Geosciences posts
- February 3, 2012
- 04:34 PM
- 17 views
SPSP 2012: Political Polarization
by Melanie Tannenbaum in PsySociety
What’s that? This is some sort of big year for American politics? Ah, yes – it’s 2012. We’re in the middle of the Republican primaries, there’s a presidential election in 9 months, and political psychology was all over this year’s … Continue reading →... Read more »
Krosnick, J. A., Holbrook, A. L., & Visser, P. S. (2000) The impact of the Fall 1997 debate about global warming on American public opinion. Public Understanding of Science. info:/
- January 30, 2012
- 01:31 PM
- 4 views
Preening the History of Primates
When viewed within the broader context of our evolutionary history, we are anthropoid primates. That’s the group which contains monkeys and apes (with our species being a specialized variety of ape, and apes being a particular subset of monkeys, and monkeys representing the major group of anthropoids). But how anthropoid primates originated has been a [...]... Read more »
Maiolino, S., Boyer, D., & Rosenberger, A. (2011) Morphological Correlates of the Grooming Claw in Distal Phalanges of Platyrrhines and Other Primates: A Preliminary Study. The Anatomical Record: Advances in Integrative Anatomy and Evolutionary Biology, 294(12), 1975-1990. DOI: 10.1002/ar.21498
Maiolino, S., Boyer, D., Bloch, J., Gilbert, C., & Groenke, J. (2012) Evidence for a Grooming Claw in a North American Adapiform Primate: Implications for Anthropoid Origins. PLoS ONE, 7(1). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0029135
Williams, B., Kay, R., & Kirk, E. (2010) New perspectives on anthropoid origins. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(11), 4797-4804. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0908320107
- January 26, 2012
- 01:26 PM
- 56 views
New Jersey’s Turnpike Croc
Two years ago, when I was still stuck in the middle of the garden state, New Jersey State Museum assistant curator of natural history Jason Schein took me on a brief tour of his institution’s collections. There were crocodyliforms everywhere. Shelf after shelf contained the teeth, armor, and bones of a variety of prehistoric crocs [...]... Read more »
Brochu, C., Parris, D., Grandstaff, B., Denton, R., & Gallagher, W. (2012) A new species of (Crocodyliformes, Eusuchia) from the Late Cretaceous–early Paleogene of New Jersey . Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 32(1), 105-116. DOI: 10.1080/02724634.2012.633585
- January 25, 2012
- 02:10 PM
- 78 views
Real-Life DinoCrocs Crushed the Competition
Giant "DinoCrocs" of the Cretaceous didn't just hang out in the background while predatory dinosaurs stole the spotlight. Laelaps blogger Brian Switek explains how new fossils show they competed as a top predator.... Read more »
RIFF, D., & KELLNER, A. (2011) Baurusuchid crocodyliforms as theropod mimics: clues from the skull and appendicular morphology of Stratiotosuchus maxhechti (Upper Cretaceous of Brazil). Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. DOI: 10.1111/j.1096-3642.2011.00713.x
- January 24, 2012
- 02:08 AM
- 81 views
temperature aNOMalies
by csoeder in Topologic Oceans
If you are new to climate science, you might be wondering what, exactly, this ‘temperature anomaly’ thing is that you keep hearing about. I know I was a bit confused at first! This post explains the concept, using a real-world example. Cities tend to be warmer than their surrounding countrysides, a fact known as the [...]... Read more »
Jones, P., Lister, D., & Li, Q. (2008) Urbanization effects in large-scale temperature records, with an emphasis on China. Journal of Geophysical Research, 113(D16). DOI: 10.1029/2008JD009916
- January 20, 2012
- 09:19 PM
- 136 views
Lead Poisoning in Rome - The Skeletal Evidence
by Kristina Killgrove in Powered By Osteons
A friend alerted me to today's IO9 post, "The First Artificial Sweetener Poisoned Lots of Romans." It's a (very) brief look at some of the uses of lead (Pb) in the Roman world, including the hoary hypothesis that rampant lead poisoning led to the downfall of Rome - you know, along with gonorrhea, Christianity, slavery, and the kitchen sink.
Roman Lead Artifacts (clockwise from top left) -
curse tablet, shot, pipe, ingots, jewelry
The fact the Romans loved their lead........ Read more »
Aufderheide, A., Rapp, G., Wittmers, L., Wallgren, J., Macchiarelli, R., Fornaciari, G., Mallegni, F., & Corruccini, R. (1992) Lead exposure in italy: 800 BC-700 AD. International Journal of Anthropology, 7(2), 9-15. DOI: 10.1007/BF02444992
J. Montgomery, J. Evans, S. Chenery, V. Pashley, & K. Killgrove. (2010) 'Gleaming, white, and deadly': using lead to track human exposure and geographic origins in the Roman period in Britain. Roman Diasporas, Journal of Roman Archaeology, 199-226. info:/
- January 17, 2012
- 12:07 PM
- 89 views
How the “Terrible Heads” Became World Travelers
Earlier this week, paleontologists described another of our distant, ancient cousins. This was no hominin, early primate, or even archaic mammal, but a much, much older variety of creature that would superficially seem to have more in common with terrible primeval reptiles than with us. Named Pampaphoneus biccai, this knobby-headed, 260 million year old predator [...]... Read more »
Modesto, S., Smith, R., Campione, N., & Reisz, R. (2011) The last “pelycosaur”: a varanopid synapsid from the Pristerognathus Assemblage Zone, Middle Permian of South Africa. Naturwissenschaften, 98(12), 1027-1034. DOI: 10.1007/s00114-011-0856-2
- January 16, 2012
- 09:51 AM
- 179 views
Is this journal for real?
by Neurobonkers in Neurobonkers
This year 134 suspect new journals have appeared from the abyss, all published by the same clandestine company “Scientific & Academic Publishing, USA“. Scientists have been quick to raise the alarm and ruthless in their response.... Read more »
Morrison, Heather. (2012) Scholarly Communication in Crisis. Freedom for scholarship in the internet age. Simon Fraser University School of Communication. info:/
- January 15, 2012
- 01:06 PM
- 71 views
The Jurassic’s Housecat Croc
At long last, Fruitachampsa lives. Sort of. This strange crocodyliform has been extinct for around 150 million years. But, after three decades of waiting, this short-snouted croc has finally been officially named.
The new paper that describes Fruitachampsa callisoni calls the animal “A new shartegosuchid crocodyliform from the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation of western Colorado.” That’s [...]... Read more »
CLARK, J. (2011) A new shartegosuchid crocodyliform from the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation of western Colorado. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. DOI: 10.1111/j.1096-3642.2011.00719.x
- January 13, 2012
- 08:46 AM
- 177 views
New Study Explains How to Battle Climate Change with Simple, Attainable Measures
by Jaime Menchen in United Academics
There is, more than ever, the need of comprehensive, practical studies that present immediately possible actions against climate change. That’s exactly what a new research published today in Science has taken into account.... Read more »
Drew Shindell1,*, Johan C. I. Kuylenstierna2, Elisabetta Vignati3, Rita van Dingenen3, Markus Amann4, Zbigniew Klimont4, Susan C. Anenberg5, Nicholas Muller6, Greet Janssens-Maenhout3, Frank Raes3, Joel Schwartz7, Greg Faluvegi1, Luca Pozzoli3,†, Kaarle, Lisa Emberson, David Streets, V. Ramanathan, Kevin Hicks, N. T. Kim Oanh, George Milly, Martin Williams, Volodymyr Demkine, & David Fowler. (2012) Simultaneously Mitigating Near-Term Climate Change and Improving Human Health and Food Security. Science. info:/10.1126/science.1210026
- January 12, 2012
- 10:00 AM
- 58 views
Cold snaps curtail invasions
Climate change not only causes shifts in the distributions of native species, but also allow invasive species to establish new populations. For example, many Caribbean species are taking advantages of warming temperatures, expanding polewards and invading into the south-eastern United States. Having established themselves, however, it’s not unknown for the invaders to come to pain. [...]... Read more »
Canning-Clode, J., Fowler, A., Byers, J., Carlton, J., & Ruiz, G. (2011) ‘Caribbean Creep’ Chills Out: Climate Change and Marine Invasive Species. PLoS ONE, 6(12). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0029657
- January 9, 2012
- 09:53 AM
- 132 views
Human CO2 emissions thwart next Ice Age
by Carian Thus in United Academics
A new Ice Age would begin within the next 1,500 years, but it might not, due to human emissions of carbon dioxide - says a new study of Cambridge University. ... Read more »
Jaccard, S., & Galbraith, E. (2011) Large climate-driven changes of oceanic oxygen concentrations during the last deglaciation. Nature Geoscience. DOI: 10.1038/ngeo1352
- January 4, 2012
- 09:39 PM
- 158 views
A Walkthrough To Find Credible Souces and Answers to the Controversies of Vaccines, Evolution, Holocaust, and Global Warming
by DJ Busby in Astronasty
Where do you get your facts?
Hopefully, a reliable source.
So what's an online reliable source, and how can a regular Joe get a hold of this information?
A very easy way to be confident is to make sure that you're reading from an .edu or .gov page. One of the easiest (and quickest) ways to find your topic is through the citations on Wikipedia. Some people doubt the validity of Wikipedia in fear of hecklers. The nature or self-maintaining issue of Wikipedia aside, the citation........ Read more »
Bonhoeffer J, & Heininger U. (2007) Adverse events following immunization: perception and evidence. Current opinion in infectious diseases, 20(3), 237-46. PMID: 17471032
Demicheli V, Jefferson T, Rivetti A, & Price D. (2005) Vaccines for measles, mumps and rubella in children. Cochrane database of systematic reviews (Online). PMID: 16235361
Committee on Revising Science and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Sciences and Institute of Medicine of the National Academies. (2008) Science, Evolution, and Creationism. The National Academies Press. info:/9780309105866
Boykoff, M., & Boykoff, J. (2004) Balance as bias: global warming and the US prestige press. Global Environmental Change, 14(2), 125-136. DOI: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2003.10.001
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- January 4, 2012
- 03:57 PM
- 142 views
Russian Rivers and Arctic Salinity: Climate Variation Better Understood
by Greg Laden in Greg Laden's Blog
The sun heats the earth, but unevenly. The excess heat around the equator moves towards the poles, via a number of different mechanisms, the most noticeable for us humans being via air masses. That's what much of our weather is about. Heat also moves towards the poles, in the ongoing evening-out of energy distribution on the planet's surface, via ocean currents.
One of the interesting things that happens with ocean currents is this: Warm water tends to move from equator towards polar region........ Read more »
Morison, J., Kwok, R., Peralta-Ferriz, C., Alkire, M., Rigor, I., Andersen, R., & Steele, M. (2012) Changing Arctic Ocean freshwater pathways. Nature, 481(7379), 66-70. DOI: 10.1038/nature10705
- January 3, 2012
- 07:41 PM
- 108 views
The Sloth’s Evolutionary Secret
On the surface of things, a two-toed sloth doesn’t look much like its closest fossil kin. The tubby, pug-nosed mammal is not quite as imposing or majestic as Megalonyx – the “great claw” Thomas Jefferson discovered and mistakenly identified as an enormous lion over two centuries ago. But the two are relatively close relatives. In [...]... Read more »
Nyakatura, J. (2011) The Convergent Evolution of Suspensory Posture and Locomotion in Tree Sloths. Journal of Mammalian Evolution. DOI: 10.1007/s10914-011-9174-x
- January 1, 2012
- 09:41 AM
- 223 views
Copyright vs Medicine: If this topic isn’t covered in your newspaper this weekend, get a new newspaper
by Neurobonkers in Neurobonkers
According to the New England Journal of Medicine, after thirty years of silence, authors of a standard clinical psychiatric bedside test have issued take down orders of new medical research.... Read more »
Newman, J., & Feldman, R. (2011) Copyright and Open Access at the Bedside. New England Journal of Medicine, 365(26), 2447-2449. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMp1110652
- December 21, 2011
- 04:40 PM
- 137 views
Did Hunger Drive the Evolution of Homo sapiens?
This time last year, science news headlines blared a spectacular claim – the first members of our species evolved 200,000 years earlier than previously thought. The evidence consisted of a small collection of teeth. Discovered in roughly 200,000 to 400,000 year old deposits in Israel’s Qesem Cave, these fossils were said to herald the archaic [...]... Read more »
Belmaker, M. (2009) Hominin Adaptability and Patterns of Faunal Turnover in the Early to Middle Pleistocene Transition in the Levant . Sourcebook of Paleolithic Transitions, 211-227. DOI: 10.1007/978-0-387-76487-0_12
Ben-Dor, M., Gopher, A., Hershkovitz, I., & Barkai, R. (2011) Man the Fat Hunter: The Demise of Homo erectus and the Emergence of a New Hominin Lineage in the Middle Pleistocene (ca. 400 kyr) Levant. PLoS ONE, 6(12). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0028689
Hershkovitz, I., Smith, P., Sarig, R., Quam, R., Rodríguez, L., García, R., Arsuaga, J., Barkai, R., & Gopher, A. (2011) Middle pleistocene dental remains from Qesem Cave (Israel). American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 144(4), 575-592. DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.21446
STUART, A. (2005) The extinction of woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) and straight-tusked elephant (Palaeoloxodon antiquus) in Europe. Quaternary International, 171-177. DOI: 10.1016/j.quaint.2004.04.021
- December 19, 2011
- 06:04 PM
- 204 views
Why is a Pelican Like a Whale?
Pelicans and whales are not especially close relatives. I’m about as closely related to Tyrannosaurus rex as they are to each other. The specialized, flying dinosaurs and the highly-modified, aquatic artiodactyls (who long ago lost their hooves) last shared a common ancestor over 306 million years ago in the form of a visually unremarkable, lizard-like [...]... Read more »
Field, D., Campbell-Malone, R., Goldbogen, J., & Shadwick, R. (2010) Quantitative Computed Tomography of Humpback Whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) Mandibles: Mechanical Implications for Rorqual Lunge-Feeding. The Anatomical Record: Advances in Integrative Anatomy and Evolutionary Biology, 293(7), 1240-1247. DOI: 10.1002/ar.21165
Field, D., Lin, S., Ben-Zvi, M., Goldbogen, J., & Shadwick, R. (2011) Convergent Evolution Driven by Similar Feeding Mechanics in Balaenopterid Whales and Pelicans. The Anatomical Record: Advances in Integrative Anatomy and Evolutionary Biology, 294(8), 1273-1282. DOI: 10.1002/ar.21406
- December 14, 2011
- 05:40 PM
- 379 views
Repost: Life in the Trees Shaped the Panda’s Thumb
[Author's Note: A funny thing happened on the way to the floor the other day. I blacked out at the gym and, when I collided with the floormat, the temple of my glasses punctured my face. As the gym's lifeguards told my wife when they ushered her in to see me, though, the damage looked [...]... Read more »
Salesa, M. (2006) Evidence of a false thumb in a fossil carnivore clarifies the evolution of pandas. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 103(2), 379-382. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0504899102
- December 12, 2011
- 11:39 AM
- 367 views
Repost: The Dodo is Dead, Long Live the Dodo!
Author’s note -Last week I was surprised to learn that this post was selected for the 2011 edition of The Open Laboratory – a “best of” science blogs mixtape which features some of the top blog entries from the past year. Good to know that the dodo still has friends. I have a bit of [...]... Read more »
Angst, D., Buffetaut, E., & Abourachid, A. (2011) The end of the fat dodo? A new mass estimate for Raphus cucullatus. Naturwissenschaften. DOI: 10.1007/s00114-010-0759-7
DEN HENGST, J. (2009) The dodo and scientific fantasies: durable myths of a tough bird. Archives of Natural History, 36(1), 136-145. DOI: 10.3366/E0260954108000697
Hume, J. (2006) The history of the Dodo Raphus cucullatus and the penguin of Mauritius. Historical Biology, 18(2), 65-89. DOI: 10.1080/08912960600639400
Hume, Julian; Datta, Ann; Martill, David M. (2006) Unpublished drawings of the Dodo Raphus cucullatus and notes on Dodo skin relics. Bulletin of the British Ornithologists’ Club, 126(A). info:/
Hume, J., Cheke, A., & McOran-Campbell, A. (2009) How Owen 'stole' the Dodo: academic rivalry and disputed rights to a newly-discovered subfossil deposit in nineteenth century Mauritius. Historical Biology, 21(1), 33-49. DOI: 10.1080/08912960903101868
Nicholls, H. (2006) Ornithology: Digging for dodo. Nature, 443(7108), 138-140. DOI: 10.1038/443138a
RIJSDIJK, K., HUME, J., BUNNIK, F., FLORENS, F., BAIDER, C., SHAPIRO, B., VANDERPLICHT, J., JANOO, A., GRIFFITHS, O., & VANDENHOEKOSTENDE, L. (2009) Mid-Holocene vertebrate bone Concentration-Lagerstätte on oceanic island Mauritius provides a window into the ecosystem of the dodo (Raphus cucullatus). Quaternary Science Reviews, 28(1-2), 14-24. DOI: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2008.09.018
Roberts, D., & Solow, A. (2003) Flightless birds: When did the dodo become extinct?. Nature, 426(6964), 245-245. DOI: 10.1038/426245a
Shapiro, B. (2002) Flight of the Dodo. Science, 295(5560), 1683-1683. DOI: 10.1126/science.295.5560.1683
Turvey, S., & Cheke, A. (2008) Dead as a dodo: the fortuitous rise to fame of an extinction icon. Historical Biology, 20(2), 149-163. DOI: 10.1080/08912960802376199
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