tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15871326672973888832012-01-12T14:29:10.210-08:00John McKaynoreply@blogger.comBlogger401100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1587132667297388883.post-26633651314354293102012-01-12T14:26:00.000-08:002012-01-12T14:29:10.239-08:00

I've set a deadline for myself to have a book proposal for the mammoth book complete by next week, not counting the perfect polished chapter. This is turning out to be much harder than I thought. I'm terrible at selling myself. However, it has been a very useful exercise to help me clarify the organization of the book in my own mind. Brian Switek of the blogs Laelaps and Dinosaur Tracking, has

John McKaynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1587132667297388883.post-88283700210299719642012-01-12T14:13:00.000-08:002012-01-12T14:14:54.184-08:00

John McKaynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1587132667297388883.post-56753825745858422002011-12-27T11:20:00.000-08:002011-12-27T11:31:43.323-08:00

This belongs on a top ten list.This belongs on a top ten list.

John McKaynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1587132667297388883.post-5396795333739724822011-11-22T10:57:00.000-08:002011-12-27T11:34:18.584-08:00

The holiday shopping season is upon us. Looking for something elegant, whimsical, and practical to give as a gift? Want to support small businesses? Rather order online and avoid the crowds, parking nightmares, and canned Christmas music? Luckily, there is a solution: Howling Pig Smelly Soaps and Other Stuff! Buy my Clever Wife's hand-made soaps, lotions, and skin-care products. Tessa's scents

John McKaynoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1587132667297388883.post-43335054095345162132011-11-22T10:45:00.000-08:002011-11-22T10:46:18.248-08:00

My latest mammothy post is being published in Scientific American's guest blogger series, today. It's a little mystery story about a small drawing of an elephant on a Renaissance map. It's distantly related to the post below. The connection will become more obvious in a few weeks when I publish my third post on the mammoth-walrus-sea monster confusion. Until then, go over to Scientific American

John McKaynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1587132667297388883.post-8235820816593828742011-11-22T10:30:00.000-08:002011-11-22T10:31:42.959-08:00

Note: This is a repeat of a post that ran last Spring on my other blogs.Sweden's rise as a major European power was abruptly ended in 1709, when an army led by King Charles XII was defeated by the army of Peter the Great at Poltava in far-away Ukraine. Charles, badly wounded, barely escaped by dashing south into Turkish territory. The majority of his army, their escape cut off by Russian cavalry,

John McKaynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1587132667297388883.post-64385656890252793522011-11-10T13:21:00.000-08:002011-11-10T13:28:11.142-08:00

I'm having some problems with the links on the Word Press version of Mammoth Tales. Until I can get those cleared up, I'll be copying my science posts over to Mammoth Tales 1.0. I also plan to repost some of my older mammothy posts from archy to both versions of Mammoth Tales.

John McKaynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1587132667297388883.post-24621950543020774362010-08-06T15:32:00.000-07:002010-08-06T15:33:26.610-07:00

Check out the snazzy new digs at the Southern Fried Scientist Network.

John McKaynoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1587132667297388883.post-5323750128610204462010-07-08T15:06:00.000-07:002010-07-08T15:08:12.870-07:00

What a story. Inside one of the most famous tombs in Egypt, archaeologists discover a hidden tunnel carved into the raw stone of a mountain. The tomb of Seti I had been known for over a century when archaeologists discovered the entrance to the tunnel in the 1960s. After removing over three hundred feet of rubble from the tunnel, the diggers gave up without reaching the end or discovering the

John McKaynoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1587132667297388883.post-56630016476536591382010-07-07T13:21:00.001-07:002010-07-07T13:21:41.617-07:00

Charles Stuart Cochrane seems to have been a bit of an eccentric. He came from a well known military family. It was his father, the admiral, who ordered the bombardment of Ft. McHenry while Francis Scott Key, imprisoned below deck, wrote The Star Spangled Banner. After doing his part in the Napoleonic Wars, young Charles took leave of the navy to travel across the newly independent country

John McKaynoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1587132667297388883.post-80486045303616126312010-06-22T21:36:00.000-07:002010-06-22T21:44:15.045-07:00

Geographers and cartographers have always found the North Pole to be something of a disappointment. It is just water covered with ice, the same as could be found on any mill-pond in the winter. As long as the high Arctic remained an inaccessable mystery, they remained free to speculate about what might be there, lands of untapped wealth, mysterious natural phenomena, a navigable ice-free sea, or

John McKaynoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1587132667297388883.post-80508076738475460942010-06-22T13:00:00.000-07:002010-06-22T13:01:07.508-07:00

Name: Khoma.* Looks like: A baby mammoth. Age: somewhere above 50,000 years. Discovered in the permafrost of northern Siberia just last year, this rare example of prehistoric monster is on its way to Paris to be analysed, treated for the germs it's harbouring and eventually placed on display.[...]Khoma, still encased in ice, is enclosed in an isolated container and will be handled initially at a

John McKaynoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1587132667297388883.post-26023655421825722182010-05-27T14:01:00.001-07:002010-05-27T14:01:43.039-07:00

On one hand we have BP executives, Rush Limbaugh, and various Southern politicians saying the Gulf oil contamination from the Deepwater Horizion disaster is no big deal. The Gulf is a big place, nature will clean itself up, and you won't be able to tell anything ever happened there in a few years. On the other hand, we have oil industry critics and environmentalists saying it is indeed a big deal

John McKaynoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1587132667297388883.post-48722717492333039622010-05-22T13:47:00.000-07:002010-05-22T13:50:50.217-07:00

Posting has been nonexistant for the last few weeks due to an eye injury. I've spent a lot of time laying in the dark with warm compresses on my face. My skin is clean and soft now and I can see as well as usual (which is so-so). That means I need to get back to work. I have some nice mammothy and non-mammothy things in the works. I just located a couple of nineteenth century German articles I've

John McKaynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1587132667297388883.post-85225167625208669352010-04-28T17:17:00.000-07:002010-04-28T17:18:52.038-07:00

Looking at the coverage of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, I'm puzzled by something. Several of the commenters I've looked at have expressed horror at the idea of burning the oil at sea. Two things: first, we were planning on burning most of that oil any way; second, while bad, burning it at sea is orders of magnitude less horrible than letting it hit the beaches. The wreckage of the Deepwater

John McKaynoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1587132667297388883.post-64186301002428321952010-04-21T15:13:00.000-07:002010-04-21T15:15:10.046-07:00

Last month, two women in the Sichuan province of China captured an ugly, dog-sized animal that they found raiding their chicken coop. Because it was like nothing they had seen before, they kept it captive. The next morning, as word of the strange beast got out, neighbors began flocking to Ke Suying's farm to gawk. Eventually, the local Forestry Department heard about the capture and took the

John McKaynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1587132667297388883.post-1143567034594770062010-04-17T13:35:00.000-07:002010-04-17T13:37:47.416-07:00

The problem with the internet, we are told, is that it has no standards and no controls. Anything that is written will be recycled endlessly, regardless of whether it is true or not. There is no way to correct bad information on the internet. This is why the internet is inferior to traditional media. At least that's what we're told. In the three hundred years since Europeans first received

John McKaynoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1587132667297388883.post-61309113056254324112010-04-10T15:08:00.000-07:002010-04-10T15:09:20.728-07:00

Supervolcano is not a meaningful geological term, it is a media term. What most of us think of as a "normal" volcanic eruption is caused by ash and lava being vented from a magma chamber, a miles wide bubble of molten rock that has risen through the crust to a point just a few miles below the surface. Because it is hot, the magma wants to expand. As it gets close to the surface, the magma is able

John McKaynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1587132667297388883.post-66261513147803954132010-04-07T17:09:00.000-07:002010-04-07T17:10:14.671-07:00

From the Wikipedia entry on the island of Rhodes:On 19 July 1944 the Gestapo rounded up the island’s nearly 2000 Jewish inhabitants, to send them to extermination camps. About 160 of the island's more than 600 Greek Jews survived.It's not technically wrong, since we can all agree that 2000 is bigger than 600. Really people, when you add a sentence to an Wiki article read the article first. If

John McKaynoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1587132667297388883.post-26677502619105639502010-04-07T01:17:00.000-07:002010-04-07T01:24:15.683-07:00

(BBC) A man who survived last year's deadly bush fires in Australia is recovering in hospital after falling victim to a rare attack by a wombat. Bruce Kringle, 60, was pulled to the ground by the animal and bitten on the legs and arms after apparently stepping on it by mistake. He escaped after killing the wombat with an axe. Animal experts said it appeared the wombat had been suffering from

John McKaynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1587132667297388883.post-10347719277218512572010-04-05T20:58:00.000-07:002010-04-05T20:59:31.270-07:00

Not really. The Daily Telegraph says,"A creature dubbed the 'oriental yeti' is being examined by scientists after emerging from ancient woodlands in remote central China." This sort of mystery animal pops up all the time and all over the world. They are always some familiar (or at least known) animal in an unfamiliar condition. Sometimes they are found washed up on a beach after having been the

John McKaynoreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1587132667297388883.post-10278535575273620752010-03-19T14:32:00.000-07:002010-03-19T14:40:04.148-07:00

Earlier this week, David Williams (Stories in Stone), Michael Welland (Through the Sandglass), and Brian Switek (Laelaps) began a series of blog posts about writing and publishing a popular science book. As someone who is bogged down in the middle of the process, I'm finding these posts very helpful. If you are thinking about writing non-fiction or, like me, muddling along and thirsting for

John McKaynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1587132667297388883.post-24007402395308208362010-03-16T14:20:00.000-07:002010-03-16T14:21:06.513-07:00

The tireless Bora Živcović, AKA Coturnix of A Blog Around the Clock, one of the founders of the Science Online conferences, editor of the first Open Laboratory anthology, etc., has interviewed me as part of a series of interviews of participants in ScienceOnline2010. Like the conference, the subject of the interview is science communication. Bora will be putting these interviews up all year. Most

John McKaynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1587132667297388883.post-14695987814441422142010-03-16T13:53:00.000-07:002010-03-16T14:01:26.791-07:00

At long last my vast knowledge of mammoth stuff is paying off. If you ever wanted to know more about mammoth molars--and who wouldn't want to more about mammoth molars--this is you chance to learn it.

John McKaynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1587132667297388883.post-52106970379830465602010-03-14T17:01:00.000-07:002010-03-14T17:07:32.863-07:00

Today is March 14.Today is International Pi Day (3.14, get it?), which is traditionally observed by baking a pie.Albert Einstein was born on this day in 1879.On this day in 1930, an eleven year old English school girl, Venetia Burney, recommended the name "Pluto" for the newly found planet.

John McKaynoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1587132667297388883.post-43387806067296446032010-03-12T14:46:00.000-08:002011-11-10T15:42:13.050-08:00

Construction workers drilling holes for a new overpass on I-5 near Ridgefield, Washington brought up pieces of mammoth ivory this January. Brad Clark, a Washington Transportation Department inspector, collected the pieces that, when reassembled, formed about four feet of the tip of a mammoth tusk. Mammoth ivory in Washington is nowhere near as common as in Alaska or northern Siberia, but it is

John McKaynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1587132667297388883.post-48248489867644751622010-03-01T16:36:00.000-08:002010-03-01T16:37:23.388-08:00

One hundred years ago, it was snowing in the North Cascade Mountains. By itself, there was nothing unusual about that fact. It always snows in the Cascades around this time of year. We depend on it. The ski resorts need snow to stay open. The cities of Puget Sound rely on the snowpack laid down during the late winter for their water supply during the summer. Farms and orchards on the east side of

John McKaynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1587132667297388883.post-86138584343680712522010-02-24T21:29:00.000-08:002010-02-24T21:30:32.375-08:00

Two years ago, I made a special trip to visit a mammoth excavation outside Yakima, WA. The mammoth was discovered by a construction crew putting the finishing touches on a road to the home of Doug, and Bronwyn Mayo. The Mayos have been civic-minded enough to allow Central Washington University to keep the site as a teaching site. Every summer, CWU professors bring a group of paleontology students

John McKaynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1587132667297388883.post-58151243884038597202010-02-23T11:10:00.000-08:002010-02-23T11:29:19.283-08:00

NOTE: The Open Laboratory 2009: The Best in Science Writing on Blogs was released today. I'm excited that one of my mammoth pieces was chosen for inclusion. The story of the Adams Mammoth is something that will be included in my book, so this essay is a sort of sneak peek at things to come.In the far north, when the sun returns after its complete absence during the debt of winter, it is not yet

John McKaynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1587132667297388883.post-90018629921202751872010-02-09T15:45:00.000-08:002010-02-09T15:46:47.281-08:00

As part of its budget for the next year, Darpa is investing $6 million into a project called BioDesign, with the goal of eliminating "the randomness of natural evolutionary advancement." The plan would assemble the latest bio-tech knowledge to come up with living, breathing creatures that are genetically engineered to "produce the intended biological effect." Darpa wants the organisms to be

John McKaynoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1587132667297388883.post-25722214114802437702010-02-09T14:53:00.000-08:002010-02-09T14:54:09.031-08:00

Janet Stemwedel has a nice post giving some further thoughts on Eric's and my presentation "An Open History of Science." It's encouraging to hear that she's still thinking about the presentation almost a month later. Her post arrived just in time for me. I was getting to the point in my after-event neuroses where I was beginning to have serious self-doubts: Was trying to do history at a science

John McKaynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1587132667297388883.post-49057848207593206552010-02-03T12:22:00.000-08:002010-02-03T12:23:32.565-08:00

Rocks in space have been banging into each other as long as there have been rocks in space. We've seen a comet crash into a planet (Shumacker-Levy 9 into Jupiter), we've seen comets fly into the sun, and we've seen meteorites fall to Earth. All of these involve small objects--comets and meteors--interacting with large ones--planets and the sun. But we've never seen two small objects banging into

John McKaynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1587132667297388883.post-28135104283432805722010-01-26T11:59:00.000-08:002010-01-26T12:03:19.241-08:00

A new study from the University of Haifa suggests sea levels might have fluctuated during historical times far more than previously believed. Dr. Dorit Sivan, who supervised the research, writes that an investigation of underwater ruins along the coast of Israel show short term changes of the sea level of almost a meter during the last 2500 years. We are currently near the highest level.According

John McKaynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1587132667297388883.post-53045281862247093052010-01-22T13:36:00.000-08:002010-01-22T13:37:30.302-08:00

Israel is to fund a rare genetic study to determine whether there is a link between the lost tribes of Israel and the Pashtuns of Afghanistan and northern Pakistan.Historical and anecdotal evidence strongly suggests a connection, but definitive scientific proof has never been found. Some leading Israeli anthropologists believe that, of all the many groups in the world who claim a connection to

John McKaynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1587132667297388883.post-79159878094413860392010-01-21T15:08:00.000-08:002010-01-21T15:10:15.193-08:00

There is one point from the discussion following our ScienceOnline2010 presentation that I want to elaborate on. This is the way in which credentialism excludes amateurs. This is a problem that I face. The internet has made accessible vast amounts of literature for much wider audiences than ever before. Many of the original sources that I have been able to use in my research would not have been

John McKaynoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1587132667297388883.post-26194139856822974902010-01-21T14:27:00.000-08:002010-01-21T14:28:16.274-08:00

My co-presenter at ScienceOnline2010, Eric Michael Johnson, has already put his part of our show up on his blog, The Primate Diaries. Here is mine. We went in chronological order, which meant I went first.There weren't very many books during the Middle Ages. We all learned in our high school Western Civ that there wasn't very much literacy then, but what's lees often mentioned is that there

John McKaynoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1587132667297388883.post-26054555131023310012010-01-20T14:25:00.001-08:002010-01-20T14:26:18.602-08:00

The premier psychology blog in the SciBlog borg, Cognitive Daily, just announced that today is their final day. Dave and Greta Munger began posting five years ago today and have been a constant source of interesting information and experiments/tests. I was lucky enough to meet Dave at ScienceOnline2010 this weekend (Greta always seemed to be on the other side of the room or talking to someone).

John McKaynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1587132667297388883.post-42031335604800926382010-01-19T16:49:00.000-08:002010-01-19T16:51:09.832-08:00

Does the world really need a new blog? I don't know, but I need a new blog and, really, what's more important than that? It's a rhetorical question; you're not expected to answer unless you want to. Below, I have provided answers to some of the questions I imagine you might have.Who are you?I'm John McKay. If you know a John McKay, I'm probably not him. There are way too many John McKays in the

John McKaynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1587132667297388883.post-30636831873650135102010-01-18T21:46:00.001-08:002010-01-18T21:46:57.361-08:00

I got home at about eleven last night after a seven hour flight and sixty dollar cab ride. Clever Wife met me with hugs and chocolate cake. Then I slept for eleven hours. One more cup of coffee, and I'll feel normal (though I should aspire for something better than that).The flights were safe and on time. On the way, I read most of the way (Anthony Grafton's Defenders of the Text) and took a

John McKaynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1587132667297388883.post-73554328025541752622009-12-18T20:04:00.000-08:002009-12-18T20:05:49.922-08:00

An interesting new technique indicates mammoths and other Pleistocene megafauna may have survived on the mainland much later than previously thought. The technique and especially these results are sure to be hotly debated.Till now, the last populations of mainland mammoths, as indicated by macro-remains like bone, ivory, and hair, have been dated to around 12,900 calendar years ago. I emphasize

John McKaynoreply@blogger.com0