Wired has a nice little article on the molecular clock model being used by antiquarians to date prints/books etc. The original paper is here, describing how the properties of copperplate and woodblock degeneration (and the corresponding print quality features) can be used in a clock model to help date manuscrips. Nifty. Also, via Afarensis (who … Read more
… you all knew that. Pigeon Blog makes me cry with laughter. This is no exception.
Continuing my trend of providing free advertising to people who make science cool and accessible: Made With Molecules. ThinkGeek already did the t-shirt thing with their caffeine molecules, but the jewellery is very lovely, especially the earrings and simple necklaces (I loathe charm bracelets). Putting on my once-was-jewellery-designer hat, I'm all for putting a premium … Read more
(Pretentious latin post title for the win!) The tension in academia–especially science–between communication and discretion fascinates me. On the one hand, you want to be able to discuss your ideas with as many people as possible; on the other, those ideas are your intellectual currency and you don't want them stolen or misappropriated. The publishing … Read more
The Guardian reports they ordered a chunk of the smallpox virus DNA sequence online from a molecular biology supply company. It's not as dire as it might sound: you gotta have graduate-level expertise and more than a kitchen sink to recombine DNA sequences. What was interesting was that there is no across-the-board screening of all … Read more
Eagleton, C. & Spencer, M. 2006. Copying and conflation in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Treatise on the astrolabe : a stemmatic analysis using phylogenetic software. Studies In History and Philosophy of Science Part A [link] Chaucer’s works seem to be the focus of what one might call literary phylogenetics. This new paper uses network methods to try … Read more
Cultural evolution really is a growing field. So there. Fiona Jordan Anthropology, UCL It is extremely useful to be able to preface one’s grant application or paper introduction with a reference to the vibrant state of research in the field of cultural evolution. Of course, the truth of that sentiment has, until now, been more … Read more
Regarding the general student reaction to the recent industrial action by the University and College Union (which I wholeheartedly endorse and therefore exempt myself from the classification in this post's title, heh) Edward Hall writes in sp!ked: This lack of solidarity within higher education was detrimental to the UCU’s quest for higher pay. The media … Read more
So, mindful of the rather patchy nature of my grasp on anthropological theory, I have been dutifully skimming plowing through the RAT. Ye supernatural figures and diminutive teleosts, this book is a marvel of convoluted and exclamatory verbiage. Using jargon = teh suck. I have found a couple of gems of anti-evolutionary sentiment, though. This … Read more
Because capes aren't just for boys. Girl-Wonder.org is a collection of sites dedicated to females in mainstream comics. Our goals are to foster an attentive, empowered audience community and to encourage respect and high-quality character depiction within the industry. I am extremely proud to know the fabulous people behind this project, and demand that even … Read more