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Recent Major Posts
- Pratt Institute holds 124th Commencement, special gallery show
- Rhett Bradbury’s Master’s Thesis explores how gaming can foster political leadership
- Envirolutions asks the Pratt community to identify where there is “room for improvement”
- My review of Railsback and Grimm’s “Agent-based and individual-based modeling” textbook published in Ecology
- Envirolutions club launches its “Room for Improvement” campaign
- Dumb radio ads provide smart insight into the diverse nature of human societies
- Is selective rejection of science really a problem?
- Pratt Envirolutions Students Bring Recycling Bins to Campus
- Concept mapping as a creative tool
- Governor Cuomo makes the connection between natural disasters and climate change, calls for building in resilience
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Recent Minor Posts
- Useful guides for writing good pseudocode
- The benefits of a maintaining a relatively small in-group
- Pratt Professor Ágnes Mócsy releases “Smashing Matters” short film
- NPR piece suggests that economics are pushing us towards nutrient recycling
- Just in case you missed it the first ten times: E.O. Wilson likes group selection, Jerry Coyne does not
- Allen MacNeill predicts resolution of Ev-Coop debates
- Martin Nowak to lecture on the compatibility of god and the evolutionary process
- Understanding kin selection and reciprocity when strategies are culturally propagated
- “Earth Hour” seeks to re-focus our attention on all the earth provides
- Seth Horowitz on our perception of sound
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What I am reading now
Category Archives: Ecology
NPR piece suggests that economics are pushing us towards nutrient recycling
NPR All Things Considered “Cities Turn Sewage Into ‘Black Gold’ For Local Farms” This is a really interesting piece because it suggests that the costs associated with properly disposing of human waste are beginning to incentivize municipalities to repurpose this … Continue reading
My review of Railsback and Grimm’s “Agent-based and individual-based modeling” textbook published in Ecology
I am excited by the recent publication of my review of Agent-based and individual-based modeling: a practical introduction in the January issue of Ecology. The review, entitled “Individual-based modeling for the masses“, lauds this valuable textbook designed to support individual-based … Continue reading
“Earth Hour” seeks to re-focus our attention on all the earth provides
World Wildlife Fund Earth Hour Will an hour of darkness give us the time to contemplate both the importance of ecosystem services and how our voracious energy consumption threatens those services? It is certainly worth a try.
Forward on Climate Rally seeks to shift the national dialogue on anthropogenic climate change
The Sierra Club / 350.org / Hip Hop Caucus — Forward on Climate Rally
Quantifying the climate value of that 40-acre woodlot
The New York Times “Tree Power“
Dog license dataset opens up huge potential for understanding the dog-human mutualism
WNYC “NYC’s Top Dogs: Mapping Names & Breeds in the City” WNYC “Dogs of NYC” Data sets like these, even flawed by their incompleteness (only 20% of dogs in New York City are registered) are fascinating. The human relationship with dogs has … Continue reading
Production on marginal lands can meet only 25% of our biofuel mandates
Nature “Bioenergy: Biofuel production on the margins” & “Sustainable bioenergy production from marginal lands in the US Midwest” This is fascinating, and provides further evidence that even the smartest biofuel production methods are not going to be enough to mitigate our … Continue reading
Charlotte Douglas International Airport employs worms to close the loop on airport waste
NPR All Things Considered “One Airport’s Trash Is 2 Million Worms’ Treasure“
Fracking study retracted after the discovery of a massive conflict of interest
All Things Considered “Positive Fracking Study Was Funded By Gas Company” 1.5 million dollars is a lot to receive from a corporation with interest in your research! Scientists can be bought, and transparency is the only thing that prevents profit-driven … Continue reading
National Geographic feature on penguin propulsion
This month’s National Geographic features a valuable article called “Escape Velocity” that chronicles how Emperor Penguins reach incredible velocities to launch through holes in the ice and out into safety. Mostly a pictorial featuring Paul Nicklen’s amazing underwater photography, the article shows … Continue reading
Governor Cuomo makes the connection between natural disasters and climate change, calls for building in resilience
In an election season when global climate change has been a subject that neither Obama nor Romney seem interested in discussing (see reports by The New Yorker and The Huffington Post), along comes Hurricane Sandy. With the arrival of the … Continue reading
Lee Alan Dugatkin blesses Slate with a piece on Kropotkin
Slate “The Russian Anarchist Prince Who Challenged Evolution” I really appreciate the fact that Dugatkin uses Kropotkin to bring to light that Darwinian evolution has been — even in the time and work of Darwin — a process that was … Continue reading
Megan Frederickson shares the wonder of ant cooperation with Toronto Library patrons
Toronto Public Library/University of Toronto Exploring Evolution series “The Evolution of Cooperation: Ant-Plant Associations in Peru” We need more scientists out there explaining the wonders of evolutionary biology!
Want to know where the Presidential candidates stand on science? There’s a site for that!
Science Debate dot org “The Top American Science Questions: 2012“
Posted in A Minor Post, Astronomy, Biodiversity Loss, Climate Change, Economic sustainability, Economics, Ecosystem Services, Food, Grants & Funding, Health & Medicine, Marine Ecosystems, Political Science, Public Policy, Resource Consumption, Science (General), Space Travel, Sustainable Agriculture, Sustainable Energy, Web
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Michael Ruse on James Lovelock’s Gaia of 2012
The Chronicle of Higher Education “Saving Gaia From the Greens“
Rogue iron fertilization? Things have gotten weird!
The New York Times “A Rogue Climate Experiment Outrages Scientists“
Rob Nixon on Rachel Carson’s prescience
The Chronicle of Higher Education “Rachel Carson’s Prescience“
Posted in A Minor Post, Anthropogenic Change, Articles, Biodiversity Loss, Biography, Climate Change, Conservation Biology, Ecology, Economics, Environmental Justice, Habitat Destruction, Marine Ecosystems, Political Science, Pollution, Public Policy
Tagged Rachel Carson, Rob Nixon, Silent Spring, The Chronicle of Higher Education
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Barry Commoner, pioneering scientist and environmentalist, is dead at 95
Barry Commoner was an exceptional scientist and human being. Below are some nice tributes to him: The New York Times “Scientist, Candidate and Planet Earth’s Lifeguard” The New York Times “Barry Commoner’s Uncommon Life” The Los Angeles Times “Barry Commoner … Continue reading
