Conventional wisdom has always been that fossils are impressionistic: although they can tell us a lot about the morphology of a great variety of organic structures, it has been assumed that all but the most recent of fossil remains contain none of the original material that made up the fossilized organism. A recent article in Read More
Paleonotology, Taphonomic ProcessesThere’s an interesting article in a recent issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education entitled “A Path for Puffins“. The article discusses the campaign to help eradicate an invasive plant species from a somewhat-remote Scottish Island that is home to thousands of puffins. The puffin population was showing steady decline on the island, and an Read More
Articles, Biodiversity Loss, Climate Change, Conservation Biology, Invasive Species, Marine EcosystemsThis month’s Scientific American had two interesting news stories concerning our scientific obsession with space. The first article, entitled “Defying Politics”, discussed the schizophrenic and wavering manner in which the last two presidential administrations have worked to forge our future explorations of space by reforming NASA. Increasingly, it is clear that our manned space program Read More
Astrobiology, Space TravelThe Chronicle of Higher Education featured a provocative article entitled “True Sustainability Means Going Beyond Campus Boundaries” in last week’s issue. Author James Proctor argues that campus sustainability has focused too much on the “act locally” principle, leading to sustainable islands of collegiate privilege that do not do much to change the larger global forces Read More
Sustainability