Welcome A New Blogging Paleontologist!
I am pleased to note that my colleague, friend, and fellow ceratopsian fan Scott Sampson has just started up his own blog, "The Whirlpool of Life."For those of you who only know him as a paleontological researcher, Scott is also a very skilled communicator and educator. The past few months have seen some tremendous successes in that regard - first, his on-screen and behind-the-scenes role with the new PBS kids' show Dinosaur Train, and second, his just-published book

How Meaningful Are User Ratings?
In the spirit of some earlier posts on this blog, The Scholarly Kitchen (an excellent blog for those interested in following issues of open access publishing) has this post about the utility of ratings systems at journals such as PLoS ONE. Interesting food for thought.

Tragedy in Michigan
I wanted to take a brief moment to call your attention to a situation brewing at Michigan State University - the powers-that-be are on the verge of closing down their Geological Sciences program.Geoscientists impact our lives in more ways than most of us realize. Did you drink a glass of clean water this morning? Geologists and hydrologists help to keep our water supply clean and safe. Did you fill your car with gas this week? A petroleum geologist helped locate the oil deposits and coordinate their extraction. Do you use a cell phone or laptop? The cobalt in the batteries (and nearly all of the other raw materials) was mined from de

DeepDyve Reviewed
Many of the recent posts on this blog have dealt with issues of access to the scholarly literature for those outside the library systems of large research institutions. A digital divide is developing in academia, largely due to the expensive costs of institutional subscriptions and pay-per-download distribution schemes of commercial and non-profit publishers alike.Thus, I was ver

Dinosaur Running and Endothermy in PLoS ONE
On a personal note, I have recently stepped up as "Section Editor" for paleontology at PLoS ONE. This means that I'll be coordinating the editorial flow for most paleo-themed papers that come the journal's way.One of the real joys of editing for a major journal like PLoS ONE is getting a "sneak peak" at some pretty nifty research. Today, Herman Pontzer, Vivian Allen, and John Hutchinson have a new paper that should be of interest to this blog's general audience [full disclosure: I was the academic editor for this contribu