22
Jun

Studying Net Evaporation from the Eastmain-1 Reservoir

Written by Blog Editor. Posted in General

Studying Net Evaporation from the Eastmain-1 Reservoir
The IPCC Special Report on Renewable Energy14 was an important document in assessing the potential for renewable energy sources to replace fossil-based fuels and included the volume of water needed to generate energy. That review identified only four …
Read more on HydroWorld

PROF. BONIFACE EGBOKA: Biafran experiences taught me to fight for justice
Egboka joined UNIZIK as a pioneer lecturer and at different times, appointed Head, Department of Geological Sciences, Dean, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Director, Continuing Education Programme (CEP), Dean, School of Post Graduate Studies and Deputy …
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Opening to the world
For public universities with many students from all over the country, adequate on-campus housing becomes even more important. Let's go back to UUM. Its specialization is reflected by its different undergraduate and graduate degree programs around …
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14
Jun

Gorgeous Game Theory: Professor Predicts Planet Cup

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Beautiful Game Theory: Professor Predicts World Cup
The two hats Palacios-Huerta wears prevent him from watching a soccer match like an ordinary person, but they do offer a unique perspective that allows him to find the link between economics and soccer. In his research — including his latest book …
Read more on Worldcrunch

The 2-Year Dissertation
2. Write every weekday. One of the best tips that most graduate students will receive about how to write a dissertation is simply to write every day. However, what does this mean? Most graduate students have generally tended to follow the purge …
Read more on Inside Higher Ed

05
Jun

Sorry…GoogleSorry…We’re sorry…… but your computer or network may be sending automated queries. To protect our users, we can’t process your request right now.See Google Help for more information.© 2013 Google – Google Home

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Sorry…GoogleSorry…We’re sorry…… but your computer or network may be sending automated queries. To protect our users, we can’t process your request right now.See Google Help for more information.© 2013 Google – Google Home

28
May

Mekuria Bulcha: Struggle over Finfinne is Struggle for Oromia

Written by Blog Editor. Posted in General

You’re dirty, sweet and you’re my girl
should i get a phd
Image by Mark Witton
Tell you what: of late I’ve done nothing but talk. Thanks to covering my PhD supervisor’s teaching load while he’s away on fieldwork for a month, I’ve been delivering 3 hour lectures, tutorials, assisting in practical classes, invigilating in-class tests and all sorts: I’ve been rambling on at students more than Led Zepplin II. The funny thing is, save for one seminar I’ve given on my own research, none of what I’ve said has been my own words. No, instead I’ve been regurgitating the songs of other researchers, putting what they’ve said into my own words and launching them at students. It’s a bit weird, really: I must’ve said thousands of words more than normal over the last week and yet, in a strange way, I feel like I haven’t really spoken to many people at all.

While I’ve been busy putting other people’s words into my mouth, a milestone in my career has drifted by virtually un-noticed. Yup, last week saw not only the publication of my first ever solo paper, but also my first ever contribution to the big list of animal species known to exist across time. Enter, stage left, Lacusovagus magnificens, a brand-spanking new pterosaur from Lower Cretaceous deposits of Brazil, described, illustrated and named entirely by yours truly. Given that a half-decent new taxon will be forever referenced and discussed in scientific literature until kingdom-come, this is, I guess, a reasonably big deal. Shame, therefore, that my reaction to its publication was something more akin to ‘oh, that’s nice’ than ‘hot-damn, I’ve been immortalised in the scientific literature’. Even as I write this, I can’t shake the feeling that I really have more pressing concerns to address like putting a lecture together or reading through some proofs but, dammit, it’s been ages since I wrote anything other than some hastily worded E-mails, so write I will: the words of other people will have to wait for a few minutes longer.

So, what is this Lacusovagus beastie all about, then? Well, the holotype specimen (that is, the specimen to which the name Lacusovagus magnificens is attached to) was sourced from the Crato Formation of Brazil, the age of which isn’t entirely clear. Based on fossil spores and pollen, the Crato Formation seems to have a ballpark age of about 110 million years old, dumping it towards the top of the Lower Cretaceous. This stretch of time records one of the richest, most diverse pterosaur faunas we know of: between the famous Jehol Group of China (you know, the place that’s blossoming with all those fuzzy dinosaurs you see splashed across the news every-so-often), the Crato Formation, the neighbouring Santana Formation and a few other sites, we know of at least ten major groups of pterosaurs around at this time, and God-knows how many different species. So, Lacusovagus doesn’t exactly rewrite our knowledge of pterosaur temporal distribution, then: in this respect, it simply adds another name to the already-long list of pterosaurs known from this time.

What is a bit more exciting, though, is what Lacusovagus is. It took a little while to verify exactly what Lacusovagus was because of the, frankly rather crappy, nature of the holotype. Affectionately known to its friends as SMNK PAL 4325, the only known specimen of Lacusovagus is simply a fragmentary rostrum – essentially the front end of the upper beak and elements of the bars making up most of the skull length (to be all technical, we’ve got the complete pre-nasoantorbital fenestral rostrum, most of the right maxillary bar, some of the left maxillary bar and a short stretch of the posterodorsal extension of the premaxillae). Unusually for a Crato pterosaur, SMNK PAL 4325 is preserved with the roof of its mouth flat in the sediment, making it damned difficult to see even the most basic features of it – like the presence of absence of teeth. Adding to this problem was the fact that the chaps who collected the specimen decided that, because the limestone slab housing the skull was quite thin and delicate, they would secure another slab to the underside. In theory, this is an excellent idea because, hey, no-one wants their sexy new pterosaur skulls to split in two, but they used car body filler to cement the slabs together. We removed a section of the bottom limestone slab pretty easily, but the infernal car filler was a real cow to get through. In fact, only a tiny portion was removed before the juxtaposition of bloody inert car filler and delicate fossil became too much of a liability for preparation to continue. What you can see of the underside of the jaw shows no sign of teeth, and we later CT scanned the specimen to find a similar result. Thus, whatever Lacusovagus was, it didn’t have any teeth.

Thankfully, other aspects of Lacusovagus ‘s skull weren’t so difficult to see. Although pretty fragmentary, we’ve got enough of the skull preserved to show that the skull was quite long – at least 655 mm and probably well-over 700 mm when complete – but, based on doubling the width of the widest part of the skull, it’s also unusually wide. This is something you don’t get too often in pterosaurs: their skulls are typically quite slender (though no-where near as paper-thin as suggested by some workers), with only aberrant, derived things like istiodactylids and tapejarids having proportionally wide skulls. Lacusovagus stands out with weird skull proportions, combining a long snout with a relatively wide skull. In fact, only one toothless pterosaur, Tapejara, has a wider skull for its length than Lacusovagus.

And that’s not the only weird thing about Lacusovagus. For a long-jawed pterosaur, its rostrum – the bit of the beak in front of its nasal opening (although, of course, pterodactyloid pterosaurs have fused nasals and antorbital fenestrae – but you knew that already, didn’t you?) is pretty short. Given that the jaw is not entirely complete (but I figure most of it is there), the ratio of jaw length to rostral length will be even shorter in a complete specimen. The unusually wide skull is also reflected in the rostrum, which is pretty chunky along much of its length. However, unlike an awful lot of edentulous pterosaurs from the Lower Cretaceous, there’s not a hint of a headcrest anywhere along the skull. Given that the specimen is osteologically mature, it’s unlikely that it’s crestlessness (um… that may not be a real word) can be put down SMNK PAL 4325 being an immature individual still awaiting the crest development, shoegaze music and moodiness that would arrive with puberty.

So, are these features enough to give an idea of what SMNK PAL 4325 actually is? Well, it looks like Lacusovagus can be quite reliably shoved inside the pterosaur group Azhdarchoidea, the social club that also features thalassodromids, tapejarids and azhdarchids. However, it can’t be placed in any of these ‘classic’ azhdarchoid groups: no, Lacusovagus finds its closest chums in a relatively new pterosaur group, Chaoyangopteridae. These chaps – like Lacusovagus – have long, edentulous jaws with shallow, crestless rostra, big nasoantorbital fenestra and – a bit like azhdarchids – long neck vertebrae. Now, when I submitted the Lacusovagus manuscript to Palaeontology I hadn’t verified the chaoyangopterid affinities of SMNK PAL 4325 with any kind of cladistic analysis, but I managed to work one into my PhD thesis: in all recovered trees, Lacusovagus hangs out with the likes of Jidapterus, Eoazhdarcho, Eopteranodon, Chaoyangopterus and Shenzhoupterus – certified chaoyangopterids – to the exclusion of all other azhdarchoids. Interestingly, I found Chaoyangopteryidae to form a little clade with Azhdarchidae, suggesting that long necks only evolved once within Azhdarchoidea. Neat.

Now, if pterosaur palaeobiogeography floats your boat, finding a chaoyangopterid in Brazil is extremely cool. Chaoyangopterids, y’see, have thus far only been found in the Jehol Group of China. Lacusovagus, therefore, provides the first record of these guys outside of Asia and suggests that this otherwise poorly-known group were far more widespread than previously realised. It also heightens the faunal similarity between these two localities, suggesting that we should expect pretty similar pterosaur diversity between China and Brazil. All in all, it goes to show that we’ve still got a hell of a lot to learn about pterosaur diversity and biogeography and emphasises just how reliant we are on fossil lagerstätte – sites of exceptional fossil preservation like Crato and Jehol – to tell us what pterosaurs were up to at any given time in their evolutionary history.

Anyway, that’s about all I’ve got time to tell you about Lacusovagus for now. Only two more things are worthy of mention: with an estimated wingspan of 4 – 5 m, Lacusovagus is the biggest chaoyangopterid yet known and the biggest pterosaur from the Crato Formation (estimated mass of 20 kg, wingspan-mass regression fans). I mention this because, like all palaeontologists, my main concern is that any animal with my name attached will kick the asses of its contemporaries and closely-related animals. Finally, a quick word about the name: I really wanted to avoid another terribly dull place-name-opterus or something like that with my first scientific moniker. Hence, Lacusovagus magnificens translates from Latin to ‘magnificent lake wanderer’, a reference to the fact that the specimen comes from the Crato water body and was of some magnitude in size. This name, for some reason, really makes me want to listen to The BeatlesMagical Mystery Tour album. Hmm: probably just me, that one.

Oh, and as usual, there’s been no mention of the picture at the top of the text: what you’ve got there is the first ever restoration of Lacusovagus, suitably wandering around the margins of the Crato lagoon. Which is nice. Anywho, thanks to all those who helped out on the paper and with figuring out the specimen. Much appreciated.

UPDATE (4/12/08): Well, bugger me: this whole Lacusovagus thing has gone crazy in the last few days. It’s been in the national papers, national radio, is all over the internet like a cheap suit and may even end up on the TV. It’s funny to think that I only contacted our press office with the idea that someone – maybe, one, two bloggers, tops, would find Lacusovagus interesting: now it’s a bona fide international megaevent. Crazy stuff. The best bit, is though, that the BBC have used my scale graphic for their picture caption of the week competition. So far, I’ve been likened to John Lennon, David Bowie, Rod Hull, Noddy Holder and at least two people can’t figure out what sex I am. Superb (the BBC stuff, that is: not gender confusion. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, you understand – I’ll freely admit to dressing in a rather androgynous fashion on occasion and am perhaps favourably compared to women somewhat more often than I should be comfortable with. And I do moan about men a lot, so, hey, gender confusion is savvy with me. Um, where are we going with this? This is a sort of corner I’ve written myself into here: best trail off…)

Mekuria Bulcha: Struggle over Finfinne is Struggle for Oromia
It concerns not only the cause of the Oromo farmers in Central Oromia, whose livelihoods will be affected by the AAMP, but also that of all the Oromo farmers and pastoralists throughout Oromia whose farms and pasturelands have already been sold and are …
Read more on Gadaa.com Oduu – News

In defence of Smriti Irani: Why Madhu and Maken are wrong
Let's take an even better example of former prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh, a PhD from the University of Oxford. Now compare his degree to the mess … A defence minister should have experience in the area of defence. So, doesn't that make General V …
Read more on Firstpost

The surprising science of fat: you can get fatter and become healthier
Ten weeks post-injection, the mice showed evidence of subcutaneous fat expansion and the corresponding metabolic improvements described above. So, just to recap: obese mice became healthier by getting fatter. Should we be surprised? Not if you've …
Read more on PLoS Blogs (blog)

20
May

SFI® and U.S. Endowment to Support Heritage of African American Landowners

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SFI® and U.S. Endowment to Support Heritage of African American Landowners
According to Dr. Shorna R. Broussard, PhD, of Cornell University, unlike their counterparts across the country, land loss rates by African-American landowners is as much as 30% greater. She also notes that "Nationally, approximately 144,000 African …
Read more on PR Newswire (press release)

Public Health Experts Identify Militarism As Threat
The authors, experts in public health, are listed with all their academic credentials: William H. Wiist, DHSc, MPH, MS, Kathy Barker, PhD, Neil Arya, MD, Jon Rohde, MD, Martin Donohoe, MD, Shelley White, PhD, MPH, Pauline Lubens, MPH, Geraldine Gorman …
Read more on Mintpress News

12
May

Lastest Why Phd News

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CESS launches MPhil, PhD programmes for 2014-15
The Centre for Economic and Social Studies (CESS), Hyderabad, today announced its MPhil and PhD programmes for the 2014-15 academic year, in accordance with the guidelines issued by the University Grants Commission in June 2009. "The new MPhil …
Read more on Business Standard

Medical expert qualifies for PhD degree
PESHAWAR: Professor Dr Jamshed Ali, head of the Pharmacology Department and vice-principal of the Khyber Medical College, on Monday successfully defended his PhD thesis at the University of Punjab and qualified for the award of the doctorate degree.
Read more on The News International

More PhD opportunities locally
SERDANG: Malaysia has saved about RM2 billion by establishing Research Universities locally that have allowed PhD students to get a placement in local universities instead of going abroad, said Second Education Minister Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh.
Read more on The Sun Daily

03
May

Lastest Phd Importance News

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PU abolishes NTS test for MPhil
PUNJAB University on Friday announced abolishing the condition of passing National Testing Service (NTS) test by candidates seeking admission to MPhil and PhD programmes for the upcoming academic session. … d/o Ch Mukhtar Ahmad has been awarded a PhD …
Read more on The News International

Shaping Elizabeth Community Health Forum is June 18
The forum is designed to raise awareness of the importance of health equity and its impact on the Elizabeth Community. … Darrin Anderson, Sr., PhD Deputy Director, New Jersey Partnership for Healthy Kids is the Keynote speaker for the forum. Dr …
Read more on Suburban News

Emerging Role for Bevacizumab in Platinum-Resistant Ovarian Cancer
It was led by Eric Pujade-Lauraine, MD, PhD, from the Université de Paris Descartes in France, and published in the May 1 issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Of note, patient-reported outcomes (PROs) described in an accompanying study …
Read more on Medscape

25
Apr

Sri Lankan gets double Masters at 15

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Sri Lankan gets double Masters at 15
Even the PhD students he works with show these traits. Another flaw he sees in the Sri Lankan system is the unwarranted struggle to enter traditional universities. He says rather than getting stuck in traditional degree courses, students must get …
Read more on Sri Lanka Guardian

FDA approves HPV test for primary cervical cancer
Based on results of the cobas HPV Test, women who test positive for HPV types 16 or 18 should have a colposcopy. Alberto Gutierrez, PhD. Alberto Gutierrez. “Today's approval offers women and physicians a new option for cervical cancer screening,” said …
Read more on Healio

08
Apr

Lastest Phd Importance News

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A Brief History of the Economics of Wage Discrimination
But in certain high-importance, high-income sectors, such as technology, women hold a surprising minority of jobs and are less likely to stay in the industry altogether: Today, even as so many barriers have fallen — whether at elite universities …
Read more on Chicagomag.com

New methodology to find out about yeast changes during wine fermentation
In his PhD thesis, Rubén Martínez, a graduate in Biology and Biochemistry, has developed a new methodology that makes it possible to know what physiological state the yeast is in at each point in the wine fermentation process. “By drawing an analogy …
Read more on Basque Research

26
Feb

Meet the police constable with a PhD

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omg why didn’t I read this earlier?
why phd
Image by overlobe

Meet the police constable with a PhD
Musa Ambuchi could be the only police constable with a doctorate degree in Kenya. Or East Africa for that matter. A constable is the lowest rank within the police command structure. This is the cadre that does most of the police leg work, especially …
Read more on The Standard Digital News

J. Marvin Herndon, PhD, Presents Comprehensive Review of Terracentric
SAN DIEGO, Feb. 25, 2014 /PRNewswire/ — Science fiction sometimes foreshadows science fact. Remember the movie Forbidden Planet and the Martian epic Total Recall? Each had within their planets powerful alien-built reactors. The evidence continues to …
Read more on PR Newswire (press release)

Putting more students on the Ph.D. path is UTD prof's goal
<bold>Professor David Ford asks </bold>for a show of hands as he teaches a business class on organizational behavior at the University of Texas at Dallas. He was honored last year by The PhD Project for his work to increase the number of doctoral …
Read more on Dallas Morning News