Christopher X J. Jensen
Associate Professor, Pratt Institute

National Geographic on the yartsa gunbu bubble

Posted 23 Aug 2012 / 0

National Geographic “Tibetan Gold” This story encapsulates a whole host of unsustainable human behaviors: First, we have people over-harvesting an ecological product in a manner that risks its collapse; Second, the over-harvesting is driven by a cultural superstition that has spread without any real basis in fact; and Third, the entire over-valuation of these parasite-infested-worms is Read More

A Minor Post, Anthropogenic Change, Articles, Belief, Biodiversity Loss, Coevolution, Cultural Anthropology, Cultural Evolution, Ecology, Economic sustainability, Ecosystem Services, Memetic Fitness, Parasitism, Population Growth, Resource Consumption, Sustainable Harvesting, System Stability, Tundra

Would online data repositories solve the problem of scientific fraud?

Posted 23 Aug 2012 / 0

The Chronicle of Higher Education “Despite Occasional Scandals, Science Can Police Itself“

A Minor Post, Articles, Periodicals, Scientific Fraud

Greece’s massive recession is making it more ecologically sustainable

Posted 22 Aug 2012 / 0

SET Times “Economic crisis putting more Greeks on bicycles” I think that it is important to keep in mind that we have two choices for becoming ecologically sustainable: we can directly engineer our societies and economies to be in harmony with nature, or we can allow for collapse of one or more of the triad Read More

A Minor Post, Economics, Sustainability, Sustainable Transportation

The Guardian profiles E.O. Wilson

Posted 21 Aug 2012 / 0

The Guardian “The Saturday interview: Harvard biologist Edward Wilson“

A Minor Post

“Adaptive” approach to climate change puts faith in resilience thinking

Posted 21 Aug 2012 / 0

All Things Considered “Boston Plans For ‘Near-Term Risk’ Of Rising Tides” My worry here is pretty simple: with the ‘practical’ approach of adapting to inevitable climate change is beginning to gain traction across the United States, the end of near-term denial will fail to pull along our long-term denial. As people begin to contemplate triage Read More

A Minor Post, Climate Change, Resilience

My review of “How Species Interact” published in Ecological Modelling

Posted 18 Aug 2012 / 1

My review of How Species Interact: Altering the Standard View of Trophic Ecology by Roger Arditi and Lev R. Ginzburg was just published in Ecological Modelling. You can also read the review here. Lev Ginzburg was my dissertation advisor, so clearly this review has to be seen as subjective; however, if you look at how strong Read More

A Major Post, Books, Ecological Modeling, Ecology, My publications, Predation

Infographic signs on the road to game theory understanding

Posted 16 Aug 2012 / 0

Game Theory Icons These are pretty clever. I have not walked my way through them yet, but they use arrows to show the relative gradient of payoff for each player, and a little blue circle to represent Nash equilibrium (if any) for the game. What I have not yet figured out with these is whether Read More

A Minor Post, Game Theory, Information Design

Steve C. Walker on optimistic but reasonable expectations for mathematics

Posted 15 Aug 2012 / 0

ecology & stats “Why math is sooo great!“

A Minor Post, Mathematics

Biocreativity blog explores the interaction between biology and art

Posted 15 Aug 2012 / 0

Biocreativity blog

A Minor Post, Art & Design, Biology (general), Science in Art & Design

Can crocheting help save corals? Can we learn something about developmental genetics in the process?

Posted 14 Aug 2012 / 0

The bit about “hyperbolic geometry” is very interesting, but I wonder what its biological significance is. Why do organisms develop in this manner? Is the act of crocheting these analogous to the developmental process of organisms with hyperbolic geometry? Are the “crochet mutations” analogous to genetic mutations that affect development? The physical nature of this Read More

A Minor Post, EvoDevo, Genetics