Happy Origin Day!
On this day 150 years ago, Charles Darwin's most famous book, "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection" was published.To "celebrate" this occasion I spent five minutes trying to deflect an argument from a colleague I shall charitably refer to as being "uninformed" telling me that "Darwin was wrong". There is a time and a place to go all Dawkins on someone's ass, and honestly that moment was not it. But a later rant to a fellow Biology lecturer helped a great deal, I can tell you!It's also Zach's

Suggested University Courses
Here's a question for the numerous British university-based readers for this blog. I am absolutely tickled because one of my students wants to study palaeontology at university. And it's because of me. Is that not the best thing ever?So, to give my new favourite student the best chances, I'm helping out by suggesting a few universities to apply to. Said student is doing Biology A-level but not Chemistry or Maths. This probably excludes some of the big Natural Sciences programmes (and if I recall correctly the closing date for Oxbridge applications has already passed).My thoughts are that he would be well suited to a straight Palaeobio

End Of An Era
I learned last night that Professor Barrie Rickards, expert graptolite researcher, has died at the age of 71. It was reported this morning on PaleoNet, the palaeontology listserve.My year group affectionately named him Darth Rickards, Dark Lord of the Schist. I recall sitting in a stream section somewhere in the Howgill Fells in the summer of 1999 trying to find graptolites with my fellow geology students (and nursing the mother of all hangovers), led by an ever-enthusiastic Barrie in his huge full-length wax coat.Barrie also taught me everything I know abou

The State Of The Lecturer, 4th November
It's finally shaping up to be wintery here. Well, wintery by Soft Southern Nancy standards anyway. A chill in the air, blustery winds and crisp mornings to dry out soggy leaves.For me, the first week of November heralds the official start of the Christmas countdown (I refuse to think about the C-word until this time). I refer, of course, to the arrival of the Starbucks Red Cups, and in particular, that nectar of the Flying Spaghetti Monster - the eggnog latte.

Things I Learned From My Students #1: Autumn 2009
It's really uncool and old-fashioned to call it a "pen-drive" rather than a "USB".No one born after 1991 has ever heard of "2001: A Space Odyssey".Arsene Wenger speaks nine different languages.There's a lot of really complicated stuff going on in "Eastenders" at the moment.Deep questions like "How do snails have sex?" are really fascinating.Everyone likes to look at bones and formaldehyde specimens, and even the dullest class can be rescued with "Who wants to play with a skeleton?".The word "dinosaurs" can be spelt in a gazillion different ways, none of which are the correct ones: dinosours, danosouer,