H.M.S. Beagle invites you to participate in our 2008 Great Montana Dinosaur Hunt July 7 through July 11. We will lead this expedition in the historically and scientifically important Hell Creek Formation of Eastern Montana. Participants will learn firsthand about the significance of the Hell Creek Formation and other such sites in North America and elsewhere around the globe. The Hell Creek Formation is noted for specimens of Triceratops horridus and Tyrannosaurus rex. Each day in the field will begin with instructive presentations to introduce participants to the many practical skills necessary for dinosaur hunting. These lessons will include field collection safety, topographic map reading, GPS use, specimen recognition and identification, and more. At the end of each day in the field, there will be informative lectures about dinosaurs and paleontology. The day’s finds will be sorted and identified and information will be shared on how to clean, label and store each participant’s finds. An orientation will be held for participants prior to setting off for Montana. The orientation will be held at H.M.S. Beagle and will cover the basics of clothing and equipment, as well as what weather will be expected and information about the terrain where the hunting and collecting will happen. The Great Montana Dinosaur Hunt package includes motel rooms, meals, daily transportation to and from the field and access to some of the best dinosaur hunting grounds in the world. Participants are responsible for their own transportation to Jordan, Montana. Camp sites and RV sites are available (with discounts on the registration fee). Group Leaders: Bruce and Judith Wake and William Nedblake. Single’s Package $1,600 /person* Includes motel room (single occupancy) (July 6 - 11), meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner), refreshments in the field, access fee for the collecting site(s), and daily transportation to and from the field. Double Package $1,500 /person* Includes motel room (double occupancy) (July 6 - 11), meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner), refreshments in the field, access fee for the collecting site(s), and daily transportation to and from the field. No Motel Package $1,350 /person* Includes meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner), refreshments in the field, access fee for the collecting site(s), and daily transportation to and from the field. Does not include hook-up fees for RV or camper. A 50% deposit is due by June 1, 2008, to hold reservations. Full payment is due June 15, 2008. No refunds for cancellations after June 15, 2008. *Beagle Society Members receive a $100 discount on registration fees. For questions or to make reservations, please contact H.M.S. Beagle, 180 English Landing Drive, Suite 110, Parkville, MO 64152. phone: 816-587-9998, e-mail: clk@hms-beagle.com

Evolution acts at the species level. In natural selection an individual in a given population is of little consequence to evolution.

I suspect there are some of you out there that have never visitied "one of the coolest small towns in America." I will post some items about Parkville that may, it is to be hoped, motivate you to visit.

Parkville is located on the Missouri River at one of the major bends in the river before lazily running on down to Kansas City where it meets the Kaw (Kansas) River and then heads east to St. Louis. In Parkville you can actually walk along the river in English Landing Park. This is the same park where many of the city's festivals are held. The recent Microbrew Festival was the last one; more are coming. The actual festival schedule can be found on www.parkvilemo.net. There are many new festivals this year including "boutique concerts."

I could focus an extensive blog on the restuarants of Parkville. They range from the down home to French haute cuisine. Nearly everyone knows about the hometown brew pub; The Power Plant Restuarant and Brewery and its high-energy owner, Angelo Gangai. I'll do more on the eateries in a later blog, but feel free to chime in if you have experience.

How many of you were as pissed off as I was (am) over the command performance of Ben Stein's pseudodocumentary, Expelled, at the Missouri state rotunda? I sincerely hope that there will be little or no support for it while it is in the area theaters. I know that many of the Taliban will go to see it just to reinforce their sense of security in a world where they can't find security in the rationality and logic of science.

I'd like to first of all ask any of you who happen to stumble onto this blog if you have, or ever had, a home laboratory. Do you? Did you? If you did why don't you still have one? If you don't, or if you never did, would you like to have one now? A home laboratory, especially as a counter point to a large entertainment center in a loft, a large living room, or in a "rec room" will often prove to be the center of activity during a party. Those of you who have, or had, a home laboratory are probably like me. The living room simply isn't the place (no plumbing, etc.) and it is, or was, in the basement or garage or in a detached building. Growing up, my concept of a garage was not as a place in which one parked a car, but a place where one went to explore, to invent, to tinker. to learn, and to relax. One of my brothers-in-law is a champion home beer brewer and nearly his entire basement is given over to his beer brewing, and the space is his home laboratory. That's right; I'm not talking about "clandestine labs." I've had a laboratory in my home since I was 12 years old and I still do and I am considerably older now. I have two US patents and a third pending and patents in several foreign countries (including Japan), and was an invited speaker at the 2nd International Aquariology Congress in Monaco (hosted by Jacques Cousteau) all because I have a home laboratory in which I do my chemistry. A home laboratory is nothing more than a home workshop. It can be for chemistry, biology, microscopy, electronics, genetics, environmental science, astronomy, geology, paleontology (for which mine is also used), photography, and of course, much more. I have recently been interested in finding people who live in the wonderful lofts in the City Market, or elsewhere, who would have an interested in a custom-designed laboratory space in their loft(s). I have gone as far as designing a work bench, a piece of furniture, on which one's lab work would be done and which would be a point of pride and a show piece for the loft dweller(s). My science store, H.M.S. Beagle, has recently put together a series of workshops that are to be held in the store called "Inventor's Lab" and it will be facilitated by Vince Thompson of the local robotics club. We intend to offer these workshops to anyone who is interested in inventions, home labs, and the prospect of learning and having fun with science and technology. I will be writing more on this subject from time to time. Consider this the first installment. Let me hear from you. All comments are welcomed.

The co-founder of the theory of natural selection, Alfred Russel Wallace, said, and I paraphrase here, "when women finally run the world humankind will truly be civilized."

Ask any robot designer how she would wire the photosensors for a robot. Would the wire(s) take a long path that required crossing other wires to get to the CPU or would they go as short and direct as possible? Would the blind spot be directly in the center of the photosensor or would it (if, indeed it had one at all!) be off to the side where it didn't cause any loss in the field of view? Don't let Ben Stein and his crew subvert science in Missouri, or any where else for that matter.