This was a letter I set to my university president, Guy Bailey, last month. I’m posting it today because I think in the US, 4 July is a good...

The current landing page for the Contest of Champions mobile game makes me happy. The character shown is Guardian, leader of Alpha Flight....

I saw this question : Based on your field study what type of mythical beast or folk-creature would you be an expert in? Mythical crustaceans...

I’ll be speaking at the Plant Biology 2020 meeting next month as part of the workshop, “ Get your message across: a guide to artwork and il...

Yesterday, Dr. Anthony Fauci said: One of the problems we face in the United States is that unfortunately, there is a combination of an anti...

I was looking back at a high-profile paper that was published some years ago. The paper ran into trouble and was widely criticized, a...

It’s late Friday night and I want to go to bed, but before I do, I have a recommendation and I want to get it out there in case I get lazy ...

This is a rubble crab. But it has a cool sounding Latin name: Daldorfia horrida . It is apparently the inspiration for one of the lesser kno...

Note: There are Black Lives Matter protests. There is a pandemic. Fascism is on the rise. I don’t know how to address this in the blog right...

I can’t get over this graph. Friday, 29 May 2020 was the saddest day ever on Twitter. Click to enlarge. No seriously, click to enlarge. You ...

When you’re a kid and you study history, you read about all these empires of the past that rose and fell. Rome. Genghis Khan and Alexander...

Academics have bugbears. And a very common one is manuscript formatting. “We shouldn't have to spend our time fiddling with a word proce...

Back in March, a lot of people got very stressed going into social isolation, lockdown, stay at home, quarantine, whatever you want to cal...

I have been thinking a lot about the craziness of “re-opening” and how some people refuse to take any precautions. Just a day or two ago, I...

I make a very brief cameo appearance in this Nature article by Jeffrey Perkel on scientific illustration, particularly BioRender. That...

I was doing fine until this weekend. Then I realized that I screwed up in my online classes. I made a mistake when I changed courses to a...

I am still mad and disappointed I was by the University of Texas system’s decision to open campuses for fall, no matter what. More Texas ...

The Daily Texan is reporting that all University of Texas campuses will be opening this fall. My initial reaction has not changed. OH...

“Publishers” and “journals”are related. One academic publisher typically has many journals. Each journal is independent and has its own edi...

Earlier, I wrote: It’s an epidemic when people you don’t know get sick. It’s a pandemic when people you know get sick. The pandemic has...