Fred's Finds: Batfish & the Well-read Economist

Study: Batfish Protect Reef in Australia

"When it comes to protecting Australia's Great Barrier Reef, it is hard to beat the batfish. A study by researchers at the Australian Research Council Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies found that the rare pancake-like white fish with brown stripes was the only one of 27 species that successfully removed the forest of algae that can otherwise overwhelm and kill off the reef."

Another example of the inter-relatedness of Nature and why we mess with it at our own peril.
Evolution it seems, then, provides Intelligent Design without a Designer.

The Well-read Economist

"An informal survey of the Carnegie Mellon Economics and Finance Faculty resulted in the following list of books which individual faculty members consider insightful and readable in the fields of Economics and Finance."

Some 30 books listed by recommender, publisher, author, title, date of publication. The list was prepared by the Undergraduate Economics Program at Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business.

Ancient Egypt in Ten Paragraphs

"This is the first of what I hope will be an occasional series of "Histories in Ten Paragraphs". In this installment, my aim is simply to provide the basic chronological framework for the history of Egypt for readers who have only a passing familiarity with that civilisation; I make no claims of originality of interpretation. Of necessity I have condensed many important and complex eras into brief sketches or neglected them entirely. I hope that experts will forgive these simplifications but equally I hope that they will point out my more obvious errors. The absolute chronology of dynastic Egypt is subject to many uncertainties, but for the sake of brevity I have used the dates given by Grimal throughout this essay. If there's sufficient interest in this article, I'll probably write a similar one about either Rome or ancient Mesopotamia next."

Home Safe: free shredders and erasers

If you are a bit paranoid the way I am of late, you might want to protect your computer. Here, free stuff to keep your privacy intact.

Postgraduate Research

Congratulations! Now you have your undergrad degree. Want to go on and do more? Here is a batch of useful links to such topics as "burnout prevention,""writing a thesis," talking to others at conferences, what thesis examiners look for, structure of a scientific paper and so on. And, oh, yes, Citation guides should you advance to that stage. In total, some 15 links to topics related to postgrad work.