Is peer-review working?
I used to believe it does, but now I have doubts.If you don't know what peer-review is, the super broken down version of it is as follows: 1, you write a paper and submit to a journal;2, if the editor decides your paper is worthy of consideration for publication, then they would send it off to two (sometimes three) external experts (reviewers) for review;3, reviewers scrutinise your paper to the best of their abilities;4, the reviews are sent back to the editor;5, based on the reviews the editor makes a decision;6, the editor notifies you of the decision along with the reviewers comments

On stormtrooper pauldrons from Star Wars
I am going to veer off from my usual (but infrequent) blog posts on palaeontology and blog about another geeky subject.Star Wars.I've been a big fan of Star Wars ever since I was a little boy - Return of the Jedi must be the first film I remember seeing at the cinema;

SVP 2009 Bristol, and the Romer Prize Session
Despite the complaints that I've heard about the hills and distances from one session to another (come on, it was only a few minutes by foot!), SVP this year was pretty good, in my opinion anyway. I noticed some really good talks with some impressive analytical methods, some really interesting posters, and I also chatted with some intelligent and enthusiastic people.Of particular interest for me was the Romer Prize Session - not only because I was presenting, but more because Romer Session talks were almost always of high quality research, self-contained and conclusive (unlike some "on-going research", a new locality, or some more scrappy fossils...). Romer talks ten