InGen Currently Recruiting for Genetic Biologist Interns

You can apply at the "Careers" section of the Masrani website, but I suggest you take a look around while you're there, too.  I just got accepted!

Hold on to your butts.

Survival or Extinction?

"Extinction is the rule.  Survival is the exception." 

Carl Sagan, The Varieties of Scientific Experience

I am ashamed to say that it's been over a year since I've posted to this blog.  That's pitiful, and I'm ready to do something about it.  For a while, I wasn't sure what that something was.  Maybe I'm still not. But Superoceras will be undergoing some changes in the next few months, and as I get some content created and lined up, I look forward to sharing it with anyone who is still out there reading this. So much is happening right now in the world of science and natural history, it'd be silly to stay out of the conversation. 

In the meantime, there are a number of great bloggers out there who have kept that conversation going, and I encourage you to check out the links to the right and see the amazing things they are doing.  I'll be back with you all shortly.

Getting rid of the lazies.

You're in your vehicle, being guided along the electric track back towards the Visitor's Center.  Things didn't go as well as they could have today, but you got to pet a Triceratops, so that's pretty cool.  All of a sudden, the vehicle stops.  You remain calm, and figure you'll be moving again in no time.  But the kid next to you can't figure out how to turn a flashlight off, and the next thing you know, you have a 6 ton Tyrannosaurus bearing down on you.  We all know how that scene plays through.

From the vault: MS Paint job, circa 2005.  I miss my Explorer.

Sometimes, you get out of the vehicle before it goes over the wall.  Sometimes, you end up going over with it.  Sometimes you get stranded in a tree, escape its branches before the vehicle falls on you, and somehow end up back in the car again (but at least you're out of the tree). We all have those days; it happens. But it's been over five months since I've posted to the blog, and I need to get the tyrannosaur off my back.

I'd love to say I've been busy with school/work/life; that I've been in a creative slump; anything really to explain my absence.  And truthfully, all of those things do come into play.  But that's not why it's been quiet on the blog-front.  It's really been because of me.  Because even though I've been busy, and not particularly inspired, I've also been a little down, and it's made me very, very lazy.   Don't get me wrong; I'm still passionate about the subject material of the blog.  And find myself doing a lot these days that reflects that.  But I'm not really reflecting anymore. And that bothers me more than a little. As much as I like "doing" in the real world, I miss taking part in the "online" conversation as well.  This blog is a way for me to not only communicate to others, but to really communicate with myself, too.  So how do you get rid of the lazies, and get back into it after so long? I'm not exactly sure, but I'm working it out.  And I hope that in the next few weeks, I can manage to produce some solid results.  Talk to you all soon.

Another Day, Another WIP

I now have at least a dozen paleo-art related projects that I've been really excited for, started, and then left on the back burner.  This is one of the more recent that I had hoped to have done for the latest ART Evolved gallery, but alas, still just a work in progress.  Meant as a tribute to the recent series 7 episode of Doctor Who titled "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship", I had hoped to surround the TARDIS with lifelike reconstructions of the ornithodirans featured in the show.  Then I realized I left out the fuzzy juvenile tyrannosaur.  Now if I could just figure out where to put it.

"Ornithodirans on a Spaceship", a work in progress.  Pencil on paper. 

Ornithodirans on a Spaceship

Image used with respect to the copyright holders, the BBC.  From their lovely online gallery.

I've been a horrible blogger, artist, and Whovian lately.  But all that will hopefully change soon.  In the meantime, check out what Brian Switek and Marc Vincent have to say about "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship" over at Dinosaur Tracking and Love in the Time of Chasmosaurus, respectively.  And check out the Art Evolved: Life's Time Capsule "A 2nd Pop Culture Gallery" while you're at it.  The Doctor has already made one appearance there as well!

Hopefully the Art Evolved Crew are cool with me using this as well!

Things I Learned This Semester #10

Pēderdor the Fartinator.  Oh yeah, check out all his majesty.

Dinosaur farts make a lot of noise.  And I'm not talking about the actual act of flatulating.  I'm talking about the noise made by the media when a paper was published earlier this week.  What does the paper say? In short, that sauropod dinosaurs would have annually produced around 520 metric tons of methane as a result of their digestive process.  That's just about the same amount that we're currently pumping into the atmosphere today.  The paper, of course, simply presents a model for how they calculated this number, and it relies heavily on a lot of variables that are assumptions at best.  But what did the media say?  Some reliable, unbiased news sources immediately began running stories about how dinosaurs farted themselves into extinction, despite the fact that Wilkinson and his co-publishers never talked about extinction once in the paper.  This was immediately picked up by a number of other news outlets, and spread all over the internet.  Thankfully, there were a number of outstanding individuals at the helm ready to combat this ridiculousness with good science reporting.

Things I Learned This Semester #3

EXTERMINATE your Thursday boredom with this factoid: There is a basal mollusc named after the Daleks.  That is all.

The Cambrian mollusc Yochelcionella daleki, from Runnegar & Jell (1976).

Hat tip to Dr. Holtz for that little knowledge bomb. I definitely see the resemblance.



Reference


Runnegar, B. & Jell, P. A. 1976. Australian Middle Cambrian molluscs and their bearing on early moluscan evolution. Alcheringa 1(2): 109-138.

May your Cephalopodmas be gibbous and bright!

And by bright, of course I mean bioluminescent and chromatophoric!  Here's a tentacular "gift" for you all!

I realize it's not much to look at now, but it's just one piece of a much larger project that I've been working on for a while (and hope to complete soon). Anyway, if there was ever a day to post it to the blog, Cephalopodmas would be that day. So here's to the cephalopods and the teuthologists who study them.  From the tiniest tainoceratid, to the largest lepidoteuthid, happy Cephalopodmas to all, and to all an inky night!

Get out the map!

This is a map of the United States of America I have hanging in my office. Why am I taking a photo of it and posting it to the blog? Good question, and I have a pretty good answer: Blogger FINALLY has a mobile application for your smart phone. Which means that wherever I am in United States, as long as I have mobile service, I can post photos and text to the blog. So when I can't get my thoughts out in 140 characters or less, this is going to be a great alternative.

Gasoline? Where we're going we don't need gasoline.

If you've spent some time here at Superoceras, you may have realized that in addition to being interested in science and natural history, people might consider me a "geek" for a lot of other reasons.  I certainly do fall into more than one geek subgroup, that's for sure.  So when two of my geeky interests intersect, I'm all for shouting from the rooftops about it.  But I don't have a 30 ft ladder which I would need to access said roof, so I'm going to use the blog instead. Here it goes: The DeLorean DMC-12 is coming back, and this sucker's (all) electrical!

Two years of Superoceras

I know that things around here have been pretty quiet lately.  But I'm not quite ready to throw in the towel just yet.  In fact, as I begin my third year of blogging, I'm excited by all the possibilities before me, personally, professionally, and academically.  A lot has changed for me over the last year, but the one thing that hasn't is my love of the natural world, and sharing that love with others. So with that, thank you all for another year.  I'm looking forward to the next.

A school of Cooperoceras, colored by my girlfriend's first grade students for National Fossil Day, and presented to me on the second anniversary of the blog. 

Dino Run

Dino Run logo, from PixelJAM.

The last couple weeks have seen a lot of talk in the dino-blogosphere about Dinosaur Revolution and Planet Dinosaur, so as it stands, I've stayed out of the discussion.  But I'm all for dinosaur distractions, so I thought I'd throw this little gem into the mix for those of you looking for a great way to procrastinate.  Follow the link, put on your running hat, and check out PixelJAM's Dino Run! It's a fast paced race against extinction that any dino fan is sure to love.

Ahoy, Paleo Pirates!

As some of ye' may know, today is International Talk Like A Pirate Day.  For buccaneers, privateers, proletarian outlaws, an' Pastafarians alike, today is a day of celbratin' for any an' all who call themselves pirate.  So if ye' haven't yet done your duty, avast! Get yerself a tankard of rum, put on yer finest hat, an' hoist the colors!

The jolly roger of the original Paleo Pirates, a work in progress for far too long. If you can deduce the five animals depicted here (in spite of my crude representations), perhaps you have what it takes to join the crew.

Time "Outdoors"

Readers who frequent this blog may have noticed that, since March, things have slowed down quite a bit around here.  At work, I've been required to spend less time at my desk (a great place to blog when I can), and more time moving about.  I've been taking courses, which takes up quite a bit of time as well.  But as the weather has gotten warmer, the majority of my free time has been spent outdoors.  This has been the first spring and summer that I've been in my new home after the previous occupants moved out last year, which means I've had a lot of yard work to catch up on.  Getting rid of invasive species, trying to get as many native plants on my property as possible, and keeping my garden take up the majority of my post-work daylight hours.  Quite a bit of energy goes into this, which is both good and bad.  Good because I love working outside, and I'm excited for my home grown foods and the wildlife that native plantscaping will bring to my yard.  Bad because when the sun goes down, I usually do as well.  Blogging, unfortunately, has not been as large of a priority as sleeping, so it has gone by the wayside.

This Thanksgiving, watch what you eat...

... because it might just be watching you back!

Try to imagine yourself in the Quaternary Period. You get your first look at this "three foot turkey" as you're riding your tricycle. He moves like a bird, lightly bobbing his head. And you keep still because you think maybe his visual acuity is based on movement - because you heard some guy playing a paleontologist in a movie say that once - he'll lose you if you don't move. But no, not the wild turkey. You stare at him, and he stares right back. And that's when the attack comes. Not from the front, but from the sides, from the other two turkeys you didn't even know were there.

Video from YouTube, by chinny814.

I dare you to try and tell me that modern birds are not the descendants of theropod dinosaurs. As if all the scientific evidence wasn't already enough to back that claim, you know you can see the family resemblance after watching that video. I feel bad for the kid, but I know that those turkeys were only trying to balance the scales a little. I mean, if you're in the United States, you're probably attacking a turkey right now. So in the words of Dr. Holtz, enjoy your roasted maniraptoran! Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Hagfish Day 2010!

So apparently today is the 2nd annual Hagfish Day, the celebration of the beauty of the ugly. I can certainly get into that.

Hagfish, doing their slimy, knotty thing. From the Vancouver Aquarium YouTube channel.

Happy Birthday, Superoceras!

It was Friday, November 3, 2006, approximately 3:30PM. I was sitting in the Geology Building at the University of Maryland, listening to the arthropod lecture in my principles of paleontology lab. As I was handed my lab report paperwork, I began to doodle in the upper right corner of the front page, as was my weekly tradition. But this week, instead of the modest spined spiral I would normally draw, I went all out. A few lines for shading, some stripes on the shell, and a fleshy, way to squid-like head sticking out of the end - I had created a "Super Cooperoceras", or "Super-oceras" for short.

Gearing up for SVP 2010!

There have been a lot of paleo-happenings this week, all leading up to my departure tomorrow morning for the 70th Annual Meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in Pittsburgh, PA. I am completely unprepared. I probably won't even get a chance to look at the abstract book until I get to Pennsylvania. That being said, I just wanted to do a quick wrap up of the week, considering how many things have been going on. This will be a huge link fest (not that they've become atypical to readers around here), but something is better than nothing, right? Consider it a dry run of my blog carnival hosting skills. Speaking of which, have you seen this months edition of The Boneyard? David Orr, you have my utmost respect.

First a focus on the science blogosphere. Dr. Darren Naish of Tetrapod Zoology has pulled together a collection of posts from Tet Zoo ver 1 and published them in a paper format. This is awesome. For those who don't follow Tet Zoo ver 2, what are you doing with your life, seriously? Tetrapod Zoology Book One is avaliable for sale on Amazon.com. You'd best get to buying it! I want to make sure that enough people purchase a copy to encourage Dr. Naish to put out subsequent volumes.

Order of the Science Scouts

I cannot believe I didn't post about this sooner, as I've known of it for a while. The Order of the Science Scouts of Exemplary Repute and Above Average Physique (O.O.T.S.S.O.E.R.A.A.A.P., or Science Scouts, for short) is, "by the grace of all that is good about science", awesome. They let you put sweet badges on your website or blog, "tweet" about science all day long, and are gonna have the best secret base ever as soon as they raise the 1 trillion dollars to build it. There are several badges that I'll eventually need to get onto Superoceras, but for now, I think I'll start off with this one.

This is the new "Who needs a post graduate degree? I can do science... CITIZEN SCIENCE!" badge. Given my current lack of Ph. D. and frequent blogging about topics I have no authority on, I hope I'm deemed worthy of "wearing" it proudly. Maybe I'll make one to wear in the real world too. Either way, I can't miss out on posting about the Science Scouts, or displaying their badges. So go get yourself some, and spread the word about the Science Scouts today!

ROCK-tober!

October is here, which for me means a great many things. I love the fall season on the east coast, and this month is by far my favorite for a lot of reasons (Halloween and pumpkin beer being two of the most important). But this October will also going to be great due to the SVP 70th Anniversary Meeting in Pittsburgh, and the first ever National Fossil Day during Earth Science Week. I simply cannot wait, so to start off the month (and get a little inspired), enjoy this ROCK-tober video, showing off the sciencey awesomeness that is the Tesla Coil.

Video posted by emagana100, via YouTube.

I thought that was too cool to not work into a Superoceras post. Hopefully you agree. I'll be covering the events mentioned above in much more detail as the dates approach, and plan on doing some live blogging from SVP when I get there as well. So look forward to that, in addition to other fall related posts in a "Wonders of Fall" series I hope to get off the ground before the temperatures drop and winter sneaks up on us.

Have a great weekend everyone. October is here... get your sweater.