Tag Archives: paleontology
la brea blog
Check it out – a blog about the excavations at La Brea tar pits, by one of the paleontologists working on it. (I was there the other day.)
museum tourist: la brea tar pits
I’ve been hearing about the La Brea tar pits forever, so I was pretty darn excited when a friend suggested we go see them while I was in Los Angeles. The tar pits were – are – naturally-occurring tar seeps … Continue reading
museum tourist: san diego natural history
Every year during the AAAS meeting, there’s an evening reception where some big science journalism awards are presented. This year, the reception was Friday night at the San Diego Natural History Museum in Balboa Park. I caught the first shuttle … Continue reading
fossils of all sorts
Today I went on a reporting trip to chat with a scientist who likes to collect fossils. (I’ll tell you more when the story comes out.) I saw tons of shark teeth, bits of seals and whales, some coral and … Continue reading
ooh ooh ooh
The Science Channel posted more quizzes! 1. Bones. I put in a Harry Potter question. Oh yes I did. 2. Wind Energy. It’s free, it’s windy, it’s wind energy. Includes a question based on a book I was supposed to … Continue reading
museum tourist: KU natural history
This weekend I was in Lawrence, Kansas, where my dad grew up, and stopped by the University of Kansas Natural History Museum. It’s in a great old building atop a hill on the KU campus. In olden times (the Cretaceous, … Continue reading
fossils are fun
Tonight I went on a tour of the fossil labs at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, organized by the DC Science Writer’s Association. I learned many exciting things and took pictures with my cell phone camera, ’cause that’s … Continue reading
brraaaaaiiiiinsssss
Today I wrote an extremely teensy story for ScienceNOW. It’s at the bottom of this list. It’s about a 300-million-year-old fossil brain. That’s really old. Soft tissue doesn’t usually get preserved, but they found this one with the crazy bright … Continue reading
new quizzes, hot off the presses
I’m writing a whole batch o’ quizzes for the Science Channel (it’s part of the Discovery empire, which is based just up the road in Silver Spring). Three more went up today! You can test your knowledge on: Dinosaurs! This … Continue reading
pterosaur flight
Hey, lookit – I wrote this. Things I know now that I did not know 38 hours ago: 1. Pterosaurs were not dinosaurs. They were reptiles like dinosaurs, and they lived with the dinosaurs and went extinct with the dinosaurs, … Continue reading