (that Triceratops isn’t part of). The T. rex and the pelican have been on the same evolutionary path for longer than any other two things on this diagram. Here I’ll show you the same information diagramed slightly differently.

Bird are dinosaurs not just because they evolved from dinosaurs, but because they are more closely related to some of the extinct dinosaurs than those dinosaurs are to each other! So next time that someone tells you that dinosaurs are extinct, you can tell them that, actually, there are probably more species of dinosaur alive today than there were in the Mesozoic!

End of the World Midnight Wheat! An ale brewed with “midnight wheat, chocolate malt, chili and spice” from Shock Top (aka Anheuser-Busch)

First and foremost a special thanks to James K. for providing the bottle for this review!

Look – The beer mostly looks good, however, there is one glaring issue and that is sediment. You can probably see some floating in suspension in the photo. I know there are ways to pour a beer to keep the sediment in the bottle and out of the glass, but I don’t mind a bit of sediment in my beer. The instructions on the bottle itself advocate the “pour most, swirl, then pour rest” method which would introduce sediment so I feel justified to comment on it. Again, I don’t mind a bit of sediment, but this is too much, it’s especially too much when I know it’s being produced at an Anheuser-Busch facility, which has brewing down a science and thus I can only assume this much sediment is intentional rather than accidental. Other than that it’s a nice copper hue with a snowy white head that never gets past maybe ½ a finger and dissipates quickly thereafter. No real tracing on the glass to speak of.

Smell – The smell is very mild, far milder than I expect from this style. If I really breathe deep I can get a bit of banana and some spicy notes, but not much else.

Taste – I’m looking at the last few sips of this and still don’t have much to say. It tastes like a standard, if a bit lacking, wheat beer with maybe a bit of cinnamon (which might be the spice the bottle is promoting). I will readily admit that I don’t think I have the palate to notice any of the tastes specific to midnight wheat nor chocolate malt, but unless those are milder version that a typical hefeweizen I don’t feel like they’re contributing a lot. None of the flavors are off or bad, they’re just not really there in the first place.

Feel – Crisper and drier than I’d have thought. I guess the I keep trying to compare this beer to a dunkelweizen, but it just isn’t. It’s more like a spiced wheat beer, but even still I tend to expect something a bit creamier and smoother than crisp like this. Not a knock against it, but not really a positive either, it just is.

Drinkability – Unexpectedly drinkable for how dark a beer is it. Goes down very easy, and at a respectable, but not ridiculous, ABV of 6.0% you could kick back a few of these on a chilly day and feel alright about it.

look: 2 | smell: 1.5 | taste: 2.5 | feel: 3 | overall: 2.5

C- / 2.33

Serving type: 12 oz. bottle

Reviewed on: 24 April 2013 5pm MDT

Last week I attended my first science conference: The Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston, TX. If you followed me on Twitter, then (for better or for worse) you also knew that I was one of about 40 people microblogging the conference. There was a lot of great science to cover and it was fun trying to distill that information into 140 character limit. I got to present a poster on the shock dike that I’ve been working on for over a year now and I received good feedback on the research. I also met a lot of great people, some of whom will be potential collaborators in research and outreach projects.

At the end of the conference I began to think about my favorite aspects and topics at LPSC. There’s no rhyme or reason to this list, but a few of these items will  become blog posts once I sort through all my tweets and notes and can write something coherent.

Conferences are not restful– I wasn’t expecting a vacation time, but nor was I expecting to consume the same amount of coffee as I would during finals. Between microblogging and networking, there wasn’t much downtime. At the end of the conference, I was pretty beat.

Scientists are real people– This may seem like a silly thing to say, but the outside world thinks we’re either socially inept like those in the Big Bang Theory or we’re protected by the walls of the Ivory Tower. True, some scientists don’t have the best social skills, but most that I met are great to hang out with, play games, and enjoy a beer or two. And the fragility of the Ivory Tower has never been more apparent until Sequestration hit. The funding cuts meant that many scientist couldn’t attend LPSC and present their research, collaborate with their peers, and participate in the free flow of information. More importantly, some are concerned about job security.

Pre-solar CAI’s– I nearly choked when I heard this in a presolar grains session. A CAI is a calcium aluminium rich inclusion. These things are composed of refractory elements, or elements that stay solid at very high temperatures. They are the oldest things in the solar system and condensed out of the solar nebula before the planet making process took off. Presolar indicates something that formed before our solar system. So, finding a probable presolar CAI is like sampling the proto nebula of another solar system. Pretty neat!

The MESSENGER mission at Mercury is churning out some of the best science in NASA- I’m of the opinion that the MESSENGER mission is kind of the underdog of the NASA missions. Cassini and anything Mars related get a lot of much deserved attention, but the people working on MESSENGER deserve accolades, as well. The lack of attention isn’t their fault- they have a fantastic website, but it’s hard to compete with the rings of Saturn and a laser shooting robot searching for past clues of life.

Mercurian meteorites– Few topics are as contentious as this one.  A researcher from University of Washington claimed to *possibly* have a meteorite from the innermost planet, or at the very least, from a very similar planetesimal. Could we have a few Mercurian meteorites in our collection?  Possibly. But current spectroscopic data from Mercury don’t align with any known meteorites. Another problem: crystallization age was revealed to be ~4.3 billion years old. This is too old to come from Mercury, but could possibly come from another asteroidal source.

The HED/4 Vesta debate– Another contentious topic in the meteoritics field. The HED’s are a group of meteorites that likely came from asteroid 4 Vesta. Spectral reflectance from the asteroid matches that of this suite of meteorites. However, a few within the meteoritics world will tell you that the science is wrong and one group of these meteorites, diogenites, may have come from two parent bodies. This would eliminate 4 Vesta from being the HED parent body. This is a fairly heretical stance because the link between HED’s and 4 Vesta is fairly well established, but still provides for some solid conference entertainment.

Platinum anomaly that may reignite the Younger Dryas impact hypothesis– The idea that the Younger Dryas extinction was caused by an asteroid impact has been a dead issue for the meteoritics community for some time now. The evidence wasn’t really there to support the hypothesis until a researcher found platinum anomalies in ice cores from Greenland. Now, he didn’t claim that it came from an impact, but the presented evidence could make things interesting for those on the paleoecology side of this issue.

Outreach should be embraced. Get the science to the people!- Science funding is at a dangerous crossroads in the US. Either we show the public why our research is relevant and drum up support or we watch our grants dry up and our science with it. Our research is publicly funded and we have an obligation to share it with the taxpayer and get them involved.

Finally, never admit to not knowing who Steve Squyres is during a game of Cards Against Humanity, the Mars edition. I learned this the hard way and I will forever be grateful to those who didn’t toss me out of the game in spite of my ignorance.