Claws for alarm
Happy Third Blogoversary, WIJF blog! I am thick in some paper-writing, so I can’t write my usual detailed summary of the past year. Or so I thought, then I started writing and finished it, so here it is! I didn’t feel I needed to post this, but I like retrospectives and writing this helps me recall what happened here and gives me new ideas for the future (or things to avoid!). I continue to enjoy blogging here and you’re still here too, so that’s enough for me, regardless.
Stomach-Churning Rating: 8/10; some unpleasantness in the images ahead…
Indeed, this year saw an odd leap in blog subscribers, from about 200ish to now >1500 since around August 2014; an astonishing sevenfold increase in about as many months! I did not see that coming. I’d love it if some of the new folks could speak up in the Comments and say what brought them here (this WordPress recommendations link? BBC Dinosaur story link?). Otherwise, Twitter won the social media “war” again against Facebook for bringing people here.
The top post of this past year was easily, and unsurprisingly, the evil takeover of the blog by my Sith nemesis. May she remain in her galaxy far, far away and not trouble us again. “Aren’t Adaptations Special?” (my ode to the 35th Spandrelversary) and “Co-Rex-Ions” (my chronicle of correcting a paper and reflecting on that experience) both did nicely, too, in terms of readers.
Insanity claws
The latter post had parallel threads with others exploring my career and my role as a research manager/mentor, and pondering (with your input) research data “versus” conclusions as well as an awkward day earlier in my career involving crocodiles and karaoke. A recurrent theme that you may have noticed is that I am using the blog to explore my tolerance for humiliating myself (or at least self-effacement), and exploring why we humiliate others, which still fascinates me.
It was also a deeply introspective year for me, for reasons made clear by this post, which links to other posts like it exploring my experiences jousting with mortality and its reverberations. It has been an… eventful year. Leading to many thoughts bouncing around my head like happy little blood clots.
And then my crossover Conversation UK article was posted in full length here, “Anatomy: Dynamic, Not Defunct“, which was for me a highlight of the year on this blog (and my sci-comm efforts). I followed up on this big-picture anatomy motif in related posts on “In the Name of Morphology” and an ode (it was a year of many odes!) to anatomist Richard Owen.
My two-post stroll through the British Museum also got me writing about how animal anatomy plays a physical or at least visual role in human art and culture; that was fun for me. Likewise, I did another anatomically-focused museum exhibit review for the NHM’s mammoth exhibit, and yet another on my visit to another “home of anatomy” in Jena, Germany‘s equivalent of the NHM. That post’s ontogeny-phylogeny theme, echoed in my Owen post, also tied into a long-form version of a Nature News & Views article I wrote but also posted here, on “plastic fishapods.” Expect more evo-devo from me in the future; it has become part of my research programme to tie together form, function, development and evolution in my team’s work.
Ontogeny havoc: teratologies
In other, more random anatomy-based posts, there was an early one on cat dissections, another on the lives and deaths of penguins (there will be more on this topic soon!), and the most recent post on mammalian tails. Finally in 2014, as one of the highlights of my career lately, we published 3 papers about bird legs/knees on one day, in the open access journal PeerJ, right before Crimbo. I’m proud of the work my team put into those papers. 2015 looks to be at least as productive and fun!
This blog still has legs!
Keep wearing layers of clothing. I’ve got plenty more freezerness in store on this blog; freezerburnout has been avoided. Expect posts on dissecting dinosaurs, that promised komodo dragon post, more cats and penguins and then definitely more bird (and lizard, and mammal!) knees, and something special about genomes. I also have some changes in mind for the blog, with a new flavour of regular, short posts. I’ll save the explanation for later.
What are your memories of the past year in my freezers?
Twitter brought me to your website. It is not at all my field and I always have to prepare myself for the pictures that might come. Anyway, I love your writing. And most of the pictures. Always something to learn.
Best regards, Anja.
Thank you Anja!! That is wonderful to hear.
I found your blog while I was looking for articles on skeletonisation methods, and it’s great to watch anatomy in action. I work as a lab tech in a university and I’ve started my own freezer collection with the intent of making skeletons for display in the teaching labs, but I’ve been hesitant to start on any of the more endangered animals until I’m more comfortable/have more experience with the process. I’m working on a cane toad at the moment and I’ve been surprised with how hard it is to remove some parts of the flesh, especially the skin nearest to the spine. If you have any websites or books that you find particularly useful on skeletonisation methodology I’d be really interested to find them, otherwise I’ll keep reading your blog and learning lots from it!
Thanks Corinne! Wonderful to hear. With removing the skin, the key is a very sharp knife and applying a lot of tension to the skin, with gentle strokes of the knife to separate the skin from bone/connective tissue. Let the tension do the work and use little pressure w/knife. If that works, it’s easy; if the connection is still really tough, then there’s little solution but sawing away with a knife. But non-dissection methods like boiling (slow cooker) or bug colonies or burying specimens can work too!
Love your website (blog? I never know the difference). Stumbled here in preparing a lecture on the heart. I’m a trained immunologist (PhD) with heavy teaching pursuits in human gross anatomy. Dissection is my first (and most consistent) love, enjoy skimming your posts – all the way back to 2012-2013! Look forward to much more –
Music to my ears! Thanks Andrew! I love hearing from the blog’s readers!