This is a short essay that I wrote for my introductory biology students. A lot of them call me “Sir.” I'm trying to get them to stop. ;...

Yes, that's an overly melodramatic way of saying, "Classes start tomorrow." Being an academic is a two part job: you're re...

Pages read of Stephen Jay Gould's The Structure of Evolutionary Theory : 595. I've reached the beginning of Part II of the book! Unf...

The girls really do get prettier by closing time. And so do the boys, according to this study .

This article in The Scientist (free registration required) has a quote from someone saying that assistant professors (like me) are expecte...

Bad news : Vacation is over. Good news : It was very fun, thanks. Bad news : I didn't get quite as much work done along the way as I ...

But scientists sure take vacations. Probably no updates until 15 August due to vacation. I won't be completely inactive; I'm takin...

Poor Carlton . ;;;;; Pages read of The Structure of Evolutionary Theory : 352 (part way through Chapter Five).

Was just walking into my lab to play around with a DVD (tranferred from video I shot in Australia), I saw something running along the wall. ...

You can now reach this journal at this much easier to remember URL : http://dojo.shorturl.com

Like everything in academic circles, even a set of talks at a meeting needs a proposal. That's why I spent a good part of today working ...

I hate paperwork. I especially hate customs paperwork, which is what I spent a good part of the last two days dealing with. It's like th...

Got an e-mail today from one of the NSF directors about my recently submitted proposal. One of the things the proposal asks for is "C...

More equipment arrived (huzzah!), but still lacking bits necessary to perform an actual experiment. Spent part of the afternoon starting t...

Yesterday, two books arrived in my apartment that couldn't look much different physically. The first is a magnum opus by Stephen Jay...

The sand crabs I collected way back at the start of the month (5 July) are still alive and well, as far as I can tell. A few have kicked the...

Spent an enjoyable day doing more research for the manuscript I'm working on. Actually went to the library, and took bound journals off ...

I consider myself a little lucky in that I enjoy writing, and I seem to be reasonably good at it. A lot of scientists don't like writing...

After having done a decent once over on my on-line class material, I'm now bored enough with it that I've decided to set it aside fo...

I've spent the last couple of days mostly working on revamping material for a course I'll be teaching this fall, which will be parti...