Die Wahl der Qual

In meinem Heimatland steht mal wieder das 4-jährliche Abnicken der Legislative an: die Bundestagswahl 2021. Wieder mal Zeit, den Wahl-O-Mat der bpb zu visualisieren, und in allgemeineren Kontext zu stellen.

Wahl der (H)Ampelmännchen

Diesen Sonntag wird in meinen beiden Heimatländern gewählt: Rheinland-Pfalz (meinem Geburtsland) und Baden-Württemberg (meinem Zweitland, bevor die DFG mich ins schwedische Exil schickte). Zeit die Wahl-O-Maten der Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung zu vernetzen.

Where have all the Mondays gone

Who likes Mondays? Probably no-one, really. Thus, inspired by a tweet of a fellow Monday-victim and two great classics, a songtext.

Caesar's EU, Hitler's EU, EU, future Xi's EU – all the same?

I got a comment to my Fare well Brittania! post drawing that line, which got me thinking. A reflection and response.

How to pimp up a palaeobotanical monograph

I got a request via ResearchGate to give feedback to a recently published palaeobotanical monograph. I'd love to, but I can't, really; I'm simply not qualified. But I can give some tips how to enrich a description of a palaeoflora to put palaeobotany in a better light.

Palynology from A to Z: People

Five of my palynology advertising tweets (have/will) introduce(d) researchers pushing forward the importance of palynology in contemporary organismal science. With four, I worked, and we published a good deal of papers including some pretty unique ones, which hopefully will provide templates for future cross-disciplinary research.

Palynology from A to Z: A as in Aponogeton

One thing, full-blood scientists usually forget, is to advertise their work. Usually because they lack the time. I have plenty and started a series of daily threads on Twitter advertising palynological research. But my reach there is miniscule and the half-life of tweets is extremely short. Hence, this post series.

Are complete plastome trees always better? Maples, for instance.

With the advances in sequencing, it has become easy to compile complete chloroplast genomes (plastomes) for plants. Given you have the money and workforce. The People's Republic of China is rich in both; hence, gene banks fill up with complete plastomes of tree genera, otherwise ignored by the scientific world. Such as maples (Acer). Beware the fully resolved trees.

The stag cracked the 30

One of my favourite hobbies as a tax-paid scientist was to check and groom, once in a while, my "impact". I still check, out of curiosity and vanity, and just noticed that my stag cracked the thirty. A little reflection of self-inflating impact with some tips for the game.

Inferring a ML tree with 12000 (or more) virus genomes

Somebody on the RAxML group posted this as a bold question, asking for tips how to speed up the analysis. Since I recently looked at virus genomes (infamous SARS group) myself, I have some ideas for this.

Now that RAxML includes all models – a practical tip

The new, faster and (meanwhile) very option-rich version of RAxML, RAxML-NG provides the full plethora of nucleotide substitution models, which can be confusing to the normal user. Hence, a practical tip based on my experiences with very different sets of nucleotide data (and from very different organisms).

Why I never published a "total evidence" tree

Triggered by a support question on the RAxML google group, I pondered the question whether it makes sense (anymore) to use the total evidence approach to place fossils.

The Easter Egg featuring Earth, live

For this Eastern, I'll advertise something colourful to turn our eyes back from ourselves to the planet we inhabit: a live simulation/representation of Earth's dynamic surface and atmosphere.

Scientists = surveyed customers? Bite me.

Science is good business. Especially since the public hand pays for most of it, via salaries and research grants, library conscriptions ensuring high profits for science publishers, providing infrastructure and – at least in western welfare states – students. An invitation for a customer survey.

Surviving parsimonists: just tree-naive or tree-blindfolded?

A generation ago, an epic battle took place, largely unnoticed outside mathematical and biological sciences: the Phylogenetic Wars. By the mid-1990s, the war was over and probabilistic methods for tree-inference replaced traditional parsimony. But there is a small, quite dusty realm that still pretends nothing happened: palaeontology. A long read about undervalued data and stubborn old white men.

Lernen mit Lindner – die Geometrie der Mitte

Nach dem PR-Fiasko in Thüringen, macht die FDP wieder ganz auf Mitte. Zeit für eine paar Bildchen.

Tempolimit? Nein, danke! Realsatire? Bitte mehr!

Dank Trumpelchen, des First Toddlers of the United States, Bojos Mojo und ähnlicher Gestalten ist es schwierig geworden, Satire und Realpolitik auseinanderzuhalten. Und die CSU ist wie immer vorne mit dabei bei dem neuen Trend.

And the laughter dies

Germans are generally not known for their sense of humour (although this is a gross-generalisation, German humour can be quite diverse, and differs from region to region). But there are exceptions. However, these days, it's the audience who gets at you.

A Wikipedia list everyone should know

Wikipedia has changed the world how we access knowledge. And despite recent (and fair) criticism, it's still an invaluable social project because it provides easy entry portals and an enormous wealth of quick-to-access data. Approaching Christmas, the Feast of Love and Peace, I'd like to point towards a Wikipedia page dealing with something, we tend to quickly forget about: Wikipedia's List of ongoing armed conflicts.

If you haven't done yet: sign up on The Cost of Knowledge

I got an invitation to review a paper for Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. Naturally, I declined to review. And you should, too. Always. Because it's published by Elsevier.

Fare well, Brittania!

The Bojo worked, Her Majesty finally will be able to appoint a proper English government with a fine majority. An add-on to Brittania, sail away! from October this year.

Wer will die 5%

Es wird haarig im Osten für die ehemalige Allmachtspartei CDU, die SPD in Brandenburg hat rechtzeitig rechtsgeblinkt. Gereicht hat es trotzdem nicht. Ein Kommentar zur 5%-Hürde, den vielbeschworenen stabilen Mehrheiten. Mit Grafiken natürlich.

Knackt endlich die Haselnuß!

Verfolgt man die z.T. etwas hysterischen Reaktionen auf Twitter zum Schmusekurs der Thüringer CDU mit den Schmuddelkindern der AfD (die in Thüringen besonders schmuddelig sind), fällt oft der Gedanke von "Wehret den Anfängen!". Ein Kommentar zur braunen Welle, die nun auch Deutschland erreicht hat.

Thüringen 2019: Kein weiteres Afghanistan, sondern skandinavische Verhältnisse

Thüringen hat gewählt. Wie es aussieht, eine Minderheitsregierung. Eine Nachlese zu den Landtagswahlen im Osten (wie gewohnt, mit Wahl-O-Mat Netz).

Brittania sail away!

I sympathise with our former fellow Europeans, the British. But whether we like it or not, their electorate wants to leave the EU, no matter how stupid it's going to be. A short post on non-representative democracies.

Would you like to have your own edited paper collection?

One of the biggest problems in peer-reviewed science is editor-bias. So, my answer to Frontiers in Plant Science's nice invitation, even if I would still be in professional science, can only be no!

When dating is futile – plastome-based chronograms for oaks

With most-versatile programmes like BEAST at hand, everyone can do a molecular dating. Which makes it even more important that editors and peers check the priors and reasoning behind it. And always should make sure a palaeobotanist (or at least, a palaeogeographer) is one of the peers.

Soft phishing, and why anyone should know GoogleScholar

I still have a university e-mail address, for fiscal reasons. Hence, I still get what we call in German Initiativbewerbungen, not solicited applications for joining my working group (I never had one) from people in countries not as happy as Austria. And the one or other phishing mail.

Why you never should do a single-species plastid analysis of oaks

The fragmentation of science makes it more and more difficult to keep up scientific standards. Editors struggle harder and harder to find peers who have the knowledge and time to properly review the papers of others. Hence, in even relatively transparent peer-reviewed journals, the same errors are endlessly repeated. For instance: phylogenetic/-biogeographic studies on Chinese oaks using plastid data.

Wer hat Angst vor'm bösen Wolf? Teil 2: Sachsen

In Teil 1 gab es eine kleine Einleitung und das Wahl-O-Mat Netz für die kommende Landtagswahl in Brandenburg. Teil 2 für Sachsen ist interessanter, weil a) viel mehr Parteien mitmachen, und b) die bisher recht staatstragende Sachsen-CDU, eine Partei mit vielen Parallelen zur bayerischen Staatspartei CSU, sich sehr schön in eine polititsche Sackgasse manövriert hat, wie man gut am Wahl-O-Mat Netz sehen kann.

Wer hat Angst vor'm bösen Wolf? Teil 1: Brandenburg

Bei den demnächst anstehenden Landtagswahlen im Osten der Republik scheint es sich nur um eins zu drehen: die selbsternannte „Alternative für Deutschland“. Für den interessierten (Erst-)Wähler gibt es wie immer den Wahl-O-Mat der Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (bpb) und eine Antwort auf die Frage, wer ist wirklich anti-AfD und wer biedert sich an die rumtrumpelnde Minder- und Biederheit an.

Besser viele Kleine als wenige Große (Teil 2 der EU-Nachlese)

Bei der Wahl zum europäischen Parlament gibt es (noch) in Deutschland keine %-Hürde. Auch wenn man sich generell als Europäer die Frage stellen muß, warum wählt man überhaupt, ist es doch unterhaltsam, vor allem wegen der Vielfalt der Kleinen und Kleinsten. Teil 2 des Vergleichs.

Besser viele Kleine als wenige Große – eine EU-Wahl-Nachlese in zwei Teilen

Bei der Wahl zum europäischen Parlament gibt es (noch) in Deutschland keine %-Hürde. Auch wenn man sich generell als Europäer die Frage stellen muß, warum wählt man überhaupt, ist es doch unterhaltsam, vor allem wegen der Vielfalt der Kleinen und Kleinsten. Ein Vergleich.

Trying to feed my Altmetric badges

A few months ago, I added Altmetric badges to my literature list. Because I like colours, and it's a good way to see which paper needs a tweet, blogpost or else.

#FridayForFuture vs. #SamstagFreibadZumüllen

Eine der wichtigsten Institutionen einer funktionierenden Presselandschaft sind Leserbriefe. Und manche sind einfach zu gut, um sie hinter der Paywall der Lokalpresse verloren gehen zu lassen. Ein Abdruck (mit freundlicher Erlaubnis der Autorin).

Pushy is the new predatory when it comes to scientific publishing

I have to admire how the full, semi- or quasi-predatory publishers never run out of new ideas to lure the needing (stuck in the single-blind peer review), unwitting (younglings who don't know better) or cheating (pseudo-scientists and those on the payroll of e.g. the pharmaceutical or medicinal industry) to their allegedly scientific and peer-reviewed publication platforms.

Spam, spam, spam, spam – is it time for an autobiography?

Another treasure, an offer one can not possibly reject, found in my junk folder. The "Oasis Publishing Group" wants to cherish my "outstanding contribution to the scientific community" with an autobiography.

Lösen die Grünen die SPD als Volkspartei ab?

... fragte die SZ dieser Tage und ludt zur Online-Diskussion ein (powered by Disqus). Mein Kommentar (hier mein Disqus-Profil) wurde dummerweise als "Spam" gekennzeichnet und nicht publiziert (bisher), vermutlich wegen den Links zum Political Compass (non-profit) und unserem Genealogical World of Phylogenetic Networks blog (wir verdienen auch kein Geld damit; es lebe die algorithmen-gestützte Zensur). Deswegen hier der Volltext (leicht verändert).

The Easter Egg – everyone can (visually) dive into Earth's past

As my first Easter Egg post, I advertised the most important French hebdomaire, weekly newspaper, Le Canard enchainé (lit. the Chained Duck), something you can't find in the virtual world. This year it is something more peculiar, literally a virtual (version of our) world. Well, worlds, the bygone ones.

How to interpret bootstrap values?

A search led me to a question on ResearchGate (RG) issued five years ago: How can I interpret bootstrap values on phylogenetic trees built with maximum likelihood? Quite a bunch people answered it, but, to my mind, only provided easy answers, not the critical ones.

Do you want your own Wikipedia page, too?

Don't you have that feeling from time to time that your life's work is not properly cherished? Politicians that no-one likes get Wikipedia pages, but not you? Well, just hire a professional Wikipedia page editor.

The grey zone between obvious and less obvious scientific crankery

A tweet pointed me to a post with an interesting title "How to spot palaeontological crankery" by Mark Witton which includes (in the second part) "10 Red flags and pointers for spotting crank palaeontology" for non-experts. As an expert, I cannot help but to note that most of the ten points also apply to proper palaeontological science as well.

Peer review transparency reveals scientific provincialism

Recently, my favourite journal (PeerJ), policy and handling-wise, picked a half-rotten apple sharing the fate of other science-before-profit publishing projects such as the Public Library of Science and Frontiers-in: the more people jump into the boat, the higher the chance the peer review fails. But thanks to peer review transparency, we can see why.

There's no need to do what you can't

Modern science thrives on pretention. We can't just publish something interesting, we always feel compelled arguing why it's important and stress its ground-breaking novelty. On the other hand, everyone can use computers, and those computers can do fancy analyses provided you have some data. And they always get it right, so why should editors and reviewers bother about the results?

In Nurses We Trust (and elect the opposite)

I found a new twitter account by the Spectator Index posting funny lists based on polls, studies etc. Such as: how long you have to work to buy a burger. One last week was a Gallup poll asking (U.S.) Americans how they judge the ethics of professionals. A nice piece of unscripted satire.

European Not-Really-A-Union #3 – the Happiness Divide

The European Union is drifting farther and farther from being a union. The reasons for the drift are as manifold as they are obscure, so let's focus on what makes us different. For example, how happy we are.

Just awkward, ein Deutsch-English post

Nach zwei Jahren Realsatire Trumpelchen im Weißen Haus, kommt mir nur noch ein Wort in den Sinn: awkward. Maybe my German has become rusty, but I can't think of any other word that describes him better.

100th anniversary of woman voting, time for the next step

Today is the 100th anniversary of woman voting rights in my home country Germany, and not a few other (still) functional European democracies. Maybe it is time to go the next step.

Cladistics vs Phylogenetics: What's the difference?

While working for a 2-piece post on the Genealogical World of Networks (A bit of heresy: networks for matrices used in Cladistics studies), I stepped over a threat on ResearchGate, where someone asked this. I browsed through the answers, and felt obliged to answer as well.

Hessenwahl 2018 – wie nah sind sich die Parteien?

Auch zur Hessenwahl versorgt uns das bpb mit einem Wahl-O-Mat mit 38 Thesen. Hier die Distanznetze dazu. Und natürlich der Plot der Thesen, die hinter den politischen Splits stehen. Für jeden, der die Wahl-O-Mat %-Balken nicht sonderlich hilfreich findet.

Bayernwahl 2018 – wie nah sind sich die Parteien?

Eine deutsche Tradition für Wahlen sind die Wahl-O-Mat Angebote der Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (bpb). Der für die Bayernwahl 2013 war (ist) noch online und auch für die Bayernwahl 2018 gibt es natürlich eine Neuauflage des Bayernwahl Wahl-O-Mats.  Eine gute Gelegenheit zu sehen (und zu zeigen) wie nah oder fern sich zukünfte Koalitionäre stehen.

The end of lagom-ness?

Sweden voted, including me. Some are shocked by the 17.5% for the Sverigedemokraterna, the former Nazi party turned national-socio-conservative, others relieved it were only 18%. But, under the line, little has changed. Some explanatory graphics and a utopian idea.

I found mail! From Elsevier, and in my Junk folder (where it belongs)

Got mail from Elsevier, out of sheer courtesy to inform me that a final PDF could be found on ResearchGate that people should pay for to view. Thank God for the Coalition of Responsible Sharing correcting such errors.

European Not-Really-A-Union #2 – A Game of Cards

Although, it would make the world an even less social place, there are a lot of good arguments to get rid of cash. My beloved Sweden has always been on the foremost front of this. However, the technological advances have made this quite impractical, as anyone can find out when living/travelling in more than a single EU country.

Auslandsdeutscher and utlandssvensk – election day

As a 100%-European, I have two citizenships: German (by birth) and Swedish (naturalised). Living in France, this makes me a double expatriate: auslandsdeutsch and utlandssvensk. Because of the upcoming riksdag-elections, I was reminded about a difference: Whereas the small Sweden looks after its expatriates, the big Germany doesn't.

Dancing the Apology Dance

Even though I've been living in France for some time, some things don't stop to amaze me. One of those things is the "Apology Dance".

Willkommen im Wunderwuzziwolkenland

Als ehemaliger österreichischer Arbeitnehmer verfolge ich ab und an was im südöstlichen Bruderstaat der Bayern vor sich (und vor die Hunde) geht. Dank der ultrarechten (= lupenrein neoliberalen) autoritären schwarzbraunen Regierung ist Österreich auch wieder politisch interessant geworden.

0.88% of U.S. Grimms are black – are the U.S. structurally racist?

When it still was completely free, Wolfram Alpha was one of my favorite search engines. Because it would provide me with nerdy data. But when you search your family name, it becomes racist. Not their fault, they just dig all available data.

Miraculous reconstruction of palaeoaltitude and -temperature using the "Coexistence Approach"

It may look (to some) like a good idea to take modern-day altitudinal ranges of genera to infer a palaeo-altitude of a fossil plant assemblage using a mutually shared range approach. A fresh example from the purportedly peer-reviewed Elsevier journal Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology (PPP).

Dispersing the Impermeable Fog: #3 – declining an invitation to review a pseudo-scientific paper

The Coexistence Approach is a pseudo-science. At least, it's fundamentally flawed in theory and practise. But one journal remains the bastion of true faith. But maybe tides are changing?

Bentham wants me as reviewer ... for medicinal chemistry

BSP pretends to be a proper scientific publisher, and not a predatory one. So, why sending an invitation to become a reviewer of some medicinal journal to a former scientist (see counter on my homepage) that dealt in phylogenetics and palaeobotany?

Trivial but illogical – reconstructing the biogeographic history of the Loranthaceae (again)

In 2007, a short but nice paper by Vidal-Russell & Nickrent provided a scenario for the unfolding of the Loranthaceae, a plant family of mostly epiphytic tree parasites. Recently, they teamed up with a Chinese group (Liu, Le et al. 2018) to provide a new, and totally unexpected hypothesis.

Elsevier's research data "not available/will be made available on request" – what will be your choice?

What do you do when authors claim something (showing nothing) that you know can't be true (because you showed otherwise)? Just request the data they used and re-analyse it to check. But this is not how it works. An example from Elsevier's Molecular Phylogenetics & Evolution.

What you should show in a palaeophylogenetic study

Far the most palaeophylogenetic studies rely exclusively on tree-inference as methodological framework. Thus, ignoring the fundamental properties over the underlying data: matrices that provide few tree-like signals. A recommendation what to show (and why).

Jupiter and Trumpelchen in love, or 0 + 0 = 1(st)

In this week, we were showered in images of pure, mutual love between the presidents of France and the U.S.A. Some may find this odd, given the obvious differences between the two lovebirds. But it's completely natural.

What exactly does Trumpelchen mean by "breeding concept"?

Ups, he did it again! Just another Trumpel-Tweet going rogue. CNN asked the question and provide an answer, the Southern Poverty Law Center points to where he may have picked it up. I have some ideas, too.

Digging deeper: Population dynamics and individual-based fossil phylogenies

In one of my last posts, I argued for looking out for ancestor-descendant relationships when putting up an evolutionary hypothesis based on fossil data. In this post, I will explore a bit the background of individual-based phylogenies and why we should keep in mind population processes, when analysing such data sets.

The challenging and puzzling ordinary beech – a (hi)story

While working on another post, I noticed I could need an example for a pretty well-understood evolution of a plant genus through space and time. But to keep the other post a short-as-possible, the example merits its own. So here's the history of the beeches, which is a nice story to tell, also regarding how it developed scientifically.

Where have all the ancestors gone?

In contrast to neontologists, palaeontologists deal literally in the past. However, like their modern counterparts, most palaeontologists seem to have the opinion that although we all agree evolution is a fact, we will never have to deal with actual ancestors.

How to get from Orléans to Paris on a railroad strike day?

Macron is sparring the French rail unions. The latter have engaged in what they call a "perl-strike", two days close-down, three days recovery, till June. With quite interesting side effects in the era of Big Data.

The Easter egg: Le Canard enchaîné – a weekly must read (also for French aliens)

In this Easter post, I'll cherish a light-house of French publications, Le Canard enchaîné.  My occasional French readers will probably know it, but maybe those outside of France have never heard of it. Which would be a pity, as the "palmipède" is a must-read (if you can read French or attempt to).

What do political party genealogies tell us about France and Germany?

"Blue Marine" suggests re-naming her party, the "National Front" into the "National Get-together", taking up a long and prosperous French political tradition to put a new label on an old thing. But in Germany, even when the parties substantially change their political orientation, they would never change their name. Why are we so different?

Not that it get's lost – my comment to a (nice) dating of Dravidian languages

Twitter pointed me to a recent dating paper of Dravidian languages by Kolipakam et al. (2018), published with Royal Society Open Science. I'm not a linguist but I found it very interesting. But while other comments are waved through, mine is still on hold for now over 24h. Here it is.

Fertig (im mehrfachen Sinne) mit dem Schaf im Wolfspelz: meine erste und letzte Woche Dol(l)metschen

Der Herr ruhte vielleicht am 7. Tag, Trumpelchen dreht noch mal auf. Samstags und Sonntags, normalerweise in der sanften Tropensonne von Mar-A-Lago, kann er sich den wichtigen Sachen widmen: dem üblichen Wochenendge(t)witter und dem Golfen. Ein krönender Schluß für die derzeit beste Realsatire der Welt.

6. Tag, Frei-tag – wohl auch im Weißen Haus.

Der 6. Tag beginnt überraschend. Trump heuert und feuert niemanden, daß überläßt er seinem Justizminister (last-minute). Der 1. Tweet kommt erst um 7:40, pflichtschuldige Thoughts and Prayers (diesmal wegen Krieg). Amerikas Präsident hat wohl schon die 4-Tage Woche, von der wir alle träumen.

Tag 5. Lobe den Iren, den König der hehren Migranten ...

Tag 5. Thors Tag. Blitze und Donner. Zugegeben, ich zögere @realDonaldTrump aufzurufen. Aber harmlos. Neuer großartiger Mann im Team, Kanada ist unfair (wie alle anderen) und ein wenig Irenloben anläßlich des Besuchs des Taoiseachs, die großartig-dreckigen Immigranten von einst. Schwamm drüber, und Mauer vor.

Tag 4, Mitte der Woche und die Luft ist etwas raus aus dem Heißluftballon

Mittwoch, im Englischen (und Schwedischen) Odinstag. Wie ein Flitzebogen gespannt, was Amerikas Neu-Odin mitzuteilen hat. Immerhin steht seid gestern abend (Ortszeit) fest, daß es wieder einen weniger gibt für Stahl und Grenze (wobei das so nicht stimmt). Aber Missiouri ist wieder groß (also immer noch).

Tag 3, was zwitscherte der Orangegesichtige Elefantenvogel am Dienstag?

Es wird nie langweilig mit Trumpelchen. Der U.S. Präsident feuert den Außenminister per Twitter. Und geht dann Mauerteile besichtigen. All tremendously great people.

Tag 2. Montag. Der Präsident stürzt sich in die Arbeit (sozusagen)

Es ist Wochenanfang, Trumpelchen ist zurück im Büro. Und noch vor Sonnenaufgang geht es los.

Eine Woche Trumpelchens Gezwitscher übersetzt in die Sprache der Dichter und Denker

Deutsch kennt man als die Sprache der Dichter und Denker. Was liegt also näher, als die literarischen Ergüsse des deutschstämmigen (pfälzischen) U.S. Präsidenten in Deutsch zu übersetzen. Ein Versuch.

Visualising U.S. gun legislation, and mapping politics, economics, and population

As an European (quite literally) with American relatives, I always took an interest in U.S. politics and other American oddities. One of these oddities is definitely U.S. gun legislation. Which can be very different from state to state, and has surprisingly little to do with another great divide: the split in Democrats and Republicans.

Where to share Wiley's "content sharing link"? Wiley is searching for an answer, too.

A new form of open access, emerged: "Bronze open access". And Wiley informed me that I can ask for a "content sharing link". And I did. But my question of how I'm allowed to share it, lead me into uncharted territory.

Wladimir Köppen – a climate-vegetation genius, and what this has to do with wine

The Köppen-Geiger system is the most widely used climate classification. Thanks to a group at the Veternary Medical University in Vienna (Institute for Veterinary Public Health), everyone can check out the beauty of the system. Scientists and non-scientists. E.g. for picking the next holiday or long-burning questions such as: Why can't I find a Brazilian wine?

Bringt die Augsburger Puppenkiste zurück, und zwar ohne Geoblocking

Es scheint, ich bin nicht der einzige, der gegen Windmühlen reitet. In der heutigen SZ konnte man einen Artikel lesen über eine Online Petition, die Augsburger Puppenkiste zurück auf den Bildschirm zu bringen.

How did I do it – a short guide to a nice graph

At the end of the 20^th and into the new 21^st century, phylogenies have been largely reduced to stick graphs, often quite unappealing ones. In the papers I co-authored, I always tried to enhance the graphics, and I have not rarely been asked how I do it. So here's my protocol for a little basic tree-and-networks magic.

Versteh' einer die Amis, a photo story

As long as the U.S. pretend to be a frontier state under threat to be recolonised by Her Majesty's troops, there will be regular mass shootings like the one in Florida. For a European, the logic of the 2^nd Amendment is already hard to grasp. But what really surprised me, is the photos you find on the president's Instagram account.

Elsevier needs my help: The 10 ... no, not Commandments, just questions

Elsevier is the main publishing platform of RELX, a highly profitable information company. Their business model is quite unique: the public pays for most of the work, it pays for the publication, and it pays for getting access to the publication. And from time-to-time Elsevier asks its only customers – and slaves (scientists) – on their opinion how to make more money.

Trying to disperse the Impermeable Fog #2: Editors who "entertain" and are not "answerable"

In my last post, I gave a fresh example how the confidential peer review maintains the publication of dubious scientific results. Naturally I confronted the authors of the paper and editors of the journal. With revealing results.

Business as usual – PPP keeps on publishing Coexistence Approach pseudo-results

In 2016 we published two papers demonstrating that the so-called Coexistence Approach (CA) to reconstruct past climates is fundamentally flawed, theoretically and in practise. As consequence there was a drop-down in CA papers disseminated, exclusively, by members of NECLIME, a Germany-centred scientific consortium promoting this pseudo-statistic (and pseudo-scientific) method. But one journal remains faithful. And has nothing to fear thanks to peer review confidentiality.

20/01/2017 – the day we lost a great word: "great"

Things happened one year ago that not a few still can't fathom (personally, I was not overly surprised; but I am a realist). And I'm sure there will be an endless number of articles summarising the year. But for me, the election of a TV clown and orange-billionaire (not to be confused with orange-utans) as 45^th president of the U.S., meant a personal loss. I lost a word, I liked to use: the English word "great".

My first landmark as not-a-scientist: 365 (busy) days out-of-business!

I just noticed (thanks to the counter on my personal homepage) that it has been 365 days, one year, since my last contract as a paid scientist run out (a 2-year mobility grant by the Austrian Science Fund FWF). Time for a resumé.

European Not-Really-A-Union #1: getting my forth social security number

For purely chauvinistic reasons (you don’t want the crappy new EU members benefitting from the high standard in the old EU countries), you need a new social security number when moving from one EU state to another (unless within Scandinavia, even including non-EU member Norway). In some states like Sweden it comes automatically when you register as a citizen. In others like Austria, it comes inevitably (when you’re from other EU countries), but France is of course special. La Grande Nation, it must be a privilege to live here for anyone.

What is an angiosperm? Part 2. A(nother) case for Haeckelian phylogenetic (“evolutionary”) classification.

The “age of angiosperms” is still a matter of debate. But little discussion revolves around a more fundamental question. What is an angiosperm? The answer is trivial, from a modern-day perspective. A flowering plant. In Part 1, I introduced the basic classification options to define angiosperms: branch-based (possible) or node-based (many issues) cladistic and Hennigian or Haeckelian phylogenetic classifications. In the second part, I will show that the trivial definition – a flowering plant – is also the only useful definition when going back into Earth’s past. And as consequence, we need the one or other paraphyletic taxon.

What is an angiosperm? Part 1: The difference between cladistic and phylogenetic classification

The “age of angiosperms” is still a matter of debate. But little discussion revolves around a more fundamental question. What is an angiosperm? The answer is trivial, from a modern-day perspective. A flowering plant. But when it comes to dated trees and phylogenetics, we clash with semantics and non-congruent philosophical frameworks. Because then it's not necessarily about producing a flower, but pure concepts.

Age of angiosperms, may palaeobotany rest in peace (and pieces)

How old are the angiosperms? Very trivial to answer, more or less as old as all the other main lineages of living seed plants. Unless you define them in a particular way. And because you are who you are, no-one dares to criticise it. But thanks to predatory publishers, someone did. A tale about ivory towers, opinions presented as facts, the Impermeable Fog shrouding the Forest of Reviews, and the creeping death of palaeobotany. Although it could been the spark to ignite something beautiful.

The Ten Holy Commandments of True Palaeobotany

Deep in the dusty crypts of libraries filled with long-forgotten books, a miraculous find has been made. Folded within the pages, an old parchment was found listing the 10 Holy Commandments of True Palaeobotany.

Germany apparantly plans to end systematic and phylogenetic research

Yesterday, I received a disturbing rumour. Germany finally has a concept to become a lightning star regarding the protection of natural and genetic resources. An add-on to/complete fulfilment of the Nagoma protocol [PDF]. If the plan become law, it's the dawn of phylogenetic research in Germany and German herbaria will become unusable for scientific research.

What I was not allowed to show #2: Networks explaining molecular evolution in wax plants

Thanks to the confidentiality of the review system, experimental research that goes beyond the standard applications may be lost to the Impermeable Fog. In this post, I'll will show several reconstructions I made for a paper of a colleague on Hoya (Asclepioideae), the wax plants.

The growing Grey Zone of scientific publishing

With the open access market booming and the scientific community clinging to shady (“confidential”) peer review, it becomes harder and harder to distinguish between honest and predatory publishers. Grey is the new fashion-colour.

Part 4: Gehst schaißen! If it is the will of the sovereign, the voters

Lungt Sverige, La Belle France, Made (drin) in Germany, and Gehst schaißen, Austria! Why it doesn't matter who votes for "right-wing" populists in the four countries that made me European. Part 4: Austria, with some general comparisons/thoughts.