The demise of G4

Do you remember that place we used to go?

You know, that windowless place that had a moss green carpet and seats you'd need a tetanus jab for? Remeber now? With the macs that seldom worked and the rows of old desks. We'd be in there at all hours, sometimes working, sometimes drinking, sometimes bowing our heads in dispair or roaring with laughter. "Ahh, good times!" I hear you sigh. Remember playing your guitars in there, or practicing presentations?
Remember learning about taphonomy and ichnology, remember being handcuffed, or falling off the desks? Or watching Rob stuff oranges up his t-shirt and parading round like he had breasts? Well, all those memories have been ripped out folks. Yes, G4 is no more! The desks have gone, the carpet will probably go (i hope), it's all being binned to make way for a spanking new office that Bristol are going to try and cram 50 MSc and MESci (grrrrrrrrr) students into. (Yes I did type 50. This is paleontology battery-farm style!).

So as you're sitting at your computers, think back for a few moments for all the times that were. Because now, my fellow palaeopadwans, they exist only in memory............

Oh, and also....Rob's MSc paper has been accepted!!! He wouldn't write to tell you but I have no shame. I'm very proud.

That's all for now.

Linneus 300th bash

Hello all

I trust that you are all well and engaged in interesting activities. I thought I might post a quick update on the most recent conference attended by paleopadwans (myself and Emma), since we're not really using this site for much palaeo talk (owing, of course, to having better sites to vist, like facebook for example). Anyway, the Royal Society held a tercentenary evolution themed extravaganza earlier this week for good old Linneus and these were the main events: Dick Jeffries (whom some of you may know) got arsy with a lot of people, there was a mass debate about whether we should refer to one half of the Protostomia as lophotrochozoans or spiralians (joy!) and I may have inadvertantly let slip that I thought some aspects of the MSc were a load of poo to Paddy Orr, Nic Butterfield and Mat Wills over lunch in Pizza Hut (the pepperoni had really gone to my head). And that was about it. Oh, there were some interesting advances being talked about too but these mainly involved gene expression experiments and loads of pictures of embryos with supernumary limbs etc, there wasn't much talk of fossils. Anyway, for those of you attending Paris in a few weeks, good luck! Who's going to Palass and what are we all doing with our grant money? I am rotting thiomargarita (I got bored of embryos) and contemplating lophotrochozoan (not spiralian) decay paths and planning to make Briggs' mineralization experiments look like kindergarten projects. Them there's fightin' words!
But enough about me......what about you????

Progressive continued....

Phil's charming modesty has resulted in an incomplete account of the proceedings last Friday: His talk was brilliant too.

Awww, don't they look adorable?!

From morphospace to cyberspace....

Well it seems we shall all have plenty to keep our fingers from lingering idle by our keyboards now. This blog is a fantastic idea. Ben well done you for setting it up! I really don't want to have to go to the lab now!

So, on to matters palaeo: For everyone who can come to Progpal, I have couch-space and Phil and I are giving talks. Phil is introducing his research and I am demonstrating how efficient use of NERC funding can be effective when planning jollies on the beach. The planners are still considering late submissions so if anyone has a burning desire to wow their peers with pretty pictures, submit an abstract pronto! I can't wait to see you there!
On a final note for now, this is the ultimate geek forum and personally I think it would be great if we really did use it to discuss shop every now and again. I could learn a lot from you people and it would really save on text books.

Olivooides RULES etc etc....