Wednesday morning was cold. Just above freezing at 8:30 am. I wandered past the old apartment building at 88th and Amsterdam to witness an already-formed queue of mostly Hispanic people. The CitiMD on Broadway had only opened a half hour earlier and yet the covid testing line wrapped around the block. Just a block away […]
two lines and two neighborhoods Read More »
I’m not really on Twitter anymore. I think Stephen Fry got it right. After having been put under the microscope himself, he was done with that “stalking ground for the sanctimoniously self-righteous”. Certainly, that was my experience back in 2016 and, tragically, much more recently too. More on that later. However, I did check Twitter
Putting a headline under the microscope Read More »
Official descriptions of species and other taxonomic groups include what’s called an etymology section. That is, an explanation of the name chosen by the author. Originally these names were mostly supposed to be descriptive, like Phyllidia polkadotsa. Sometimes the names refer to a place, like Helobdella nununununojensis (from a Quechua placename Ñuñuñuñuñoj). They can also
Getting a leg up on the naming of things. Read More »
How long have coronaviruses been around? Hundreds of years? Thousands? Millions? How far back in time do we have to send Bruce Willis to stop all possible coronavirus pandemics? Even though viruses don’t leave fossils, evolutionary biologists have developed some sophisticated and creative strategies to answer these questions. Does it matter? Does the answer tell us
Darwin, drift and the age of coronaviruses. Read More »
The rise of Mike Pence to the vice presidency of the United States of America was an improbable one (allegedly due to a flat-tire). Is his failure to achieve the presidency, part of an improbably “unusual streak in the annals of American history” for Hoosier veeps? Dan Carden notes quite rightly that there have been
Pascal, Probability and President Pence Read More »
Mark SiddallNovember 4, 2020 Suppose there was something really important going on. This could be whether the fact that Trump is ahead in Pennsylvania and Georgia means we are doomed to another 4 years of his antics. Or, less partisan, what your chances of dying are if you happen to catch SARS CoV 2 in
COVID-19, the Election and Pre-Calc Read More »
