Mantis shrimp eats live lionfish

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIuDzmOYUug

Climate Deniers and the IPCC Report

Here is my (incomplete and poorly organized attempt) to try to gather additional useful and interesting information about climate change.  First, I will post the "Summary for Policy Makers" recently released by the IPCC and a recent USA Today article expressing and opposite viewpoint.
The I will list some links to some "climate change deniers" groups (this list is certainly not exhaustive).  Finally I have included links to some interesting vides on both sides of the "climate debate".

IPCC Report

IPCC Summary for Policy Makers- http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/uploads/WGIAR5-SPM_Approved27Sep2013.pdf

IPCC Exaggerates Risks: Opposing View (USA Today October 14, 2013)- http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/10/14/ipcc-climate-change-heartland-institute-editorials-debates/2983941/

The Science Fiction of IPCC Climate Models. (Heartland Institute, October 12, 2013)- http://news.heartland.org/editorial/2013/10/12/science-fiction-ipcc-climate-models

Some Climate Change Denial Groups

Heartland Institute- http://heartland.org/

Climate Change Dispatch- http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/

GlobalClimateScam.com- http://www.globalclimatescam.com/

Climate Change Denial-http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/

Friends of Science- http://www.friendsofscience.org/index.php?id=158

Heartland Institute and its NIPPC Report fails the credibility test- http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/2013/09/09/heartland-institute-nipcc-fail-the-credibility-test/

Videos

Rick Perry Debate- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoPvxcwZ5xw

Sarah Palin: Climate change in the new eugenics. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/sarah-palin-climate-change-eugenics

Global Warming Panic Explained- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdxaxJNs15s&feature=player_embedded

Providing Insight into Climate Change- http://www.friendsofscience.org/index.php?id=394

The Truth About Global Warming- Stephen Schneider: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_eJdX6y4hM

Bill Nye vs Marc Morano (CNN debate) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWT-EWKIR3M

Koch Industries and Climate Denial - http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/campaigns/global-warming-and-energy/polluterwatch/koch-industries/

Climate Deniers: Bill Maher- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OwFSLm4pII  (careful, contains a few naughty words)


Recent Articles: Weather Channel Founder Says Climate Change is a Myth

Bad Bad Science: Weather Channel founder says climate change is a myth: FoxNews Insider. October 28, 2014.
http://insider.foxnews.com/2014/10/27/weather-channel-co-founder-john-coleman-climate-change-myth


Weather Channel co-founder's climate denial finds warm welcome at Fox News. Mdeia Matters For America. October 28, 2014.
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/10/28/weather-channel-co-founders-climate-denial-find/201344

Plate Tectonics Cake

Now that you are experts "subduction zone dancers" do you think you are ready to try baking a "subduction zone cake"?

http://sara-geologicventures.blogspot.com/2012/05/cake-subduction-zone.html

Geology Humor

If We Cared About the Environment as Much as We Cared About Sports

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpQx2TdOW38

Who wants to go to the beach?!?!

http://youtu.be/liijgHmbBzg

Baking an Earth Cake

One of my teacher-nerd Facebook friends posted this article.

How to bake a scientifically accurate cake planet.

http://www.sciencedump.com/content/how-bake-scientifically-accurate-cake-planet

Jumping Spiders

Here is a link that contains some beautiful photos of jumping spiders.

/http://www.boredpanda.com/jumping-spiders-wearing-water-droplet-hats/

Pygmy Seahorses

photo by Alexander Mustard

Here is a video about what might be my all time favorite organisms!!

http://bcove.me/nmccqd8i

Depressing Example of Science Denial

Wealthy L.A. Schools; Vaccination Rates are as Low as South Sudan's.

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/09/wealthy-la-schools-vaccination-rates-are-as-low-as-south-sudans/380252/

Groupers and Eels Teaming Up to Hunt

Here is an interesting article about a fascinating ecological relationship between a grouper and an eel who work together to catch their prey.  It appears that there is communication going on between the two species and that they are able to remember which individuals are good partners and which are not.  Pretty cool!!!

http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2014/09/08/groupers-eels-animals-science-oceans-teamwork-hunting-prey/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Social&utm_content=link_fb20140908ngnw-eelsgroup&utm_campaign=Content&sf4540429=1

Mantis Shrimp

As promised, here is some info about mantis shrimp.

This article, from Sept. 7th, 2014 contains a video showing a mantis shrimp cracking open a clam and a photo of a giant mantis shrimp that someone caught in Florida last week.

http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/mantis-shrimp-warm-waters-lurk-video/33498799

This longish video (over 7 minutes long) discusses many interesting aspects of  how the mantis shrimp uses its claws.  Pretty interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXrxCT0NpHo


Why the mantis shrimp is my new favorite animal (also pretty cool)

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/mantis_shrimp

Peacock Spiders

Cool Video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_yYC5r8xMI

Bird Sounds From the Lyrebird

Here is link to a short video, narrated by David Attenborough, showing the amazing mimicry ability of the lyrebird.  This video is one of my all-time favorites.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjE0Kdfos4Y

Lyrebirds, are medium-sized, ground-nesting birds found in Australia.  These birds are well know for (1) their ability to mimic the sounds of other birds (and other sounds in their environment) and the elaborate mating display of the male (shown above).  When I was about 12 or 13 years old I was living in Melbourne, Australia.  One Saturday my Dad and I drove to a forest area where lyrebirds live hoping to see one.  After hiking around for less than an hour we discovered a male and after following him for just a short while we were lucky enough to see the full display.  We were joined by an Australian wildlife photographer who said he had been exploring the forest for the last two weeks and this was the first display he saw.  I sure got lucky that day! (by now it should be clear that my biology-nerdom started at a young age)

What are the top 3 ways to die in your part of the world?

http://www.upworthy.com/what-are-the-top-3-ways-to-die-in-your-part-of-the-world?c=cur1

The Mark McGinley Story

Here is the perfect cure for insomnia!

The Formative Years
I was born in Corpus Christi, TX and after a couple of moves we ended up in Rosenberg, (near Houston) where I attended grade school. I was interested in biology from an early age; I watched Marlin Perkins and Jacque Cousteau (your parents should know who they are) and I spent a lot of time outdoors on family camping and fishing trips. Even though I grew up near Houston during the Apollo years, I always thought that it would be much cooler to be a biologist than an astronaut.

When I was in the sixth grade my family moved to Australia for four years. This was an amazing life change for a kid who thought that the annual trip to my grandparents’ house in Oklahoma was a big deal. I had the incomparable experience of living in another country and experiencing a whole new way of life. Probably the biggest difference between Australia and the U.S. was the schools. I went to an all-boys English-style, private school where we had to wear uniforms (suits and ties) and straw boater hats to class everyday (this probably explains my preferred style of dress today).

The move also provided me with the opportunity to travel the world. During trips through Europe and Asia we saw many places of historical and cultural interest. Among my favorites were the Coliseum in Rome, the Tower of London, and Mt. Fuji in Japan. More importantly, my travels exposed me to many new biological experiences including seeing hippos, gazelles, elephants, and a cheetah in South Africa, snorkeling and beachcombing in Hawaii, Tahiti, Fiji, and the Great Barrier Reef, chasing emus through the Australian outback, watching a male lyrebird do his mating dance, watching fairy penguins come ashore for the night off of the coast of southern Australia, and many sightings of other Australian wildlife including kangaroos and koalas (how many people do you know that have ever seen a koala running along the ground?).

During the summer before my sophomore year in high school we moved to Thousand Oaks, CA (old-timers will remember TO as the former summer home of the Dallas Cowboys before they were ruined by Jerry Jones) where I graduated from high school. During my senior year I spent a week studying ecology and philosophy in Yosemite National Park and this trip confirmed by desire to be a biologist.

Education

I enrolled at the University of California, Santa Barbara to study biology. UCSB is an incredible place to go to school (I could see the ocean from my bedroom window three out of the four years that I was there) and it also happened to have one of the best ecology programs in the world. Joe Connell (one of the most influential ecologist of our era) taught the ecology section of my intro biology course and also taught my first ecology course, so it is probably his fault that I am here today because after finishing his course I knew that I wanted to be an ecologist. Later, after taking courses from Steve Rothstein and Bob Warner, I became interested in behavioral and evolutionary ecology and I decided to go to grad school to study behavioral ecology. I went to Kansas State University in Manhattan, KS which was a pretty big change from UCSB. I enjoyed K-State (I learned to bleed purple for Wildcat basketball) and I was lucky to be able to spend summers working for my advisor Chris Smith at the Mountain Research Station in Colorado studying pollination in lodgepole pine. My Masters Thesis extended optimal foraging models to examine woodrats foraging for non-food items (sticks that they use to build their houses). I also did a theoretical study examining how food stress should affect sex ratios. I earned a Ph. D. at the University in Salt Lake City. For my Ph. D. thesis with Jon Seger, I developed models and conducted experiments to understand the causes of seed size variation in plants. During my little free time, I played volleyball with the U of U Volleyball Club team and I was probably the only person in the whole city who did not ski (I still don’t see the point of intentionally getting cold). I spent two years working as a post-doctoral researcher with Dave Tilman at the University of Minnesota. Our research focused on succession in old fields at Cedar Creek Natural History Area just north of Minneapolis.

Life at Texas Tech
I started as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Texas Tech University in 1991. I am currently an Associate Professor with a joint position in the Honors College and the Department of Biological Sciences. In the Honors College I work closely with the Environment and the Humanities degree. (http://www.depts.ttu.edu/honors/evhm/).  In the Feb 2014 I was appointed as an Assistant Dean in the Honors College.

Teaching

I teach a wide variety of classes at Tech. Two of my favorite courses are Tropical Marine Biology (taught in Jamaica and Belize) and the Rio Grande Class (we take a week-long canoe trip through Big Bend over Spring Break). For 6 wonderful summers I have worked as a scuba instructor and marine biologist with Odyssey Expeditions leading sailing and scuba trips through the Caribbean (British Virgin Islands, Martinique, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent & the Grenadines).

Scholarship
For several years I conducted ecological research in the sand shinnery oak community in West Texas. My current interests are in science curriculum development, environmental education, and informatl science education.  Currently, I am the Editor-in-Chief of the Encyclopedia of the Earth (http://www.eoearth.org/).

Fulbright in Malaysia

I spent the 2010-2011 academic year as a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. In addition to teaching a class at the UM, I was able to travel throughout the Malaysia and other parts of SE Asia (Thailand and Cambodia). In enjoyed exploring the rainforests and islands of Malaysia.  Some of the coolest things I saw were a sea turtle laying eggs, Orangutans, and a Borneo Pygmy Elephant. To learn more about my adventures in Malaysia you can check out my blog. http://markinmalaysia.blogspot.com/


Traveling

I enjoy traveling and I have been able to explore my passion for scuba diving on dive trips in Texas (San Solomon Springs in Balmorhea and the Flower Garden Banks) throughout the Caribbean as well as Yap, Palau, Solomon Islands, Fiji, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Galapagos Islands. My favorite marine critters include hammerhead sharks, pygmy sea horses, and “the pea”.This summer I spent a week in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and a week diving on Gili Air, a small island off of the Indonesian Island of Lombok.