Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes...

Me and my blog template are officially over, and minima is my new friend. Actually, minima lefty stretch is my new friend, but only until I can work out a better design on my own.

And the Trilobite Created Man in His Image, with a Few Changes Here and There...

I have to thank PZ Meyers over at Pharyngula for digging this video up, which I missed at youtube. Pretty inspiring stuff!

And another thing. I commented that maybe my cafepress store should "cloth the priests" of Trilobite. From the number of hit's I've gotten from that comment so far, I see that spamming PZ's blog should have been my main marketing strategy!

Soft-Cell Coolness...

Unless you've been totally ignoring the world of paleotology, you've probably already heard about Dakota the Dinosaur Mummy, a discovery so neato, it has been called the "holy grail" of paleontology.

Dakota was found in 1999, by a teenager in North Dakota, complete with fossilized skin, tendons, and in general, everything that paleontologists want to see but usually can't. Preliminary studies have already yielded interesting results.

I would love to go on and on about it, but other people have reported it, and reported it better, so check out these articles:

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/12/dino_mummy

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/12/071203-dino-mummy.html

Pictures Hot off the Cambrian Press!

I figure it's probably a good idea to own at least one "first edition" product from your own store. I really like how my Canadaspis Perfecta design turned out, so not too long ago I decided to snap the first one up, before someone else decided to. So I put in my order, along with some other stuff as gifts for my family

I have to say that all in all, I couldn't be much more pleased with the result! Not only is the sweatshirt high-quality, but the design in sharp, and the colour is vibrant. It's been through the wash, to no ill effect, as well.














Anyways, I figured that some of you might be interested to see evidence of the physical products, so, through the miracle of "teh interwebs," there it is to the left! Very cool, very cool indeed!

In other fossil news, Discover Magazine published it's 100 top science stories of 2007 issue, and bagging the #10 spot, was an article named "T. Rex Time Machine." The article talks about Mary Schweitzer's work sequencing proteins preserved in T. Rex soft tissue. Said proteins turned out to be extremely similar to modern chickens.














But the T. Rex protein isn't the real breakthrough, but the fact that soft tissue was preserved over around 68 million years. Conventional wisdom for the past, well, forever, has told us that soft tissue does not survive the fossilization proccess. Who's willing to bet that, now we know to look, we start finding all sorts of cool stuff?

Another article, #57, dealt with research into the classic dinosaur death pose, controversial, because some claim that only death in, well, a great flood would produce the pose. Cynthia Marshall Faux has suggested that the pose may be a result of opisthotonos, which apparently is caused by injury to the cerebellum. Apparently this has been observed in modern birds, so why not dinosaurs as well?

There were several other interesting tidbits for the paleo-minded, but you'll just have to buy the magazine to find out the rest!

Squidoo'd

Hey Fossil Fans,

Well, I've done it again. This morning I joined Squidoo thinking I would put a little promotion lens up for the trilobite clothing store (www.cafepress.com/trilobite , in case you missed all the other links on this page!). Anyways, that original concept has been expanded somewhat.

My lens is now called "Dinosaurs and Fossils: The Ultimate Guide," and is rapidly turning into a behemoth. So far I'm going through the history of life on earth, with plenty of links to articles with more depth on various topics. Truely, it is an epic undertaking, which may outweigh even the mighty wikipedia one day!

So check it out at http://www.squidoo.com/dinosaursandfossils/

I'm pretty pleased with myself, needless to say.

Another cool fossil store, for the Dino-Fans!

So I found this super-neat design at a fellow cafepress Shopkeeper's store, and I thought I'd post to help spread the word! This isn't all the Dinochick store has to offer though, check out the brand new "Dancing Ceratopsians" design as well! Very cool.

The URL is: www.cafepress.com/dinochick

Check it out!

Friendly Ostrich, or ferocious child-killer

Lately I've been thinking, are we really 100% sure that Big Bird is a bonafide "bird." While looking at a picture, I realized that his beak is less of a beak than well, the snout of a vicious raptor.

With this whole bird-dinosaur connection, we should really be more careful about our so-called "feathered friends." After all, how do we know when or if gamma radiation will activate the long dormant "slaughter in packs" gene of say, starlings or robins. If you saw Jurrasic Park, you know my terror!

But I digress...

The real topic of this post is a talk I heard by Dr. Phil Currie, of the University of Alberta Paleo department, a month or two ago. In it he covered in brief some of the amazing discoveries being made these days, especially those relating to the fossilization of soft tissue (muscle, arteries, etc).

In one of his slides, he showed the cross-section of a T-Rex leg that showed a layer of bone found in modern female birds, which is related to egg-laying. So, T-Rex had hollow bones, a la birds, as well as this bone layer. Pretty interesting stuff.

Next, he showed how paleontologists think they've discovered fossilized blood vessels inside said hollow bird-like bones. Conventional wisdom has always said that soft tissue cannot survive fossilization, but conventional wisdom seems to be wrong!

Needless to say, I was totally beside myself with glee after the lecture!