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.