Julia H. posted an article on
The Ethical Palaeontologist
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Jul 20, 2010, 4:56 pm
It has preyed heavily on my mind over the last year - every time a colleague or a student has asked me about my PhD I have felt like more and more of a fraud. Because the truth is, I have done absolutely no work save for the reading of a few papers here and there. It seems almost every waking hour... Comment - Like
Julia H. posted an article on
The Ethical Palaeontologist
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Jul 13, 2010, 11:51 am
Unless you have have been in a coma for three months or you rely on getting all your world news from Fox, you will know that we in Blighty have a new party (parties?) in power and a new prime minister. With this, we also have a new science minister, David Willetts MP. He made his first big speech ... Comment - Like
Julia H. posted an article on
The Ethical Palaeontologist
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Jul 4, 2010, 4:18 pm
There's a fantastically bad joke, most famously featured in "Jurassic Park", and it goes like this:
Q: What do you call a one-eyed dinosaur?
A: Do-you-think-he-saurus!Nearest and dearest will know that, at the start of May, we lost our other little leopard gecko, Hastur The Unspeakable. We disc... Comment - Like
Julia H. posted an article on
The Ethical Palaeontologist
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Jun 22, 2010, 1:39 pm
When I was an undergraduate, there was one subject that could fill me with dread (at least once I'd dropped all the hard rock geology and left myself the option of working on nice, soft rock stuff). It was micropalaeontology. I despised the practicals. The only thing that made spending two ho... Comment - Like
Julia H. posted an article on
The Ethical Palaeontologist
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May 27, 2010, 12:44 pm
This arrived earlier in the week, accompanied by a £3 customs charge and an £8 swindlinghandling fee from Royal Mail. It is most awesome.
You can order them online from Mouthman. I ordered a large, which is a little big on me.
If only I didn't look like a complete wazzock wearing it... Comment - Like
Julia H. posted an article on
The Ethical Palaeontologist
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May 22, 2010, 5:09 pm
Paul's favourite pastime in the summer is hunting for slugs and snails after dark, dropping the slugs into the beer trap and pitching the snails overarm into the car park behind the house. I was sitting outside with a cup of tea while he went about his duties, when I heard "Oh my god! Julia, c... Comment - Like
Julia H. posted an article on
The Ethical Palaeontologist
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May 16, 2010, 1:38 pm
The kids are starting to get scared about the exams. This is probably A Good Thing given that the GCSEs start this Friday. So here are some more nuggets of wisdom gleaned from the pre-exam scramble.
There is a mythical goal called "Finishing The Syllabus" that few if any teachers attain comfortab... Comment - Like
Julia H. posted an article on
The Ethical Palaeontologist
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May 7, 2010, 1:30 pm
Today I have felt like ass. In case you've been under a rock (or possibly only getting your international news from Fox), yesterday was the UK General Election. Paul and I stayed up last night until our constituency was called, just after 6am. I was in class lecturing at 9am. My students not... Comment - Like
Julia H. posted an article on
The Ethical Palaeontologist
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Apr 26, 2010, 4:34 pm
Some 20-ish years ago, my husband was on holiday with his family in Blackpool. As a special treat, he and his brothers were taken to a restaurant that did ice cream floats. The over-enthusiastic waiter told them all that they could have any combination they liked - absolutely any ice cream and abs... Comment - Like
Julia H. posted an article on
The Ethical Palaeontologist
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Apr 19, 2010, 12:29 pm
As feared, a number of lecturers are stranded overseas at the moment. This, coupled with the college's network being down for most of the day due to building work, has meant a lot of babysitting of classes for me, coupled with very little in the way of resources other than a whiteboard and pen.... Comment - Like
Julia H. posted an article on
The Ethical Palaeontologist
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Apr 19, 2010, 3:03 am
Today is the start of the summer term, which in the UK signifies the start of the exams. My students will be sitting GCSE exams from mid-May onwards and A-Level exams from the end of May onwards.
Coincidentally, the superb website Ask A Biologist has been relaunched today, with spiffy new layout, ... Comment - Like
Julia H. posted an article on
The Ethical Palaeontologist
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Apr 17, 2010, 3:06 pm
On Wednesday I decided to ask my local candidates for Brentford And Isleworth their views on a subject close to my heart. Since all three candidates have Twitter accounts it seemed like a good forum:
Question for @Ann_Keen, @MaryMacleod4MP and @andrewdakers: should creationism be on the science cur... Comment - Like
Julia H. posted an article on
The Ethical Palaeontologist
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Apr 16, 2010, 6:27 am
After nearly a decade of wanting a Camarasaurus skull tattooed on my back, I have one. I spent about two and a half hours in the chair yesterday (getting about halfway through Rachel Carson's "The Silent Spring" in the process) in order to get this beauty:
I am indebted to the wonderful Darek ... Comment - Like
Julia H. posted an article on
The Ethical Palaeontologist
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Apr 14, 2010, 5:37 pm
I'm going to have to be more careful with what I tweet about. A simple throwaway comment about how my husband got caught by Jehovah's Witnesses for the second week running turned into this exchange which must have gone on for well over an hour (having transcribed this into a blog post I can... Comment - Like
Julia H. posted an article on
The Ethical Palaeontologist
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Apr 14, 2010, 7:38 am
I am a self-confessed bleeding-heart liberal, and it's coming up to election time. So prepare for some hand-wringing and political posturing (those of you unfortunate to follow me on Twitter will already have seen that starting to crank up to speed).
Science and its status in society and educa... Comment - Like
Julia H. posted an article on
The Ethical Palaeontologist
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Apr 11, 2010, 4:55 am
During the last week of term, I ordered a dozen sheep hearts for the A2 students to dissect. It is my greatest hope that some of my students become biologists like these two:
sc_project=2265573; sc_invisible=1; sc_partition=20; sc_security="09de099a"; Comment - Like
Julia H. posted an article on
The Ethical Palaeontologist
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Apr 2, 2010, 7:58 am
Two-thirds of the way through my first year of teaching, it's time to divulge some more of the little nuggets of wisdom I have picked up from my students.
A surprisingly large number of students like Bon Jovi.
Every group of biology students thinks they're the first ones to ever put the clas... Comment - Like
Julia H. posted an article on
The Ethical Palaeontologist
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Mar 31, 2010, 12:55 pm
A month and a half is rather a long hiatus, isn't it? Since my last post it's been a roller-coaster. Our boiler broke down and we spent three weeks without any heat or hot water while our landlord tried to get a cheaper deal than quoted by the property managers (I am pleased to say it ende... Comment - Like
Julia H. posted an article on
The Ethical Palaeontologist
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Feb 18, 2010, 5:22 pm
Because there are no words...
(You might need to click to zoom)
Actually there probably are quite a lot of words, and most of them can't be repeated to my students. Suffice to say, I did click the option "I actively choose products which contain chemicals", since it is actually impossible to d... Comment - Like
Julia H. posted an article on
The Ethical Palaeontologist
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Feb 7, 2010, 3:37 am
It's time for official grading and internal inspections. Which means I'm getting assessed on the quality of my teaching. Eeeeek!! So here's a mid-term edition of TILFMS:
Once you use a "That's what she said" joke in front of your adult students, they will sprinkle each biology cla... Comment - Like
Julia H. posted an article on
The Ethical Palaeontologist
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Feb 1, 2010, 3:47 pm
I had a great teacher when I was doing GCSE Science. Right at the start of year 10, Mr Middleton taught the class how to memorise the first 30 elements of the Periodic Table. I have a feeling I may be one of the only students from that class who can still say 16 years on that I remember all 30 sti... Comment - Like
Julia H. posted an article on
The Ethical Palaeontologist
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Jan 28, 2010, 5:47 pm
Followers of mine on Twitter will know that the geckos have had some issues settling in. Specifically, Mokele had not eaten anything since she arrived in her new home. She spent the first three days up the polystyrene wall!
Then on Wednesday morning one shoe dropped - there was gecko skin all ove... Comment - Like
Julia H. posted an article on
The Ethical Palaeontologist
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Jan 23, 2010, 9:17 am
This morning we brought the geckos home. The tank is nice and warm on one side and room temperature on the other side as advised. It was a scary journey home with them - if I could have driven at 10mph all the way I would have done, not least as we had to contend with traffic for this afternoon... Comment - Like
Julia H. posted an article on
The Ethical Palaeontologist
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Jan 17, 2010, 4:06 pm
Paul and I had an exciting day today, getting ready for our new arrivals. We thought long and hard about pets, and settled on leopard geckos, as Paul fell madly in love with this little chap back in September:
We've been to Pets-Or-Meat and bought the terrarium and some of the other kit. Does... Comment - Like
Julia H. posted an article on
The Ethical Palaeontologist
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Jan 15, 2010, 3:37 pm
Today I had to teach one of my classes about sexual characteristics. It involved mentioning the word "penis". This turned out to be a huge problem. See, apparently the word "penis" is embarrassing, and represents a filthy and depraved organ of the body. Previously rather brazen young men and wom... Comment - Like
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