Author Archives: David Maddison

The Tree of Life Web Project: 25 years online

Posted on 16 November 2019

On 16 November 1994, we first made public the prototype version of the Tree of Life Web Project. At that time, it was a series of static web pages, with trees made out of text characters, created by a special … Continue reading →

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In Memory of George

Posted on 2 May 2019

As the ship rolls gently upon the waves, I look east toward the Tasman Sea, The relentless surges swallowing time, As they have for millions of years, Through turn after turn of the Milky Way, Beneath and beyond the waves, … Continue reading →

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George Eugene Ball

Posted on 13 January 2019

25 September 1926 – 12 January 2019 There are those amongst us who, through their words and actions, radiate strength, courage, compassion, and generosity, causing a positive ripple to spread across the communities they touch, increasing the good in the … Continue reading →

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Zephyr 2.0 and Mesquite 3.3 released

Posted on 13 September 2017

Yesterday, after about three years in gestation, we released Zephyr 2.0.  Zephyr is a Mesquite package that manages interactions with phylogeny inference packages including RAxML, GARLI, PAUP, and TNT. The most notable additions to Zephyr 2 include implementation of the … Continue reading →

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Happiness is a Big Tree on the Wall

Posted on 4 December 2016

  In the hallway outside my lab, about 800 species of Bembidiina, together in one tree.  🙂

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A Stained Trepanedoris

Posted on 12 November 2015

I started learning how to do stained glass pieces over the summer, and for my first piece I decided to honor our Discovering Insect Species class by doing the head of an undescribed species of Bembidion (Trepanedoris) that we discovered.  I … Continue reading →

Posted in Art & Science, Z499 (Discovering Insect Species) | Leave a comment

Flavor 100

Posted on 3 November 2015

Today we reached a milestone:  our 100th flavor in our approximately weekly Guess the Potato Chip Flavor event in my lab.  Today we decided to celebrate the event not only with our 100th flavor, but also with five other flavors to round … Continue reading →

Posted in fun stuff, Miscellany | 4 Comments

Discovering Insect Species: the Trepaneleven Awards!

Posted on 4 August 2015

In the Discovering Insect Species course, the eleven of us (students Alex, Ana, Danielle, Elle, Julia, Mamo, Shannon, Tom, and Trevin, plus John and me) formed a great team, and we learned a lot together.  Over the course of the … Continue reading →

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