This was initially posted at: http://blogs.egu.eu/palaeoblog/?p=644 Progressive Palaeontology (ProgPal) is an annual event where early career researchers get to demonstrate their research to an equivalent audience in a reasonably informal atmosphere. It’s also renowned as a mega p*ss-up, as everyone knows palaeontologists are chronic alcoholics (hence the dinosaurs with feathers hypothesis). This year, it was in […]
The time of digital technology is upon us. No scientific domain is embracing it’s fast-paced and dynamic progression more so than Palaeontology. One such realm that is exploding with new studies and enrapturing the minds of people and the global media is the increasing possibility to digitise and manipulate three-dimensional fossils. Surface laser-scanning, C-T scanning […]
What do we currently understand by a ‘species’? Naming species, also known as alpha taxonomy, forms the fundamental basis and core of systematic analysis (e.g., for biodiversity, macroevolutionary and ecological studies). Since the origin of the species concept, there has been heated and continuous debate as to what exactly constitutes a species. The discovery of […]
“If you want to inspire confidence, give plenty of statistics. It does not matter that they should be accurate, or even intelligible, as long as there is enough of them.” Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) The last post on this series gave an introduction to the background and significance of quantitative shape analysis. I conveyed the […]
Those of you who have read my recent articles will probably have noticed the phrase ‘geometric morphometrics’ a few times. When mentioned to people, the usual reaction is to melt or run away screaming satanic verse and tearing chunks of hair out (pers. obs). This is largely due to the pretty intense mathematical basis behind […]