Yet another terrestrial creature demonstrating wheeled locomotion - though this one may be proof of intelligent design rather than natural selection.
Thanks to boingboing.net for the link.
Michael Mihalev’s Rusty has served Talking Squid well, but I think it is time for a change. And I need help choosing a new theme. Follow the break and comment to tell me what you think…
Seen while browsing through New Scientist’s Evolution: 24 Myths and Misconceptions; a link to video of a salamander that coils up and rolls downhill a la the mythical hoop snake or M. C. Escher’s Curl-Up.
When I win the lottery, I shall build myself a house with a fossil wall. I’ll put a sandstone wall behind and mount museum-grade fossils as a patchwork facade. There will be one or two window boxes to let in light and to support those fossils that need to be put on stands rather than wall mounted. It can’t be planned too much in advance as it depends on what high-grade fossils are available at the time of building, but it will look something like this:
I really should have put a person there for scale; the large fan-like plant fossil on the bottom row would come up to an average man’s shoulder.
The fossils are (L to R, top to bottom): a large trilobite, theropod tracks, some flying thing (a real Archeopteryx that size would need more than a lottery win!), a Jurassic fern, Paleohyrax reprobae, a leaf, a group of fish (probably Knightia from the Green River fossil fields), a large skull (I’d go for a sabre-tooth cat myself), a frond of river plant such as a Seirocrinus with an accompanying Knightia, a mammoth tusk, an ichthyosaur, a stromatolite section (the polished yellow rings), a pair of large eurypterids, a cluster of Vendian soft-bodied echinoderms, brittle starfish, a field of large ammonites, and lastly, on a mount, the hugest insect in amber.
Recovered from the Wikipedia entry on trademark on 23 March 2008:
Click on the image for the full reveal. For an interesting argument that Wikipedia vandalism is not such a bad thing, here’s Nicholas Barker’s “The Charms of Wikipedia” from the New York Review of Books.
I shall find it difficult to get online for the next fortnight so here’s an early Season’s Greetings to all Talking Squid readers.
This is my daughter’s picture of Rudolph. Gotta love the eyelashes. It was the cover to a series of letters she stapled together addressed to each of Santa’s reindeer detailing how wonderful she thinks they are. (”Dear Rudolph, did you know there’s a song about you…?”)
Merry Solstice, one and all.
Bindeez, winner of the Australian Toy of the Year, has just been recalled for safety reasons. Some of the beads, it seems, contain the party drug gamma-hydroxy butyrate (GHB) and have hospitalized several Australian and New Zealand children after a harmless bead ingestion turned into a mysterious drug overdose.
Manufacturer Moose Products has announced a voluntary recall of Bindeez with refund, but I am not at all satisfied. My children love their Bindeez and they’re terribly upset that they can’t play with them anymore. A full refund is not enough. The emotional trauma and the risk to health are worth a great deal more than that. I for one will not be returning our Bindeez until Moose Products agrees to reimburse us at current street value.
Lynnette Shelley has a gallery of celtic-inspired artwork. Scroll down to “Tentacle.” Fantastic piece of work.
This is too unfocussed, but I like the colours.
