Busy Summer!

Let me just say I am sorry that I haven't had time to post more over the past few months this summer has been crazy busy for me. I have a few posts that I need to finish up; including 2 book reviews, a National Park Series post, and a museum visit. I hope to finish up at least one of those today and should have the rest out by early next week. While you wait here is a comic by SMBC that I missed posting while I was away and below the fold with be two videos by Potholer54, his 2nd and 3rd Golden Crocoduck nominees.

Correlation and Causation

Sometimes while talking with creationists I feel like I have said this multiple times but it doesn't seem they notice. Anyway enjoy today's SMBC.

I am the Spirit of Science

So after the last post I figured I would post something more comical, yesterday's SMBC comic!

History Lesson!

This was far to good not to share, especially with my views on what the History Channel has become. Oh, and one more thing if you are on YouTube go subscribe to the maker of the video CGPGrey he makes very funny and informative stuff!



H/T Know Your Meme

Evolution and Thanksgiving

SMBC is at it again this time combining evolution with thanksgiving also dinosaurs because who doesn't love dinosaurs. Yes I know this was posted on their site almost a week ago but I have been busy.

Happy 150th Birthday Archaeopteryx

I was hoping to have the book Archaeopteryx: Icon of Evolution by Peter Wellnhofer finished by today but as life has gotten in the way I have not been able to do that, hmm maybe I should read not that I am feeling inspired...

150 years ago today (today being 30 September 2011 and 150 years ago being 30 September 1861) an article was published by Hermann von Meyer which while only being 2 paragraphs long the first of which said this [German from the H. v. Meyer (1861) and English translation from Wellnhofer (2009)]

Nachtrüglich zu meinem Schreiben vom 15 verflossenen Monats Kann ich Ihuen nunmehr mittheilen, dass ich die Feder von Solenhofen nach allen Richtungen hin genau untersucht habe und dabei zu dem Ergebniss gekommen bin, dass sie eine wirklich Versteinerung des lithographischen Schiefers ist und vollkommen mit einer Vogel-Feder übereinstimmt. Zugleich erhalte ich von Herrn Obergerichtsrath Witte die Nachricht, dass das fast vollständige Skelet eines mit Federn bedeckten Thiers im lithographischen Schiefer gefunden worden sey. Von unseren lebenden Vögeln zeige es manche Abweichung. Die von mir untersuchie Feder werde ich mit genauer Abbildung veröffentlichen. Zur Bezeichnung des Thieres halte ich die Benennung Archaeopteryx lithographica geeignet.
[In addition to my letter of the 15th of last month I can now report that I have carefully studied the feather in all respects with the result that it is a real fossil from the lithographic shale and perfectly agrees with a bird's feather. Coincidentally I received a message from the "Obergerichtsrath" Witte that an almost complete skeleton of an animal covered with feathers was found in the lithographic shale. It showed several differences from living birds. The feather I had studied will be published along with a detailed description. For the name of the animal I consider Archaeopteryx lithographica as suitable.](emphasis mine)

Obviously there has been some confusion if the feather should be the type specimen or the fossil of the whole animal, which would eventually become the London Specimen, but the ICZN has clarified it as the animal is the type specimen so no worries anymore.

Archaeopteryx is an amazing find and even if it isn't a true bird it represents more than that. The specimens showed transitions between animals it has the feathers and many of the body parts of a bird but they are not completely bird like, it also has long claws and the teeth of the dinosaurs. This showed that dinosaurs and birds were related and while Darwin never used it as an icon for evolution it truly is one. 150 years ago paleontology was still young and we were still trying to understand what we were looking at to find an animal with feathers and dinosaur traits then was amazing and never heard of, after all animals fit neatly into their groups. Today a feathered dinosaur gets its five minutes of fame, nope doesn't even get a full 15 anymore, and then disappears where only paleontologists seem to remember it. It is amazing to see how far we have come! So in honor of that I figured I would share some links to other sites celebrating the day, links to my posts on closely related subjects (if I find more I will post them and if you have anymore feel free to share them in the comments), and some of the pictures I took of one specimen of Archaeopteryx, the Thermopolis Specimen, I was lucky enough to see. Enjoy and do something to celebrate the amazing animal that became part of the scientific record today!

Links:

The Witmer Lab is celebrating by unveiling a webpage that will link to some of their fancy 3D pdfs so I will let you go to their announcement page.

David at History of Geology talks briefly about the first feather.

Dinosaur Tracking gets a rare guest post from the associate web editor for Smithsonian.com Brian Wolly on his recent trip to Munich and getting to see the, surprisingly nick-named, Munich Specimen

My Pages:

My visit to the Houston Museum of Natural Science in which I got to see the Thermopolis Specimen.

My book review on the book Solnhofen: A Study in Mesozoic Palaeontology by K.W. Barthel, N.H.M. Swinburne, and S. Conway Morris which is the locality from where all the Archaeopteryx specimens have been found.

Pictures (below the fold to speed up page loading and all images are by the author)

New Twist on a Famous Image

Although it isn't exactly accurate SMBC has a new take on the famous progress of evolution. Make sure you click on it to appreciate the image fully.

Right Under You

Another great comic by xkcd. Make sure you visit the comic itself and check out the scroll over.

My Childhood Meets the Modern World

Oh xkcd you must live in my mind

We Are All Just Mules

Another good evolution/genetics themed comic from SMBC, from yesterday.

The Future According to the Internet

The Internet is funny, thank you xkcd for putting it all together.

Evolution Joke (Not Family Friendly)

Oh SMBC how you always give me a chuckle especially when you do science based humor.

Sad But True

I wish this xkcd comic wasn't so accurate

Beauty Around Us!

So where do scientists see beauty? According to xkcd it is in everything around us. This is true!

Textbook Stickers

If Creationist get their "warning" stickers on textbooks soon everyone will be demanding them as SMBC points out below.

Herpetology is Paraphyletic

Another great comic by xkcd this time explaining how the study of Reptiles and Amphibians in one group, known as Herpetology, is in fact an unnatural grouping and so it is paraphyletic. Make sure you visit their site itself so you can see the comment when you mouse over the comic, lets just say that there is a problem that Aves is a Class while Dinosauria is a Superorder (ironically this is something I covered in the labs I taught this week).

The anti-anti-Vaccinationist

*pause for dramatic effect*

Oh SMBC how you always give me a chuckle.




But yeah I wouldn't actually wish any harm come to an anti-vaccinationist I just wish they would listen to the evidence :'-( (yes that just happened).

Garfield and Dinosaurs

So the comic doesn't want me to embed it and I assume they wouldn't want me to upload it for copyright reasons so go here to enjoy.

Yay dinosaur references!!!

Evolution Humor

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comics has to be one of the best nerdy/dorky type humor out there on the web. Today's dealt with evolution and what is known as Sexually Antagonistic Selection but I will let the comic tell the whole story.



Oh nerdy humor I love it.

I am a huge nerd

If you are like me you probably enjoy Star Wars and Indiana Jones, except the new ones for both of them come on, then you might get a kick out of this. The only known occurrence of Han Solo and Indiana Jones coming into even remote contact. Sorry to awesome not to post. I came across this during an Indiana Jones marathon when I was trying to figure out what happened to Short Round, apparently he becomes an archaeologist like Indy.

Anyway Enjoy.