Salondotcom, which I understand to be relatively widely read, is a fairly sloppy place, or at least seems that way, given the high production values of its web design, which contrasts quite a bit with the writing therein. That’s not here or there, but they do have a theoretically interesting article about the removal of …
Month: May 2008
Friday Feeder Friend
A spotted towhee.
Meat!
Hilarious article from the Guardian by Fraser Lewry, a poor man who had to give up meat for a week, and SUFFERED. “My head is spinning. I really don’t know how you do it. The fake meat you’re expected to eat tastes nothing like the real thing; restaurants are charging you an arm and a …
Florissant Fossil Beds
Last weekend, Connie and I took a daytrip drive in the mountains and one of our stops was Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument. The deposit here was created by a volcanic eruption during the Eocene. The most spectacularly evident remains are these petrified redwood stumps such as the one above. And this one. And this …
Azhdarchids! (And other Paleo Matters…)
Our favorite zoological blogger, Darren Naish at Tetrapod Zoology, has had a blog post (about giant pterosaurs stalking prey on the ground) turn into a peer- reviewed scientific paper (With Mark Witton.) Here is the post telling the tale, with many links and pix. They even have a “support blog” about the monster pterosaurs here. …
Stay Away from this Stuff
Health officials are warning New Yorkers to stay away from an illegal aphrodisiac made from toad venom after the product apparently killed a man. Somehow I think there’ll be a Darwin Award nomination coming out of this.
Isolated tribe spotted in Brazil
Did you see this from the BBC? “One of South America’s few remaining uncontacted indigenous tribes has been spotted and photographed on the border between Brazil and Peru. The Brazilian government says it took the images to prove the tribe exists and help protect its land. The pictures, taken from an aeroplane, show red-painted tribe …
“Real Archaeologists Don’t Wear Fedoras”
I just had to comment on this rather dyspeptic op-ed by archaeologist Neil Asher Silberman in the Washington Post earlier this week. Silberman whines that the popular Indiana Jones movies give the world a false view of what archaeologists really do and that he has “a problem with the entertainment tail wagging the archaeological dog.” …
Peru Guards Its Guano as Demand Soars Again
The NY Times tells us that the demand for guano (bird droppings) is rising due to the petroleum-related cost rise for synthetic fertilizer and guano’s increased use as a fertilizer for organic foods. The article gives a very interesting narrative of the effect of guano mining on Peruvian history and the natural environment of the …
PETA kills chicken course
PETA successfully pressured an upstate New York school to end a well- regarded course in the ecology of food in which willing students raised and slaughtered chickens. It was much like a 4H program but more balanced– vegetarian students were encouraged to address the class, there were lectures on eating less meat, and they were …