Getting Dumb, Ghost Riding the Sticky Cretaceous Lasso etc.

I am, of course, a Nor-Cal-ian, and so, a HUGE hyphae fan. Needless to say, this new brevium by Schmidt, Dörfelt and Perrichot, Carnivorous Fungi from Cretaceous Amber, in last week’s Science leaves me deeply stoked.

I mean, come on. Just, try asking most people to name their favorite fossil fungus (no, Ediacarans don’t count).  Well, actually we’re still out of luck since the authors don’t hazard a Christening beyond noting that the fossil fungus is unlike modern nematode-trappers. May I humbly suggest:

“Keakdasneakmyces bowensis“?

So, in summary: Nematophagous fungi are A) totally terrifying (if you’re a nematode), E) totally indispensible (if you like eating vegetables), X) totally rad (in general) 4) have a fossil record going back to the Cretaceous. There are awesome diagram-laden websites, movies &c.

Yadadadig?

Postscript: Just slightly off topic, but anyone unfamiliar (or familar for that matter) with the awesome and terrifying beauty that is Cordyceps should check out this post by Neurophilospher.

postscript to the postscript - formatting issues are now solved.  sorta.  also var. typos.

Milhouse! Lower those eyebrows!

Ahem:

Bullet-like pieces of what is thought to be an ancient meteorite shower have been found embedded in mammoth tusks and bison bone.

uh, no comment?

Here’s the scoop from Nature News.

hat tip - Jessica Oster, and sorry I doubted you.

Terminal Bracket

I credit the readers of microecos for not being taken in by false content.

discontent, malcontent, supercontent whatever.

’tis better to be oblique than elliptical.

or maybe it’s verse visa.

An amoeba is smaller than a rat

 

Var. self portraits.

 

 

Web 2.0: boon or deathtrap for middling talent?

Range Maps:

stagnating pool of paraconciousness

“Such highly parallel multitasking - institutional paraconsciousness - while clearly limiting inattentional blindness and the consequences of failures within individual workspaces, does not eliminate them, and introduces new characteristic dysfunctions involving the distortion of information sent between global workspaces.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

web, 2.0: Joyous byte-arcade

PERIOD.

trust me, the name of my new band is Croizat and the rad racers.

actually, it’s Tuftian guerrillas of iconography.

as a I said, damnation: , parallel microtextes:

Unforgivable Awesomeness

If you’re not deeply troubled by Valin Mattheis then you’re not paying attention.

Who Is Buried in Lincoln’s Tomb?

On February 12th, 1809, two visionaries emerged on opposite sides of the Atlantic. Both were cautious, erudite, soft-spoken men who were destined to transform the world in their own way.

In a letter to Asa Gray Darwin, a self-proclaimed supporter of the Union endorsed Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation:

Well, your President has issued his fiat against Slavery—God grant it may have some effect.

I don’t know if Lincoln ever picked up the Origin.

I suppose he was rather busy in the sixties. He is reported to have read (and enjoyed) Robert Chambers’ Vestiges. While this proto-evolutionary text was widely derided by the scientific community (including Darwin himself), it did mark a sincere effort to develop a rational history of life that accorded with the fossil record.

Growing up in Kentucky, it’s almost impossible that a young Abe didn’t encounter some of the abundant Paleozoic fossils that litter the state. And, in keeping with my previous rant about our fossilferous infrastructure, the stone which surrounds Lincoln’s tomb is packed with coral and brachiopod fossils.

Perhaps it’s no coincidence that Lincoln’s most famous address, delivered amongst fields tilled with fallen soldiers, begins with a declaration of historical context. History helps us to make sense of chaos and savagery of modern life. This is also where Karl Marx and L. R. Hubbard fit in.

But aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln how was the play?

Surf…and…Tuuuuurf!

She’s a love mummy.

Okay, okay. So we all know that it’s a “seclusion” of embiopterans, a bazaar of guillemonts, a blessing of unicorns etc. But what do you call a group of mummies? Why, a malodor of course! Or, wait maybe that’s skunks (six cents to the first person who can come up with the collective noun for skunks without using Google).
Well, whatever it is we need it what with the announcement of yet another dinosaur mummy. Of course, the use of the term “mummy” to describe these exquisitely well-preserved dinosaurs is something of a misnomer since the mode of preservation here has nothing to do with Egyptian mortuary practices. I only wonder why they didn’t rush the press release out in late October (hint hint to anyone sitting on an unpublished volant cervid).

Given the choice, I’d be rather more excited about a “mummified” crurotarsan, or pterosaur, or amphisbaenid, or oligochaete or, well just about anything besides another hadrosaur but hey, nobody asked me. And, it’s a great excuse to re-run my “Wide-open blood-spattered Trachodon” shown above. I did that with a computer.

If you mistakenly arrived here looking for an intelligent discussion of a breaking paleontological discovery, please accept my apologies. And may I direct you to When Pigs Fly Returns or Pondering Pikaia?

That is all.