At the risk of making this the saddest place on the internet, I have another memorial post for another pet. Five weeks to the day of losing Amelia, we lost our hedgehog Molly. We got her when she was around one year old. The girl that had her had recently gotten a kitten that spent its free time attacked Molly’s cage. She was also a smaller hedgehog with a little crooked nose, she was most likely the runt of a litter.
Continue reading Another loss Reunites Traveling BuddiesAll posts by James M. Burnes, PhD.
A Regular Family Business Part Deux
I have touched more on family here than I think I intended. But, while that train is rolling, let’s just ride for a while. There is something interesting when you start looking at your family tree. I have mentioned before how in just a few generations you are directly related to more people than populated England in the 16th century. The idea that from all those strains you take your name from one, and hang some sort of cultural, ancestral, and /or genealogical identity on that is rather odd. I am sure it happens to others, but my case is really interesting since the only side of my family that has not been in America since the opening of the 17th century is the side I get my surname from.
Continue reading A Regular Family Business Part DeuxPangolins: The Armored Among Us
Any time a documentary or nature channel wants to show viewers how weird nature can be the pangolin is bound to make an appearance. The only mammal with scales always shows up in an extreme mammal montage complete with requisite cute video of them rolling into a ball to protect itself.
A Regular Family Business
Here is something that I have shared with close friends. It is so much fun that it should go out on the record. I have traced as much of my family tree back as I can find at this point. Writing and coursework have gotten in between me and finishing. Not to mention records locked away somewhere in Dublin. Every single line of my family has been in the United States since the early 17th century. All, that is, but one. That one happens to be the one that gives me my last name.
Continue reading A Regular Family BusinessBirds on Fire and the Final Word from Levon Helm
I don’t know what I ever wanted this collection of thoughts to ever become, but I find myself saying that some things I think about writing on don’t fit my “theme.” Honestly, until I have that discussion in my head I never really think of even having a theme. In fact I have another blog that is random ramblings that specifically have no theme–and I don’t regularly update that one either.
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Requiem for a Friend
“You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.”–Goethe 
Today we buried out pet. With that in mind I would like to spend some time remembering. This generally would seem overly attached or perhaps idiosyncratic, but writing gets it out. That is not to say it empties what is inside, but it distributes in a manner than is easier to handle, at least for me.
Art Imitates Nature
Or perhaps it is the other way around. In the case of this frog, which was unknown to scientist as well as Stan Lee, it appears to be a case of convergent evolution. Below is the “Wolverine Frog.” A frog that has a boney claw that it can extend to hold its position when mating as well as for using it in battle.
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Suiting Up
With the beginning of Fall term, “Suiting up” usually refers to those lucky individuals who are on cushiony scholarships to play a game. This brief aside will not be about that. This short entry will entail the suit.
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Dino Dynasties
The title, borrowed from Katherine Rogers’ book, is a segue into a bit of rewritten familial ahistory on my part. The Sternberg family began collecting fossils with Edward Drinker Cope, and led to a family of vertebrate paleontologists. A son found the famous “fish within a fish” fossil. Many of the sternbergs finds were near where they lived.
My Summer of Stephen
The summer is coming to a close, for me at least. I have (officially) completed my Master’s Thesis in History studying the History of American Conservation via the National Zoological Park in Washington, D.C., USA. I also begin my next course of study at the University of Oklahoma in the History of Science, specifically the history of Museum Collecting, and more specific than that, hunting for museums, and fossil expeditions.
Continue reading My Summer of Stephen