News - 2012
Happy Christmas - Not really a news story - 23 Dec 2012
It's been another successive year of record-breaking turnover, so thanks to all of our customers for your continued support. I'll close a little early tomorrow, as things tend to drop off…
More stuff - news story - 07 Nov 2012
I have a supplier visiting today, bringing yet more stuff for me to cram into the basement. There will be more Dactylioceras nodules from Yorkshire, some excellent Moroccan trilobites, insects…
New old fish - news story - 25 Oct 2012
Coelacanths are a fish with a story to tell - one of the most famous 'living fossils'* around. Fossils of them were fairly plentiful, scattered through the fossil record and…
Farcequake - news story - 23 Oct 2012
In April, 2009, there was a big earthquake in L'Aquila, Italy, that killed over 300 people. A team of seismologists had been gathered to assess the threat to the city…
New moon - news story - 19 Oct 2012
A few years ago, at the Tucson trade fair, I bought some tiny bits of lunar and Martian meteorite in little boxes - all nicely labelled with details of the…
Built to chew - news story - 08 Oct 2012
I recently visited a school to talk to some 6 year-olds about fossils, and dinosaurs in particular. The had a lot of questions, so I didn't spend as much time…
New face - news story - 02 Oct 2012
When Kristen started working in the shop in January, she told me she expected to move back to Southampton in the autumn to complete her doctorate. I had hoped circumstances…
Stan - news story - 10 Sep 2012
Sadly, Stan Wood died yesterday. He had been ill for a while and surprised everyone with his determination to keep going, sorting his fossils and even visiting his sites long…
Where does it stop? - news story - 29 Aug 2012
Any news story on a dinosaur will mention its size. Dinosaurs are rarely found intact, however, and there are many obstacles to reaching a confident estimation of size - mass…
Fire in the sky - news story - 22 Aug 2012
Tungurahua in Ecuador has been an active volcano since 1999, but this last week has seen a number of violent eruptions. Aside from the obvious need for people to avoid…
Annamite fossil - news story - 21 Aug 2012
It seems we have been adding to our knowledge of the human migration story at a fair pace lately. The latest piece of the puzzle is research done on a…
Core care - news story - 30 Jul 2012
The issue of irresponsible core drilling is something that's risen its head before. What's particularly disappointing about it is that the problem is being caused by geologists, who should know…
Bear with us - news story - 24 Jul 2012
One of the icons of the battle to acknowledge and address climate change has been the polar bear. Concerns over the fate of Nanook due to the shrinking of the…
Telling tooth - news story - 13 Jul 2012
Fossils of human ancestors are all too rare, so this was a great find. A small tooth sticking out of a boulder led to it being scanned - revealing what…
Stock arrival - news story - 05 Jul 2012
Yesterday the stock I bought in Sainte Marie aux Mines arrived. I've made a start on it - priced up some Lebanese shrimp, Brazilian insects, shattuckite from the Congo, woolly…
Not in cold blood - news story - 28 Jun 2012
The logical assumption, when it was realised dinosaurs were reptilian, was that they had cold blood. Gradually, it dawned on palaeontologists that this wasn't necessarily true and, furthermore, looking less…
Away we go - news story - 18 Jun 2012
I'm off to the Alsace show tomorrow morning, and Kristen will be holding the fort until I'm back next Tuesday. There will be a special guest appearance by the retired…
25th Anniversary Celebrations - news story - 31 May 2012
June sees the the 25th birthday of the shop, and we're marking the occasion with a month-long celebration. There will be a little shark tooth given away to every customer…
Gold plated - news story - 23 May 2012
When studying tiny fossils - and tiny parts of bigger fossils - under electron microscopes, the subjects are often given a very thin coating of gold. It provides a far…
Thrips caught in the act - news story - 16 May 2012
The problems facing bees at the moment is of great concern not so much because of the honey they produce (there's always jam) but because of the impact it would…
It's an ill wind - news story - 10 May 2012
It's well-known that methane produced by cows (and sheep, goats, etc - the world's livestock) is a contributing factor to the greenhouse gases affecting the climate. To what extent is…
Postage price increase - news story - 09 May 2012
Sending out this morning's website sales gave me a little fright. The two little parcels that had previously cost me about £1.70 each in postage were now £2.70 each. Apparently…
Big, hairy things - news story - 04 May 2012
A big pile of bones found at Vero Beach in Southern Florida between 1913-1916 has been the subject of some debate for nearly a hundred years. The fossil bones contain…
Birthday preparations - news story - 03 May 2012
Mr Wood opened the shop in June 1987. That will be 25 years ago next month, and I think it's something worth celebrating. Exactly how we'll celebrate I haven't really…
Alu about Eve - news story - 30 Apr 2012
An Alu element is a chunk of DNA sequence found in primate (and therefore human) genomes. Humans have over a million Alu elements in our genomes, some 5,000 being unique…
Meet the blob - news story - 24 Apr 2012
An amateur fossil hunter has found a fossil of a seven-foot lump. Nobody knows exactly what it was yet. It was found last year in Kentucky, but was unveiled today…
Dig - news story - 19 Apr 2012
For the first time in what seems like ages, I'm going out fossil hunting. This Sunday I'll be out in the Pentlands with a group from Edinburgh and I'm really…
Walk this way - news story - 17 Apr 2012
A lot can be learned from fossil footprints. Herd behaviour can be shown by determining numbers of individuals travelling together and how they move between one another. Predation techniques -…
Mammoth on the move - news story - 12 Apr 2012
Lyuba, the month-old mammoth found in Siberia in 2007 is the best-preserved baby mammoth yet found. She's about 40,000 years old and, whie she's owned by the Shemanovskiy Museum and…
Name game - news story - 10 Apr 2012
There are fairly strict rules for the naming of new genus and species, but that doesn't stop some people having a bit of fun with it. It's common for the…
Early barbecue - news story - 05 Apr 2012
Remains of a one million year old fire have been found in a cave in South Africa. This makes it the oldest deliberate cooking fire found to date. Found among…
Snow and stone - news story - 03 Apr 2012
April's here, Scotland's summer is over and the snow is back with a vengeance. Still - it's not all bad news. April also brings all the stock I bought at…
Hand in hand - news story - 29 Mar 2012
Lucy - Australopithecus afarensis - has a new friend. Bones - part of a foot - have been found in Ethiopia that are supposedly from a 'new' hominin. (When did it…
Dumbing down - news story - 27 Mar 2012
Yesterday, the Tennessee House of Representatives passed a bill which can only really be seen as an attempt to undermine science. Its objective is to have school science teachers present…
Koala klubbing - news story - 23 Mar 2012
Whenever humans arrived somewhere new it generally meant trouble for other living things. By the end of the welcoming party, we humans would usually be tucking into the guests. When we…
The tyrant's mouth - 19 Mar 2012
Tyrannosaurus rex has got to be one of the most heavily-studied dinosaurs, but clearly there's still a lot to be learned. The T.rex dentition has been looked at many times,…
New humans, or just different humans? - 16 Mar 2012
Here's a little more opinion on the potential new type of human found in Southern China (click here to see story). The bulk of the story is similar to the…
Wood filler - 09 Mar 2012
Stan Wood has made his name in the world of palaeontology by finding fossils where people think he won't. Going back to sites thought long-exhausted, doggedly hunting for the 'right'…
Crateload - 02 Mar 2012
Apparently the container with my Tucson crate in it is somewhere in Panama. This isn't unusual - there's often a delay as a ship waits for a full load for…