Inquiry into Nature in the Spirit of John Ray
Family vacation with the Duffs always includes some geological sights. In 2007 we visited Prince Edward Island and had a wonderful time but the there just wasn’t enough geology there to satisfy my curiosity so I took us on a 2 hour detour in Nova Scotia. After a lot of “are we there yets” and […]
A recently published study is making news the last couple of days. It regards evidence obtained from remains of preserved bones of human scavenging and/or hunting practices. The site of the dig is a hillside in southern Kenya where, in less than an acre, more than 3700 fossils and more than 2000 artifacts have been recovered […]
A friend of mine recently gave me a book that he had found at a local library book sale knowing that I have an interest in creationists’ books. The book was entitled Evolution and Human Fossil Footprints by Aaron Judkins. I knew right away that the focus of the book was probably on the Paluxy […]
One small site in Spain has yielded 1800 fossil bones from at least 18 species of extinct large animals. That is the update today about a fossil site that has been under investigation for 10 years. The site represents one of the best sites for fossil carnivores because of the unique circumstances under which it […]
I have been thinking about Elephants the last couple of days and may write more about elephant following in the vein of my recent posts on horses. For now I just want to introduce you to one really weird extinct elephant. I call it an elephant because of its obvious similarities but just like with […]
I thought the moas from New Zealand (see Consider the Moa) would be my last word on flightless birds. But as I was reading about the moa I ran across literature about the “terror birds” that really captivated me because I couldn’t believe I hadn’t heard that much about them before. The so-called terror birds (the Phorusrhacidae) consist of […]
Where did domesticated dogs come from? That dogs are wolves has been known for some time but which wolves and when did domestication occur has been a more difficult question to answer. Thousands of dog breeds and wolves have been genotyped to explore this question and that evidence suggests four and possibly more, separate wolf […]
A quick natural history note this morning. I was looking for some information for my class and ran across this image which was just too cool not to share. It shows a form of trace fossil. Trace fossils are not fossilized remains of actual organisms but instead are evidence of the past presence of organisms. […]
As a follow-up to a class discussion of the nature and validity of historical and experimental science, I came into class yesterday and posed three questions to my students: Why were T. rex’s arms so short? Does repeated head trauma on the football field cause chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE)?, and Why do our fingers wrinkle […]
There are thousands of sites with either human remains or artifacts (stone tools usually) that are known across southern Europe and many are found in locations where they are found in layers stacked on top of each other like in caves or flood plain locations along rivers. But, the exact pattern of Neanderthal and modern human population migrations and changes is not my main interest.
