Podcast Q & A

Posted on July 28, 2011 by Ryan

Every so often people write into us assuming we know a thing or two about podcasting. All I can say is we do our best and I’m flattered people would approach us with questions and I’m happy to try to answer a few recent ones.

If you’re looking for more about the narrative for why we started the show in the first place I’d suggest listening to Patrick, Charlie and myself when we were the guests on Podcast Squared a few weeks back.

Podcast Squared #53 – Crazy Science

I also wrote a somewhat more snarky and narrative post on how the podcast get’s put together each week which I posted on this blog awhile back. It’s not as helpful in a technical sense, but may illuminate some of the other hurdles of running a weekly show.

Another Manic Monday: How the Sausage Gets Made

Today’s questions were submitted by Dayna and are great things to think about for anyone wanting to get started with a show.

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GUEST POST: Iron Science Teacher Competition

Posted on July 19, 2011 by Juliana

Now for a little Tuesday treat we have a guest post from a dear friend of the show, current science illustrator and future museum evaluator Juliana Olsson! She wrote us up a post about her experience as the Iron Science Teacher competition held on June 25th, 2011. Enjoy! – Ryan

I have a confession: before attending the Iron Science Teacher competition at the Exploratorium a few Saturdays ago, I had never watched any “Iron [Fill in the Blank]” activity. It’s not that I discriminate against element 26, I just have a hard time reconciling the competitive nature of such events with the subjective topic: if each entry is good but in different ways, how do you choose the “best” one? Thus I was somewhat wary watching high school science teachers duke it out in front of a live audience to determine which one could come up with the best experiment and lesson plan on a given concept. Would this be a ferociously ferrous nerd bloodbath?

I shouldn’t have worried. It was awesome. There were chemicals and beakers and flames and muppet music. Things were learned, fun was had by all, and I approved of the winner. There was even a glowing pickle. Watch the webcast yourself, or read about the experiments after the jump.

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Kelly’s Parasitology Lectures: THE MONOGENEANS!

Posted on June 30, 2011 by weinersmith

Lectures on Monogeneans! As usual, please feel free to leave a comment to tell me how I could improve my lectures, and to correct any inaccuracies.

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Kelly’s Parasitology Lectures: Introduction to Parasitology

Posted on June 30, 2011 by weinersmith

I’m mentoring some high school students this summer through UCSB’s Summer Sessions Research Mentorship Program, and am working on a lecture series on parasitology. I always do a practice lecture, and have decided to record these practice lectures and put them on my website. While the lecture is geared towards high school students, these students are quite advanced and so I plan on treating the lectures as though they are geared towards undergraduate students. The lectures will emphasize fish parasites, as the students will be working with me on my dissertation project studying fish parasites, and because that’s what I know most about. ;)

Please provide comments on how I can be a more effective lecturer in the comments section below!

The first lecture defines different types of species interactions, and then overviews the framework proposed by Lafferty and Kuris 2002 for defining “natural enemies” (i.e., different types of parasite, pathogens, and predators).

NOTE: By upcoming lectures on Monogeneans I learn how to appropriately crop the images so the top and bottom aren’t cut off.

This second lecture is a bit more fun, and discusses the integrative nature of parasitology. It also discusses the link between the field of parasitology and times of war.

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Keeping Track of All That Beer – Untappd and Podcasting

Posted on June 27, 2011 by Ryan

Randy H. asked a question in this week’s show that has spurred me to action! Namely, how can he keep track of all the cool brews I (and the other Paleopals) bring to the table each and every week? His question specifically asked about Episode 23 – SHARK WEEK! which by some neural anomaly I actually remember. I had a Gordon Ale by Oskar Blues, which I also brought for our guest. Bad news, Randy, they’ve stopped making it. Or at least are making it by different name now.

However, this is but one small example, and I simply don’t have the time nor inclination to listen back through entire catalog of episodes to remember what drink I had when. So I don’t have a perfect solution for Randy, but I have a solution which will have to suffice. That solution is called Untappd.

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Michal’s Czech Pronunciation Challenge!

Posted on June 20, 2011 by Ryan

Listener Michal sent in an e-mail containing his iTunes review. Problem is the review is only visible on iTunes if you’re in the Czech Republic. It’s also written in Czech. Now apparently I said I’d try reading German reviews if they were sent in and Michal thinks that maybe I could handle Czech too. I disagree, because this looks really hard to pronounce. Germanic languages I have a clue about, Slavic languages remain a mystery.

So on Episode 91, which also came out today, I fumble through a word or two before giving up entirely. Yet I still want to know how praise for the show would sound in Czech, thus, this post. I’m going to post Michal’s review and the pronunciation guide he sent. If you can handle it with your mouth, then call us at 312-Paleopals (312-725-3672) and read it for us! Fun times will be had by all…

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REVIEW: Welcome to the Greenhouse

Posted on June 14, 2011 by Ryan

It’s summertime and it’s hot out! That means academics get to read for fun. I think that’s true for most jobs too, so I figured I’d talk about the book I finally managed to finish now that classes are done.

I mentioned Welcome to the Greenhouse in a previous post, so I guess in some ways this is a follow up but I couldn’t say much about the product before other than that it had a cool concept. By way of a reminder, the book is an anthology of short fiction by sci-fi scribes centered around the idea of global climate change.

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R you ready for this? Statistics for free!

Posted on May 7, 2011 by Patrick

If you’ve listened to the show for a while or if you’ve been reading the paleocave blog from the beginning (like when we actually used to update it regularly), then you might know that I’m rather fascinated with statistics. Imagine my delight a few years ago when I found out that one of the most powerful statistical tools available (the one that most of the cool kids use) was available for free! That tool is called R.  It’s a great tool but a terrible name.  Best I can tell, it’s named for the R in R2, which is shorthand for the coefficient of determination if you are doing a linear regression. That’s cool, I guess, but R as a name is horrible search engine optimization. Oh well, keeps out the riff-raff I suppose.

The vast majority of people would call R a programming language. Real computer programmers (the kind of people that argue about Ruby vs Perl) will tell you it’s not really a ‘language,’ it’s a ‘programming environment.’ Whatever, I don’t think I really know the difference.  Don’t get intimidated, because it’s pretty easy to do as much or as little as you want in R.
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BEER REVIEW: GUBNA Imperial IPA

Posted on April 30, 2011 by Ryan

Per my previous post, I’m not gonna put beer reviews up on the blog for a while. If you’re curious why, click-through the link. If you just wanna read my thoughts concerning an old favorite beer, continue on. As in my last post about beer, I’ll be using the rating system devised by Beer Advocate, where this review was originally posted.

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Thoughts on the Reviewing of Beer

Posted on April 30, 2011 by Ryan

As all of you who listen to the show are no doubt aware: I enjoy beer. I enjoy it as a crafted thing in much the same way I would enjoy a pastry or a well-brewed cup of coffee. Without being overly vague, I do not consider beer a means to an end.

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