Have I mentioned how much I love the i09 blog recently?

Apparently I've been blogslacking. Shocking. A friend pointed out that I share posts from a io9 on my linkblog quite frequently..

Guilty as charged.

I love this blog.

Posts like their Complete Guide to Science Fiction Season just make my life easier and more deeply enriched with the scifi goodness I've known and loved for the past two decades.

A paper in Nature disputes the significance of the KT boundary event:

I've been loving the combined ScienceBlogs feed over the past few weeks.

Along with the new io9 blog, these feeds continue to feed a longstanding love for both science and science fiction.

Take together, they provide a great mix of what is and what could be.

Today's reading brought me to to Greg Laden's blog, where he comments at length on a new paper published in Nature that disputes importance of the KT Boundary Event in mammalian evolution. (See the abstract for The delayed rise of present-day mammals for more; full access requires registration or a trip to the (gasp) library.)

As Laden says:

The KT boundary event is the moment in time when a ca. 10 km. diameter object going very fast hit the earth in the vicinity of the modern Yucatan, causing the extinction of the dinosaurs (and almost everything else larger than a microwave). It has been suggested that this event resulted in (allowed for) the subsequent diversification of the mammals, presumably because the earlier extinction event opened up previously filled niches, into which the mammals evolved, and possibly because of dramatic climate change that occurred with this event.

One of the reasons that this study is important is that it seems to falsify this long-standing hypothesis.

This paper is thoughtfully discussed on Pharyngula and Sandwalk, and I recommend that you have a look at those sites.

I suspect some of my more geologically-inclined friends will find this interesting as well. I'm glad to see that our understanding of evolutionary history continues to, well, evolve, based upon new research.

Meebo widget madness

Ok, it's not exactly madness. I did decide, however, after observing the coolness of the embedded chat widget on a bunny-loving friend's blog, that I wanted to jump on the Meebo bandwagon.

Geeky covetousness, I am your huckleberry.

So far, I like it.

If anyone wants to chat me up, go for it. I hope you have something inspirational or revelatory to impart, though that's probably asking for a lot.

Blogger Beta

I was finally offered the opportunity to switch today.

I shouldn't be this excited but can't help it. No more publishing. I can finally tag label posts. Widgets are easy to add. I can feature RSS feeds. And it's all tied neatly into Gmail, GoogTube, Calendar, Reader and the rest of the emerging Google online ecosystem.

I may have to delay my exit to WordPress for a few more months after all.