Posts

May 13, 2013

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8:47 PM | A Dinosaur’s Unexpected Appearance

Sometimes your research shows up in the places where you least expect it. Seniors at Armour High School–my alma mater square in the middle of Armour, South Dakota (population 699)–have a fun and quirky tradition at graduation. When called …

April 19, 2013

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7:30 AM | A Dinosaur’s Journey to Publication

With yesterday’s publication of the paper describing and naming the dinosaur Dahalokely, one stage of a loooong research journey has reached its end. The details on the animal itself have been covered elsewhere, so this post focuses on …

April 18, 2013

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9:04 PM | Madagascar’s Lonely Little Thief

When we think of Madagascar, its unique wildlife immediately springs to mind. Around 95 percent of the terrestrial animals on this island are endemic, meaning that they are found nowhere else on earth. This unusual situation is a product of …

April 12, 2013

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3:36 PM | Rooted in History. . .Remembering Wann Langston, Jr.

Perhaps it’s because we are a historical science. Maybe it’s a direct result of our small numbers. No matter what the cause, vertebrate paleontology has a rich oral history. Stories are passed down, from advisor to student, from colleague to …

March 21, 2013

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6:24 AM | Who’s to blame (or credit) for fast peer review?

Lately around the blogosphere and Twitterverse, I’ve been seeing an increasing number of folks complimenting open access journals on their quick turnaround for peer review–or blaming open access journals for slow review. Fast turnaround is an excellent thing, no doubt, …

February 28, 2013

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6:56 AM | Fishing Without a Fossil (Part 2)

Our thrilling conclusion to a 70 million year old mystery in Madagascar. . .if you haven’t already, make sure to read Part 1 for more detailed information! Lungfish are cool critters. . .they’re hardy fish that are well-adapted to harsh …

January 25, 2013

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12:33 AM | And This is Why We Should Always Provide Our Data. . .

For a long time now, I’ve been beating the drum of “provide your data.” If you’re willing to take take a whole mess of measurements and do a whole bunch of analyses for a published paper, why not share …

January 18, 2013

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12:21 PM | Fishing Without a Fossil (Part 1)

Fossils are divided into two broad categories: body fossils and trace fossils. As I tell students in my intro to paleontology class, a body fossil is (unsurprisingly) part of the body of an organism. It can be a …

December 28, 2012

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4:43 PM | Book Review: All Yesterdays

Breathing life back into lost worlds is not an easy task–how do you paint, draw, or sculpt an animal that no human has ever seen? Perhaps as a result of this, paleontological art is full of some well-worn tropes. Tyrannosaurus…

December 07, 2012

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1:57 AM | Scintillating caecilian fossils spill new secrets

Most of us are pretty familiar with frogs and salamanders, but many outside the world of natural history buffs have not heard of the third major group of living amphibians, the caecilians. Caecilians (pronounced roughly like “Sicilians“) are …

November 29, 2012

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10:18 PM | What Makes A Paper Useful?

For my inaugural post, I wanted to introduce myself briefly as well as talk about some issues of scientific publication that are of interest to me (and hopefully you!). As mentioned elsewhere, I am the curator at the Raymond …

November 28, 2012

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3:08 PM | We Are. . .The Integrative Paleontologists

Nowadays, news stories about paleontology–the study of Earth’s past life–often focus on ”new tools for old bones,” or any other number of oft-used phrases. The fact of the matter is that many technological approaches to the science are no longer …