Stephen Heard

@stephenbheard.bsky.social

8173 Followers 3840 Following

Evolutionary ecologist & Boggle aficionado. Author: The Scientist's Guide to Writing; Charles Darwin's Barnacle and David Bowie's Spider. He/him. Blog and book links: scientistseessquirrel.wordpress.com

A headland jutting into the sea. In foreground, a cobble beach with a long windrow of seaweed marking the high tide line. The headland is covered in scrubby firs and alders; at the base, it's rocks. There's about a metre or so of dark seaweed-covered rock at the waterline.
A page from an old herbal with drawings of a lion, leopard, hare, and elephant. The hare is fairly accurate; the others not so much. In particular, the elephant has its tusks protruding straight up from the middle of its lower jaw, and the trunk expands at the end like a trumpet.
Chapter excerpt: Chapter 9 Extinction in Our Human Family One day, not so terribly long ago, the last Neanderthal died. We know remarkably little about that death. We don’t know where it happened (most likely, somewhere in southwestern Spain or in Gibraltar). We don’t know when it happened (most likely, about 35,000 years ago, which is a blink of a geological eye). We don’t know how it happened (accident, illness, or simply old age) or who it happened to. It must have happened, of course, because our (presumed) closest kin no longer survive; someone, somewhere, must have been the last of their kind. It’s hard not to think of this as anything other than heartbreakingly sad, because – by definition – the last Neanderthal died alone. There was nobody to mourn; nobody to bury the body, as Neanderthals did, with flint tools or deer antlers. There was nobody to remember, either; nobody to tell fond (or exasperated) stories about their mum or their grandfather or their peculiar old uncle. Our Neanderthal cousins simply were no more. Even their existence was forgotten for millennia, until the first Neanderthal fossils were discovered in the middle of the 19th century – giving a jolt to the long and contentious intellectual quest to understand where our own species came from. That quest continues today, and the nature and frequency of extinction in our human family is at its centre.
A classroom with students watching a Powerpoint presentation on a screen. The slide is WAY too text-heavy; I am somewhat embarrassed that THIS is the one that got captured....
A wide funnel-shaped bloom in pale rosy pink with five whiter radial stripes leading to the centre. On the flower's stigma is perched a small hoverfly, with yellow and black stripes on its abdomen like a wasp.
A small cluster of aster flowers, daisy-like with long thin white rays and yellow centres that age to mauve. Below them are the leaves, spindle shaped with long sharp tips; and some fallen tree branches and trunks with growths of grey lichen.
Short video of a shallow stream burbling over rocks in a woods.
Text of an email that purports to come from an editor at a major publisher: "Dear Professor Heard, I hope this message finds you well. My name is (redacted), Vice President and Executive Editorial at Hachette Book Group. As part of our ongoing editorial review of notable works in science, academic publishing, and scientific communication, your book, The Scientist’s Guide to Writing, recently came to our attention. We were particularly interested in your practical approach to helping scientists communicate their ideas with greater clarity and impact, as well as the expanded treatment of AI writing tools and their legal, ethical, and professional implications. Your attention to the realities of scientific publishing, from peer review and preprints to authorship and revision, makes the work especially relevant to researchers navigating today’s rapidly changing publishing environment. We would welcome the opportunity to learn more about any current or forthcoming writing.... continues
A steel rectangular frame, about the size of a single bed, on the forest floor; at the near end is what looks like a coupling, so perhaps it was a mine cart? It's laying on the forest floor, partly covered in leaf litter and with moss-covered logs around it. A mid-sized tree, probably 10" in diameter, is growing up inside the frame.
View across tumbled rocks to a small waterfall into a pool. In the background, a man sits on the rocks looking at the waterfall. In the foreground, a large and heavy piece of metal machinery sits half in the water: what looks like a turbine to drive an axle, presumably for a mill.
Mockup of the book cover. The book title is rendered in a childlike handwritten font, as "The Scientist's Guide to Writing: How To Write More Better and Effected". A red bar says "Special Edition", and the author is given as "By Dr. Steve" . The graphics are kindergarten writing worksheets, for example one headed "The Number Two" which has dotted outlines for tracing to make a "2".
A single dark yellow mushroom with a flat cap, a bit darker in the centre, studded with small white "warts" that look like little bits of white felt.
A graceful light brown mushroom with its thin stalk rising from a forest floor of dead needles and leaves and green moss. The cap is flat, about 2" diameter, and near the edges mostly transparent so you can see the gills underneath like ribs. At the base, the stalk has clearly torn through a small capsule of fabric-like tissue which remains.
View taken from low angle along the wooden top rail of a guardrail/balustrade on a staircase. The wood is weathered and there is a pale grayish-green lichen growing abundantly from it.
Short video of the waterfall in the last post. The water is running quickly but the curtain of water is thin. There are smaller falls just to the right and just to the left of the main one; the latter is really just a trickle.
A small waterfall, with water falling about 6 metres over ledges of rock. The view is framed by boughs of fir and spruce.
Powerpoint slide with the heading "Abstracts and Titles"; below is an image of Piet Mondrian's "Lozenge Composition with Yellow, Black, Blue, Red, and Gray" - a square canvas turned to be a diamond with narrow black rules dividing it into sectors a few of which are coloured. Below that is text "OK, not THIS kind of abstract".
Powerpoint slide headed "Figures and Tables". Two illustrations: on left, a male figure skater captured mid-jump; and right, an antique trestle table. I am hilarious.
Powerpoint slide. At top, "Scientific writing - a short (intensive) course. Midde, photo of me in an atrociously unfashionable plaid flannel shirt, hands in my pockets, against a backdrop of seaweed-covered rocks at the coast. Bottom, logos of the University of New Brunswick (my university) and Texas A&M Kingsville (host university)
Outdoor stage with a six-member band playing: from left, accordion, keyboard, fiddle, guitar, bass guitar, guitar.
A scattering for a couple dozen small chanterelle mushrooms on a forest floor of pine needles. The chanterelles are orange and in sunflecks are startlingly bright
google n-gram viewer for "rabbit hole", two words, vs "rabbithole", one word. Neither is very common before about the mid-1990s; since then, the two-word version rises very quickly while the one-word version hugs the x axis.
View of an arched stone portal between two hexagonal stone towers. Above the arch is a bay window decorated to be a boss, with a squatting Neptune on a clamshell
Picture of me holding up a copy of 'The Scientist's Guide to Writing', third edition. I'm sitting in front of a large window with a shutter, both painted green. I'm trying my best to smile like an actual human being, doing a rather mediocre job, but that's what you get on a good day.
A medium-sized groundhog sitting on the edge of a deck. The tail is short and dark brown; body fur is mid-brown although many hairs have yellowish hoary tips; the face is dark but nose and cheeks are hoary.
Blurred selfie, with most of the frame full of windows, clapboard wall, and the underside of the porch roof above me. My face at very bottom, or rather 3/4 of it, with glasses perched on top of my head and a very startled look.
A sculpture of a crab, about 10" across, formed from welded steel rods for legs and claws formed around a stone to make the body. It's sitting on a concrete base partly covered in moss, in strong sun that make sharp shadows of the claws. Underneath the crab's body is a very large anthill.
A group of bright yellow mushrooms under a spruce tree. There are four large mushrooms, tightly bunched (perhaps 4" across each), with a scattering of smaller younger ones around. Each cap has a darker yellow centre and abundant greyish-yellow "warts" speckling it.
Sign reading, in French, "Placettes Pubiques"
A small tile decoration set on a white stucco wall. It shows a tall, narrow house in bright yellow, with a half-ellipse pair of doors and four staggered windows in blue. The doors open by a pair of knobs that are tiny red hearts. The roof is steeply pitched and in patterned red. The overall impression is childish, but in a good way.
Snapshot of header of a Wikipedia article "Evidence of absence", with the notation "Not be be confused with 'Absence of evidence'"
Closeup of moss growing against a background of light grayish-brown dead leaves. Each moss plant is dark green, a couple of inches tall, and with dense whorls of spiky "leaves" like the branchlets of a spruce tree. Each plant is topped with a "sporophyte", a thin brown stalk about the same height as the main plant tipped with a light brown "cap" that contains the spores.
A small beetle with bold black curvy markings on a cream background, perched on a bright green leaf
Seven books splayed out on a tabletop: The Princeton Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs (3 volumes), Bryce Jones Paleontology: an illustrated history, David Bainbridge The First Fossil Hunters, Adrienne Mayor Mathematical Excursions to the World's Great Buildings, Alexander Hahn Geopedia, Marcia Bjornerud
Part of a palace crowning a hill. In centre are yellow-painted walls topped with a bronze dome and with battlements. Below are ornamental stone walls with many openings. At left is part of a red wall, built into the rock. The whole thing is set against a blue sky dotted with clouds and above a lush green valley.
A bluish, mostly transparent sea cucumber larvae swimming on a field of black. The guts and mouthparts are orangey and the larva is painted on a black rectangular field.
A museum display with about two dozen stone cylinders - from a centimeter to perhaps 8 cm diameter, and 2-20 cm long. They'll all grey limestone.
Screenshot of a short section of a paper, saying "SO far this Letter, which was soon after followed by another containing the Learned Mr.Ray’s, which were these: I received (saith Mr. Ray) your accurate Observations about St. Cuthbert's beads. A strange thing, it seems to me....
Screenshot of the Wikipedia article for Georgius Agricola's 1556 book "De Re Metallica". Wikipedia helpfully offers "Not to be confused with Metallica", and provides a link to the article for that heavy-metal band.
Some grass and flagstone with the occasional small hailstone striking and bouncing
Screenshot of text from Krugman's column: Veblen was quite cynical about philanthropy, yet even he didn’t dismiss it completely, stating that: The fact itself that distinction or a decent good fame is sought by this method [such as the endowment of a university, public library or museum] is evidence of a prevalent sense of the legitimacy, and of the presumptive effectual presence, of a non-emulative, non-invidious interest, as a consistent factor in the habits of thought of modern communities. (Veblen’s lasting intellectual influence did not come from his sparkling prose style.)
Scan of an old photo showing two men in front of a row of bookshelves. The left one (me) is very young; the right (Ricklefs) is tall, slender, dark-haired, with kind eyes. Whatever that is.
Text snippet from an old book: "Osborn has developed a hypothesis for the principle of rectigradation as of potential homology, and has proposed a theory of tetraplasy in growth and development and of tetrakinesis in evolution, the latter based upon conceptions of energy."
Screenshot from a google search results screen. Under "People also ask" we have - Were Cope and Marsh lovers? - Who discovered the first T-rex? - What dinosaurs did Marsh discover? - How did Marsh become a paleontologist? - What is the dumbest dinosaur in Jurassic Park?
A piece of grey sidewalk with the impressions of two leaves: one the full leaf, one either half or folded over along the midrib.
Two small objects in a wooden case in a museum. In the foreground, a life-size metal finger, slightly bent as if beginning to beckon. In the background. a slightly larger blob of melted lead.
A cluster of brilliant deep scarlet flowers on a tree. Each has two fleshy, solid petals: a lower one that is wide and bent in a wide "V" shape that narrows to a tunnel at its base, and an upper one that is narrow, gently curves over the lower, and wraps around the yellow bundle of stamens
A short section of low brick wall, slightly peaked and with a flat post-like section at each end. (It's the back side of a sign). It sits among scraggly grass and dandelions; behind it is a street with a small strip mall and a nondescript apartment building.
Rothko painting No. 14, 1960. It's a large square canvas, about the top 60% varying shades of cinnamon to dark brown, the bottom 40% deep muddy purple.
A single red trillum blossom atop the broad, oval, medium green leaves. The petals are deep wine red, pointed, and curved back; the yellow stamens and pistil hang from the centre of the three petals. Behind and out of focus are deciduous trees beginning to leaf out.
A nutritional label showing zero of EVERYTHING
Dense bright yellow blossoms of Forsythia against a blue sky
Snippet of a royalty statement for my book 'Charles Darwin's Barnacle and David Bowie's Spider', showing a grand total due for 2025 of $33.29
Sculpture at the base of a monument's large column. It shows an elephant looking a bit angry, with an extremely muscular man having fallen on his butt beside it. He has dropped his shield and one leg is flailing in the air
A richly carved stone sarcophagus. Four coats of arms along each of base and lid; between them, geometric designs surrounding human figures and work scenes
A chunk of stone somewhat bigger than a basketball sits half way across a paved uphill path. Low iron fence on left, high sloped concrete wall on right from which it probably tumbled.
Photo of me sitting in the corners of a varnished wooden antique tram. I'm looking thoughtfully up, with one hand at my face: index finger toward my ear, the others along my chin.
A cluster of long, slender, tubular scarlet flowers hanging under a canopy of large deep green leaves
A castle atop a craggy Hilltop, against a cloudy sky framed below by trees