I was invited by Brian Krueger to participate at LabSpaces in order to offer a "paleontology perspective." I also maintain a separate blog called PaleoErrata, which I do not recommend visiting for any conceivable reason. It uses extremely bad language and has a tendency to ramble. This blog is intended to be a bit more focused. In addition to discussing important discoveries in the field of vertebrate paleontology, I want to explain to non-paleontologists exactly what this science is about, how it is done, and why it is significant.

Paleontology is the study of ancient life. As such, it is the bastard child of biology (the study of life) and geology (the study of the Earth). We are studying things which were once alive, but we get all our information from the rock record, where it is buried. As a result, paleontologists may be part of biology or geology departments at universities, and have degrees relating to either discipline, or to both (I have one zoology degree and two geology degrees). There are no paleontology degrees. For prospective university students interested in becoming a paleontologists, I recommend double majoring.

I am a vertebrate paleontologist, which means I work on animals with backbones; th . . . More

Have you ever messed up at work? Did it happen when you were still a n00b? Did it cause you to fear losing your job? Well, if you’re asking me, I’d have to say, Yes, Yes, and Yes.

It all started as an ordinary day, there I was at the cube farm, looking over some data I had been gathering from previous experiments. I was in the midst of running some tests that I came up with myself. The goal was finding new and improved fuel formulations for the hybrid motors. I was excited. The planning and initial testing were done, and it was time for some real messy hands on lab work. I grabbed my stuff and drove down to the rocket making facility.

Unlike the cube farm, which was a pretty bustling place, the testing area was only busy during actual testing, and before 4pm when the machinists went home. By the time I got there, I had the whole (freezing) warehouse to myself. I liked working alone. I could dance around when I wanted to, have my music going, and laugh out loud randomly (as I often do) for no reason, without getting those pesky stares.

That day, I had selected a number of candidate fuel formulations to be tested. Well, not yet tested as in firing them. That came later, and that required a whole team of people, video cameras, safety briefings, and a number . . . More

This morning, enjoying having a day off from work, and thinking about all the friends I shared gifts with this year, I was suddenly hit by a feeling of ...something between pain, absence, and sorrow. I remembered my friend who is not here any longer.

I became friends with *Greg through acquaintances at work about 3 years ago and we hit it off instantly.  Meeting Greg was like finding a long lost best friend and just as if we had known each other our whole lives, we were fully at peace when together. Or so I thought.

A wonderful man and father, a talented musician and one of the sweetest souls I'd ever met, for a while, at least in that first year after he committed suicide, a day did not go by when I didn't think of him. My kindred spirit vanished from the planet without a goodbye or even a sign. Well, there were signs. I just didn't open my eyes to see them.

Greg and I talked about everything that was going on- and a lot of things were going on in his life. He was in the midst of personal turmoil with his marriage, serious financial issues, and on top of it all, had lost his job because the company he worked for went out of business.  At the time, all of his problems seemed manageable and not that serious. I felt he had everything under control. . . . More

This week's guest blogger is Joe Hanson. He is currently working on his Ph.D. in Cell and Molecular Biology at the University of Texas at Austin, where he works on things far less interesting than the work you are about to read, specifically mobile genetic elements and ancient introns. He blogs at It's Okay To Be Smart and runs an awesome Tumblr page of the same name (updated ten times as often). Joe can be found on Twitter @jtotheizzoe.

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I was on a little bit of a post-vacation downer this past week. Only, I didn’t actually go anywhere. Instead, the SXSW music (and arts and interactive and style) festival came to me, right at home in Austin, TX. It was a week of uplifting musical and artistic expression emanating from every street corner and bar in town, and much of could even be classified as good! As I look back on the last week, two things jump out at me: 1) Tall cans of cheap, hipster beer and 2) BEARDS.

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When you hear the term ‘Hybrid Motor’ you probably think of a low(er) emissions automobile that runs at least partially on some alternative form of fuel, anything other than oil that is. Although that is pretty much what it means to the automotive industry, in the Aerospace field a ‘Hybrid Motor’ is something else entirely.

A Hybrid Rocket Motor is in fact a rocket that gets its propulsion power by producing a chemical reaction using two separate components, one is solid, and the other is Fluid. Typically, a solid inert propellant is used along with a liquid oxidizer. The reaction requires an ignition source to be lit in the presence of both in order to get the party started. What does that actually mean? It’s simple.

Let’s start with the solid component. The solid fuel is cast into what’s called a grain, in a cylindrical shaped casing, with a hole down the middle, called a port. Think of it like a big roll of paper towel. The paper part is the solid fuel, and the hollow interior is the port, which is where the oxidizer is going to flow through. There are several materials that are commonly used to make the solid portion of the fuel: Hydroxyl Terminated Polybutadiene (HTPB), Polyethylene, Paraffin and various additives. Each fuel composition will giv . . . More

I get asked this question a lot. There are two questions, actually, that students ask me all the time. One is: how did I get my job? The other: do I really need a PhD?

Today I will attempt to answer the second question.

So I was going to start out by saying that whether or not a PhD is the right choice for you depends on what you want to do with your life. Essentially- where do you see yourself in 5-10 years? And then I read the article by Image Goddess about how annoying this question is (and I laughed). So let's not go there.

I understand that not everyone has a clear vision of what they want in life. They aren't sure what makes them happy at age 21, or even 25, so how can you choose whether or not to devote 6 years of your life to working slave hours for barely living wages? This certainly complicates things.

The decision as to whether or not to get a PhD really does depend on having some idea of what you want to do in the future. If you don't really want it, I think you'll be miserable and chances are you won't make it through. According to this article, only 57% of st . . . More

After attending a conference a couple months ago and being forced to sit through some pretty bad presentations, I had in mind to discuss the importance of grad students learning how to put together and deliver a good presentation. This skill is critical and I can't believe how many scientists struggle with presentations. I know it's tough and I know when you're nervous it is easy to forget some things you wanted to say. But there are ways of making your presentation easier for your audience to understand, and make it so it triggers reminders for you, so when the nerves come in, you don't forget what you wanted to say.

My most recent experience really highlighted this problem because as soon as the speaker was done, a man behind me raised his hand to ask a question. He said, "I COULDN'T HEAR A WORD YOU SAID AND I CAN'T READ ANY OF YOUR SLIDES!" He was pissed off. I was too, but I wasn't going to stand up in a room of 100 people and yell at the speaker. But it was true. So many things were wrong in every talk presented.

Honestly, if I pay several hundred dollars to attend a conference and I get up at 7 am to make your 8 am talk (which is waking up at 4 am for me on west coast time), and I get to the room, and now I sit through . . . More

29andaPhD is a PostDoc with a degree in Biochemistry and Biophysics who is currently on the hunt for a real job. She blogs at 29 and a PhD and she can be found on twitter as 28andaPhD.

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One of the most awesome experiences of grad school (besides landing the coveted spot for the interview, getting into your favourite lab, or finishing your degree sooner than planned) is passing the qualifying or comprehensive exam. For short, I'll call it qual. In a way this exam is designed to not only test your capacity to create new and test an idea, by teaching yourself new concepts, challenge paradigms, establish a new line of thinking, but to “filter”, in a way, the incoming talent of the department. Passing the qual, in a way, serves to welcome you into some sort of club, where students (usually) don't take any more exams, that of senior grad students who are held up as the best and brightest within a department. It was understood that if you passed this rigorous examination you had fought hard and earned your spot in the department. At least that's how it seemed to the 24-year-old-super-scared me.

This is my story about passing th . . . More

I'm a young researcher. I haven't yet been around the block. I've had one research job for the past 5+ years and that has mostly been spent coordinating influenza epidemiology studies. Only recently have I jumped into the deep end of the laboratory world to tackle the second part of my dissertation.

I know IRBs really well. I've lost count how many I've have to declare war against. I know IACUCs well enough to keep our lab kosher. I know funding agencies and the stress they love to evoke. I know how to convince random people that they should participate in my study - "Help a girl graduate, please!" I know phlebotomy well enough to actually get blood. I know how to coordinate an epi study like nobody's business. I know a random set of laboratory skills, even how to harvest influenza viruses from embryonated chicken eggs.

But why did I choose to do science and public health? Honestly, I chose science because of its cool factor. I thought microbes were fascinating and I wanted to learn as much as I could about them. I can pin point my love for infectious diseases to a specific life event - choosing to do an 8th grade book report on The Hot Zone by Richard Preston. To me, the Ebola virus was fascinating and throughout high . . . More

Greetings fellow scientists, science-enthusiasts, and LabSpaces paparazzi! For those who don’t know me from my *ehem* Twitter omnipresence, I thought I’d share a little about myself and how I ended up in a career commonly—and often appropriately—preceded by the word “mad.” If you do know me, don’t zone out just yet. You may discover something new, and this material might be on tomorrow’s pop quiz...

My infatuation with science began when I was young and fancied myself as something of an athlete. During high school, I played three sports, in addition to participating in a bevy of other extracurricular activities. Keeping up with athletic practice, homework, and a smattering of social events took an incredible amount of energy. I became interested in nutrition, which I saw at the time as a way to optimize the ratio of energy generated vs time spent eating. (Note that there were many flaws in the design of this study. The most important flaw was that, like most teenagers, I neglected to include the variable now known to me as “sleep” in the equation. Though the wisdom of age has made me aware of its importance, I continue to convince myself at times that its correlation coefficient is 0 . . . More

It would seem as though the end of an era is upon us. Tomorrow, will be the last scheduled launch of the NASA Space Shuttle. Or at least, that's what the current plan says. Never know with that Florida weather. Regardless of the date, there is only one mission left in the old bird. After which, NASA will recall it's vehicles, and the shuttle will be retired. For good.



I'm not typically one who cares much about so called historical events. However, I do find myself thinking: 'Awww.. no more shuttle.. Awwww'. Yes, there are 2 'Aww's in there. I'm as surprised as you are.



Being the space nut that I am, I spent much of my childhood day dreaming about what it would be like to take a ride up to space in that thing. So much so, that I in fact became the first person to land on the newly repaved landing strip runway at Cape Canaveral.



It was back in the early 80's. My family and I flew to FL to spend the summer with my grandma. During our stay, we took a road trip up to the Cape, and the eager little toddler that I was got on a facility tour bus with the big kids. My parents came along too. The bus took us all around the complex. No I don't remember any of this, but I do h . . . More

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Sorry about the delay since my last post. I've got a series of blogs about the evolution of dinosaurs and closely related reptiles that I want to do, but as I started writing it, I realized that I ought to do a series of blogs giving a little background into how paleontologists know what they know about the history of life first, and also about what exactly dinosaurs are and how they fit into the big picture of life. So, first things first. Also, I AM paying attention to questions that people ask in the comments section, and will try to cover them (eventually).

This first blog is about how we put events in the history of life in order. Imagine a novel being written in collaboration by a bunch of different authors. Some of them are writing about characters, some about settings, some about specific events which occur in the plot...but they are writing in isolation, and no one has any idea how these people, settings, and events are ordered. What happened first? Did the characters go to Paris after their trip to Mars, or before? Did the schizophrenic dog kill his owner before or after his affair with the monkey? This stuff is important. Everyone is just writing their own pages, but until someone takes all the pages and put them in order, there is no story.

Fo . . . More

I walked past the mini-conference room area that AACR set up in the middle of the exhibit hall and my eyes immediately zeroed in on the name of one of my science idols: Elizabeth Blackburn. She was going to be speaking about careers to young scientists and allow them to ask her questions.

I noted the day and time. It wouldn’t matter to me what she was talking about. I would be there.

The next day at 10 am, I watched her walk in to the roofless cubicled room and you could feel the excitement as she hurriedly walked to the front. I stood in the back by the entrance. All of the chairs were reserved for scientists who were post-docs and grad students but I was just grateful to be there early enough to have a spot to stand and listen.

How I wished I had this advice when I was young and ill-informed!

If you ever have the opportunity to listen to Dr. Blackburn speak, go out of your way to see her. Words can’t describe her magnetic presence and gentle, sincere smile. I could use some California new age terms here to describe her positive energy or radiant aura, but I’ll spare you.

Just a little introduction for people who don’t know . . . More

I was 3 years old. I didn't know what it meant, but I was 3. The next year, I'd be 4, and I would want an Atari 2600 for my birthday. But at that point in time, I was 3 and the world was going to change. I would later hear about how everything changed and the ensuing hard, uphill struggle to inform. To survive. But instead I was 3. Being filmed in the garage at my grandmother's house on my Uncle's old Betamax camcorder. Running around the small backyard in the Outer Sunset District.

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This week's guest blogger is Anthony Haugh who currently lives in New Mexico, and has studied Electronics Technology and Photonics Technology. He later plans on obtaining his third degree in Optical Engineering after visiting Europe. He can be found on Twitter as @Boltary.

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To my eternal amusement, every time someone asks me "what are your majors?" I get blank stares when I give the reply "Photonics Technology and Electronics Technology." Most of everyone I meet immediately understands the degree with that now-commonplace word "Electronics," but almost without exception I am asked "What is Photonics?" I admit that when I entered college I only had a limited understanding of what "Photonics" was besides Photons and Lasers. Even my spell-checker says it is a made-up word, so what is Photonics, and why is it important?

It turns out that "Photonics" is an extremely diverse field, and is about as vague as saying "Chemistry" or "Physics" when trying to talk about a field of science. Specifically, photonics is a sub-set of physics that focuses on the studies and applications of photons (Such as detection, generation, etc). Photons are odd little concepts that defy . . . More

This week's guest blogger is Michael Blume who did his dissertation in scientific studies of religions (German: Religionswissenschaft) about brain sciences & religion(s). Since then, he has focused on evolutionary studies of religion and therein especially on the interactions of religious traditions and fertility as well as gender issues. Besides writing books and articles, he's blogging at Scilogs.eu (English) and Scilogs.de (German). You can find him on Twitter @BlumeEvolution

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The idea that the biological trait of religiosity and the cultural traditions of religion(s) are a result of evolutionary history still seems to be shockingly daring and new to many. But in fact, it has been there from the very start of evolutionary theory. Charles Darwin, a learned theologian, was pretty clear about it: If evolutionary theory turned out to be true, it had to be able to explain the evolution of "natural" religiosity as well as . . . More

This week's guest blogger is Ryan Renslow. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Washington State University in the Gene and Linda Voiland School of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering (say that five times fast!). You can follow him on twitter (@BiofilmResearch) to learn all about biofilms and his research!

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Until recently, most of the general public has never heard of or used the word "biofilm". Thanks to Listerine, and their "biofilm fighting" mouthwash, this is no longer true. Listerine commercials, featuring their new antiseptic product, have indoctrinated our culture to believe that "biofilm" is merely 2011-speak for plaque. However, biofilm is not simply a new advertising buzzword, but rather it has actually been used in the scientific research community since the late 70's and refers to much more than simple oral plaque. To be clear, plaque is known as a biofilm in dental and oral science literature, so Listerine is correct, but biofilms are much more than what the commercials depict.

Bacteria live in two primary modes of life: the planktonic form and the biofilm form. The planktonic form refers to free floating cell . . . More

What comes to mind when you think of a medical and scientific illustrator? Is it a kind of art you admire? How do you respond to highly detailed drawings? Do the fleshy human interiors make you squeamish, which is a remark I have sometimes received from clients regarding medical images in general? Does the precision impress you? Does the stiffness offer you stillness or rigidity, something to explore? Do you love the great masters of the field: Leonardo DaVinci, Andreas Vesalius, Max Brödel, Frank H. Netter, John James Audubon?

As a student medical illustrator, I knew what I wanted to learn. I wanted to wrap my mind around the science and the drawing skills I would require in the future. I already had an undergraduate degree in zoology, and our courses in the Division of Biomedical Communications were to be shared with the medical students at the University of Toronto, so science was heavily on my mind. There were . . . More