Last month, the United States Court of Appeal for the 11th district rejected an appeal on the grounds that spiders are insects.  Now, I’m not a lawyer or a judge, but I am a biologist, and I have thoughts.  But before we get to those, a quick poll: OK, on to the case.  A couple […]

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I read a lot of books, both technical and not.  Some I struggle through; some I enjoy in a forgettable sort of way; and some grab me and promise to stay with me.  I recently finished Francis Su’s Mathematics for Human Flourishing, and to cut to the chase, you should read this book too.  What’s […]

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There are writing errors everywhere you look*.  Some are trivial – routine typos that confuse nobody – while others change or conceal meaning and sometimes risk lives or cost the transgressor millions of dollars.  Today I’m going to explore an error that’s rampant in scientific writing.  It’s one that in each instance matters not at […]

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Black lives matter. That shouldn’t have to be said, but it does. Systemic racism is an ongoing problem, everywhere.  While anything we say or do is less than we should, and later than we should have, that’s no reason for inaction. I had another post queued for today, but it will keep.  Please take the […]

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This is a guest post from Greg Crowther.  In a previous post here on Scientist Sees Squirrel, Steve raised an important and hard question: aside from helping students learn the specific content of our courses, how can we help students get better at learning in general? Although it’s a hard question, I think I have […]

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I’ve just finished the 3rd go-around of my Scientific Writing course.  When I first signed up to teach it, I was very scared, but now that I’ve been through it a few times, I’m quite pleased with how it worked out. After the first offering, I posted my syllabus and other materials, and quite a […]

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I read a lot of draft manuscripts for people – perhaps you do too. (I’m talking here about my role as a “friendly reviewer”, in which I’m looking at rougher manuscripts that aren’t yet in the peer review system.)  I read drafts for the undergraduates in my Scientific Writing course, for my grad students, and […]

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I’ve said it many times: I wish my students were motivated by their love of the subject, not by the course credit or the grade.  We all know what a joy it is to teach someone who’s there because they can’t wait to know more; who reaches toward us for knowledge rather than sitting back […]

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Time now for the third instalment of #AYearInBooks, in which I track the non-academic reading I do.  Here’s why I’m doing this.  Perhaps surprisingly, the pandemic lockdown hasn’t increased my reading rate much – although it has increased my baking rate, my Wii Golf playing rate, and most recently, my cab-view-train-trip-youtube-video-watching-rate.  Anyway, on to the […]

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This is a guest post from Emma Despland.  Her first pandemic-themed guest post is here; this week, she asks what the pandemic can teach the public about science, and teach us about public understanding of science. There is considerable frustration about uncertainty surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic, how serious it is and what we should do. […]

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