Author Archives: Bob O'H

Attack Budgies: leaks from the secret labs of GrrlScientist

Posted on 11 October 2013 by Bob O'H

This morning I was gravely offended by being described as an “attack parrot”. The offender’s mitigation was that he had originally wanted to call me an “attack budgie”, but had refrained, presumably because he thought an attack budgie sounded less … Continue reading →

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Simple models can lead to generality in ecology

Posted on 6 September 2013 by Bob O'H

It’s always nice to read a paper that is obviously wrong, but where you have to think about why it is wrong. Because it makes you, well, think. And sometimes learn something new. So when I see a paper in … Continue reading →

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Simple models do lead to generality in ecology

Posted on 4 September 2013 by Bob O'H

It’s always nice to read a paper that is obviously wrong, but where you have to think about why it is wrong. Because it makes you, well, think. And sometimes learn something new.

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Off to the other side of the world

Posted on 8 April 2013 by Bob O'H

This is just a brief announcement to explain that as this publishes I should be off on my travels again. This time I’m going further than ever before (no, I’m not travelling by standing on the shoulders of giants). I’m … Continue reading →

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On the Evolution of Camouflage in Urban Environments

Posted on 25 March 2013 by Bob O'H

One of my offices is in the Geozentrum in the Goethe University here in Frankfurt. This morning this was on the side of the building: I only saw it because it was flapping about a bit in the wind. If … Continue reading →

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Making reviewing boring stuff less boring

Posted on 20 March 2013 by Bob O'H

Over at the Scholarly Kitchen, everyone’s favourite source material for winding up OA advocates, Phil Davis asked about something only tangentially related: Do Uninteresting Papers Really Need Peer Review? In it he lays out a view that is perhaps selfish, … Continue reading →

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How oil companies are helping to combat global warming

Posted on 15 February 2013 by Bob O'H

I just saw this news that Statoil is to be allowed to drill holes in the bottom of the North Sea:

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The long and the short of papal reigns

Posted on 11 February 2013 by Bob O'H

If you’ve been following the news, or twitter, you’ll have noticed that the current pope, Pope Benedict XVI (pronounces Kss-vee) has decided to retire at the end of the month, to spend more time with his twitter account. Anyway, the … Continue reading →

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A Brief Service Announcement

Posted on 7 January 2013 by Bob O'H

Sorry for not posting much, um, recently. This is partly because I’ve been busy, and also because I’ve been avoiding writing an obituary for The Beast, who died a few weeks before Christmas. In the words of Trillian, normal service … Continue reading →

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Changing ecologists’ statistics to statistics about nature

Posted on 16 October 2012 by Bob O'H

Whilst my back was turned, I had another paper published online early. It’s rather embarrassing that I didn’t notice, because I’m an Executive Editor for the journal. The paper is, of course, superb (most of the work was done by … Continue reading →

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