joe rojas-burke

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Category Archives: nature

Calypte anna: Anna’s hummingbird

January 30, 2019by joerojasburke Leave a comment

I love the melodious scientific name for this little hummingbird, a species native to the West Coast. The genus name, Calypte, probably comes from a Greek word for veil, a reference to […]

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nature

At Crater Lake, ‘exclamations of wonder and joy akin to pain’

January 15, 2018by joerojasburke Leave a comment

This image of Crater Lake, shot with my point-and-shoot camera, doesn’t come close to conveying the numinous power of this place – not even the finest photography can do that. […]

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nature, science

Boars gone wild: Chernobyl edition

October 6, 2015by joerojasburke Leave a comment

For wildlife, earth’s worst nuke disaster site continues to prove safer than living anywhere in range of humans. Ever since the 1986 Chernobyl accident, people have been almost entirely excluded […]

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history, nature, science

What turtles looked like before the evolution of shells

June 25, 2015by joerojasburke Leave a comment

This one is 240 million years old, from the Triassic period, collected in Germany. The discoverers named it Pappochelys, which is derived from Greek words for ‘grandfather’ and ‘turtle’. These […]

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nature, science

Candid camera trap

June 9, 2015by joerojasburke Leave a comment

These images, which I’ve edited a bit in Lightroom, are some of the gems from Snapshot Serengeti, a project that amassed 1.2 million sets of photographs from motion-sensor activated camera traps […]

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nature, science

Washington gets a tyranosaur

May 20, 2015by joerojasburke Leave a comment

Not many dinosaur fossils turn up in the Pacific Northwest, but Washington’s finally got one – and wouldn’t you know, it’s a tyranosaurid. The scientists who collected it are pretty […]

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nature, science

Maze runner: what an oversized bug penis reveals about evolution

May 18, 2015by joerojasburke Leave a comment

“We then experimentally shortened the penis using scissors, without harming the male. We show that the shorter the penis after cutting, the lower a male’s reproductive success.” – Dougherty et. al. […]

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nature, science, srsly?

A salmon retires

May 8, 2015by joerojasburke Leave a comment

I am so happy to know that some salmon get to retire from the whole “epic migration” thing. In one species – the Dolly Varden char – the oldsters actually […]

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nature, science, srsly?

Organic, 100% natural GMOs

May 4, 2015by joerojasburke Leave a comment

The legendary scientist Jane Goodall came through my town recently and made headlines by talking about the dangers of genetically modified organisms, in her words, a “shocking corruption of the […]

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nature, science

200 years after the largest volcanic blast in history

April 10, 2015by joerojasburke 1 Comment

Some 10,000 died in the immediate catastrophe of raging pyroclastic flows and tsunami waves when Tambora erupted on the island of Sumbawa, Indonesia on April 10, 1815. Croplands were so […]

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nature, science

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Top Posts & Pages

  • Seeing the world at bicycle speed
    Seeing the world at bicycle speed
  • Hunting & human origins
    Hunting & human origins
  • Polychrome humans: Harwood's 'Bust of a Man'
    Polychrome humans: Harwood's 'Bust of a Man'
  • A field guide to pointless medical research
    A field guide to pointless medical research
  • Built-in injustice: race, income and air pollution
    Built-in injustice: race, income and air pollution
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