Happy Darwin Year!

Coming to us in 2009: festivities and colloquia celebrating the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of his grand oeuvre

On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life,

which was "introducing sense into biology" (badly corrupted from the Ernst Mayr quote).

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Looking back a palaeoherpetologist would call 2008 the year of the turtle:

With the descriptions of Odontochelys and Chinlechelys and some further contributions (a list is provided by N. Gardner) the origins of turtles were greatly enlightened.

This topic was variously covered by the pal(a)eo and evo blogs – see for example here and here (Bill Parker's Chinleana) or here and here (Adam Yates' Dracovenator blog).

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BTW: How many recent On-papers do you know?

What is the right occasion to start a contribution with 'on'? Did you ever think about it ... to me such a beginning suggests a long-winded reflection of/ a comment on sth. rather than focusing on the presentation of new data.

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The Twelve Days of (Paleo) Christmas are not yet over - you are still welcome to participate in the poll. >>>>>

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I support Scientific Triassicism! An initiative by Neil from Microecos. What do you think: Is 'Triassic Science' or 'Triassology' a sexier term?

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(How long one week and a half can be: I forgot how to compose a text, that's why this post is only a list of notes.)