Monthly Archives: August 2010

Triceratops is Safe and Sound

Numerous popular press outlets reported last week that Triceratops was going the way of the dinosaur (haha) and that Triceratops was no longer a valid genus name because it was potentially just an example of a juvenile stage of a dinosaur with another name, Torosaurus. Here are some examples. At Science… sort of you would think that we would not be swayed by the popular press, we would go straight to the primary literature, read the study ourselves and then report on what the actual scientists said, maybe even interview them. Wrong; we made the same blunder that many popular press outlets did in our podcast episode 48 – No Frills. When it came down to it, we were rushed to put a show together and had already read too many pop press accounts of the Triceratops article that many a member of the Paleoposse had sent us. As a result, we gave the primary literature only a quick once over before we (or at least I) thought we understood the crux of the argument.

Oh, did we miss the boat. Continue reading Triceratops is Safe and Sound

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Breakfast Beer

This blog has been very science-based of late but our show is also about something else: beer. This can no longer be neglected. To that end, my pal Jesse and I partook of the Founders Kentucky Bourbon Breakfast Stout. And yes, we had it for breakfast. Below are our reviews of the beer. We used the system established by the website Beer Advocate, of which we are both members. (If you too are a member you can check out our profiles at grovejesse and rjhaupt, respectively.) Hope you dig this slight change of pace!

P.S. Be sure to let us know in the comments if this is something you’d like to see more (or less) of!

Continue reading Breakfast Beer

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Oil, it’s whats for dinner

Quick and easy n-alkane recipies for entertaning

Though people like to refer to their cars as gas guzzlers, organisms that eat alkanes more literally do indeed exist.   They are also media whores.

Yes, oil consuming microbes have been in the spotlight quite a bit these recent days as the gulf coast waits not only for the Macondo well to be permanently killed, but for the oil to go away.  Alcanivorax borkumensis is a feisty little guy, the first hydrocarbonoclastic bacterium to be genetically sequenced, and is found worldwide.  Though there are other species of Alcanivorax, A. borkumensis is a favorite in the world of bioremediation because it synthesizes not just one, but several potent enzymes that assist in the degradation of alkanes.  Naturally, they tend to dominate microbial populations in areas with ambient oil/gas seeps and those with high pollution rates. Continue reading Oil, it’s whats for dinner

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10 Animals You Probably Didn’t Know About

Well if you are the kind of person that goes around reading articles with titles like “10 Animals You Probably Didn’t Know About” then maybe you already know about these, but most people don’t.

1. Pangolins

You may have actually heard us mention this on Science… sort of, but there were no pictures then, and you might have thought to yourself, I think I know what they were talking about. You didn’t. Here’s a picture. Continue reading 10 Animals You Probably Didn’t Know About

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