This Week and End of Term Party

This week Thom Cullen will be introducing the following paper:

Grellet-Tinner and Fiorelli. 2010. A new Argentinean nesting site showing neosauropod dinosaur reproduction in a Cretaceous hydrothermal environment. Nature communitcations 1: 1-8.

This will be the last discussion for the semester because undergraduate classes end on December 5.

Additionally, the votes are in! We will be holding the end of term party at O'Brien's on Heron (December 9). Details will follow in an email.

Interesting Recent Papers

Here are some recent papers that I find interesting:

Shen et al. 2011. Calibration the End-Permian mass extinction. Science (DOI: 10.1126/science.1213454).

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2011/11/16/science.1213454.abstract

Bertrand et al. 2011. Changes in plant community composition lag behind climate warming in lowland forests. Nature 479, 517–520.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v479/n7374/full/nature10548.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20111124

Erwin et al. 2011. The Cambrian Conundrum: Early Divergence and Later Ecological Success in the Early History of Animals. Science 334: 1091-1097.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/334/6059/1091.short

Hannisdal et al. 2011. Phanerozoic Earth System Evolution and Marine Biodiversity. Science 334: 1121-1124.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/334/6059/1121.short

Discussion This Week

This week we will be discussing the following paper:

Niedzwiedzki et al. 2010. Tetrapod trackways from the early Middle Devonian period of Poland. Nature 463: 43-48.

Hope to see you all at Mike's tonight!

Radio Interview

Thomas and I are being interviewed about Meet the Experts (Canadian Museum of Nature this weekend!) by the Carleton radio station Thursday November 24 at 8:35 am (93.1 FM in Ottawa).

For those of you outside of Ottawa you can listen live at http://www.ckcufm.com/schedule (just click Listen Live).

This Week

This week we will be discussing the following paper:

Niedzwiedzki et al. 2010. Tetrapod trackways from the early Middle Devonian period of Poland. Nature 463: 43-48.

Hope to see you at Mike's this Thursday.

Next week will be the final week of discussion.

Reminder: vote on a location for the after party. Thus far one person has voted, meaning I will essentially be choosing the locale.

Meet the Experts!!!

This weekend the Canadian Museum of Nature is holding it's annual Meet the Experts event at the downtown castle:

http://nature.ca/en/plan-your-visit/what-see-do/whats/meet-experts

Two group members will be presenting on Sunday November 27.

Thomas Cullen - Evolution in the High Arctic: Hear the incredible story about the chance discovery of the prehistoric fossil seal Puijila darwini.

Danielle Fraser - The Diet-Climate Connection: Compare a variety of mammal teeth in order to unravel connections between changing climates, diets and animal populations.

Come by if you're interested! There are a variety of other interesting presentations.

Toward the end of term!

Our last discussion this term will be December 1. Undergraduate classes end on December 5.

We therefore have two discussions left for this term:

https://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=da6f72fsp1hebsr8nhem333ejg%40group.calendar.google.com&ctz=America/Toronto

Finally, we will be having an end of semester get together (December 9). We have normally held this get together at O'Brien's on Heron but I am up for other suggestions.

Other options may include:
Somewhere in the market (Clocktower?)
Pub Italia (260 beers! and close to campus)
A restaurant (Thai? Sushi?)

Any other suggestions are welcome. I will be purchasing snacks for this event so please let me know if you have snack preferences.

Discussion this Week - Sauropod Migration

This week we will be discussing the following paper:

Fricke et al. 2011. Lowland-upland migration of sauropod dinosaurs during the Late Jurassic epoch. Science (doi:10.1038/nature10570).

This Week

I have ascertained that all of us survived Las Vegas and the SVP meeting. Last night we joined up with a meeting of the Carleton Geological Society at the Rochester.

Reminder: We need a volunteer to present a paper next week. Please add yourself to the calendar or email me at dfraser1@connect.carleton.ca.

Interesting Recent Papers

Here are some interesting recent papers that I found in my inbox:

Bollasina et al. 2011. Anthropogenic aerosols and the weakening of the South Asian summer monsoon. Science 334: 502-505. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/334/6055/502.short

Lorenzen et al. 2011. Species specific responses of Late Quaternary megafauna to climate and humans. Nature (doi:10.1038/nature10574). http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature10574.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20111103

Higham et al. 2011. The earliest evidence for anatomically modern humans in northwestern Europe. Nature (doi:10.1038/nature10484). http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature10484.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20111103

 Benazzi et al. 2011. Early dispersal of modern humans in Europe and implications for Neanderthal behavior. Nature (doi:10.1038/nature10617). http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature10617.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20111103

Rougier et al. 2011. Highly specialized mammalian skulls in the Late Cretaceous of South America. Nature (doi:10.1038/nature10591). http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v479/n7371/full/nature10591.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20111103

This Week

This week will be an SVP post mortem. Look forward to seeing you all at Mike's!