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 »
The single most important tool we have right now to fight SARS CoV 2 is testing and contact tracing. Don Hopkins used to tell me every time we talked in the making of the Countdown to Zero Exhibition that “You cannot treat what you do not track”.
Get Tested Now (or try anyway). Read More »
Mark SiddallOctober 28, 2020 What is a dumpling? Or really, what isn’t a dumpling? There seems to be no necessary or sufficient condition that defines “dumpling”. The dropped-into-soup dumplings of my suburban Canadian childhood are not the exquisite mouth bombs I know from Taipei as “soup dumplings”. Indeed, quite opposite as to which-side-of-what the soup
Chicken Stew with Dumplings Read More »
Mark Siddall, October 27, 2020 Chicken stock is where the culinary arts meet the dark arts. Stock-making is the sole remaining prefecture of an ancient and occult science. Alchemy is now derided for having sought to convert base metals like lead and tin into gold or silver. Alchemy’s successor, Chemistry, didn’t manage that either. It
Taking stock. A prologue to chicken and dumplings. Read More »
Mark Siddall – October 27, 2020(~ 5 min read) Last night, the boy asked for chicken stew for dinner. It’s pretty rare that he has the foresight to contemplate dinner a day in advance. As a result of that, and the fact that he has never liked soup, I was curious. I pressed for more
Chicken and dumplings preamble… rip out the spine! Read More »
Mark Siddall – October 11, 2020 While filming Yellowbeard on location in Mexico, on December 2, 1982, Marty Feldman was discovered dead in his hotel room at age 48. Feldman was a comedy writer genius who burst on the British television scene with his bulging, misaligned eyes in “At Last the 1948 Show” with Graham
Did a corrupt crustacean fell Feldman? Read More »
