evolutiongeek's blog

*Note: Apparently this discovery came to light in March of last year, but I only just heard about it today. How this one slipped by me, I don't know.

This may not be especially progressive, but I do need to live up to my moniker of "evolutiongeek" and share this, if for no reason other than the little kid in me still loves when new discoveries like this are made. Dromeosaurs, a group of saurischian dinosaurs that include Deinonychus, Velociraptor, Utahraptor, etc. were known from only the northern hemisphere until this new species, named Neuquenraptor argentinus was found in Patagonia. Actually the first bone fragments were found 10 years ago, but as is common in paleontology, it takes a lot of detailed study to determine what some fossils are, especially a new species. This particular dinosaur is projected to be about 6 feet long and has the famous, menacing toe claw of its kin, but from what I can understand a complete skeleton has yet to be found or constructed, so more excavation and study is certainly needed if we are to understand where this animal fits in the evolutionary scheme of things. Toe claws and bone fragments can be telling, don't get me wrong, but the skull is usually the most important artifact scientists can have as far as dinosaurs go, and I certainly hope a skull is Neuquenraptor will be forthcoming.  Read More »

I think I can relate to these bears- last night it was too warm in my apartment to fall asleep. It's more than halfway into November, and with the heat turned off it still reached over 70 in the apartment (about 60 outside). I tossed and turned for quite a while, but then again I don't normally fall asleep for 6 months. I assume the bears in question are brown bears (the article didn't say), but the simple truth of it is that it's too warm for the bears to hibernate. Either they can't, or the weather is so warm they don't want to, so the bears and continuing to roam around when they should normally be asleep. This could cause quite a bit of trouble indeed.  Read More »

*Update- I checked the story again this morning and the student claimes that he did not show his ID to officers because he believes he was being racially profiled (he is of Iranian descent). I made statements in the comments below about the student not having his ID, but in light of the new admission I retract that part of my statements. Do I think the student did a stupid thing by refusing to show his ID to the officers? Surely. Even so, I don't think the actions of the officers were appropriate, and I do not believe that the students cries of "Here's your Patriot Act right here!" were a call to a rebellion, but rather a cry to get attention from others in the library as to what was happening. We'll have to wait for a full investigation as to what prompted the officers to first use their tazers, but even if they were justified, I believe the way they were repeatedly used on the student (and the threat to other students) was not justified.*  Read More »

Apparently I've been pissing some people off with my blog posts on various issues, which of course means that I'm doing something right. In the most recent instance, it was over my post "You killed the electric car, didn't you?", which consisted of my thoughts after viewing the film Who Killed the Electric Car? In fact, I seemed to make this particular person so flustered over the issue they signed up to get a ProgressiveU account JUST to try and take me down a peg (I noticed that the account had been open only 2 hours with the reply to my post being the only activity), so I should get a cookie or something for causing someone to sign up right? Maybe not, but in any case, here's my reply to the comment "kerry beauchrt" made yesterday.  Read More »

Last night I finally got the opportunity to see the film Who Killed the Electric Car?, and while it immediately became one of my favorite documentaries (imagine Super Size Me about cars, oil companies, & politics), it made me really, REALLY pissed off. The film was an eye-opener in a variety of ways, 1st among them being that there was a time when electric cars were actually the vehicles of choice in America. It's true. From the late 1800's to the early 1900's, electric cars were the most common on the roads, their numbers being entirely gone by the time America became obsessed with automobiles in the 50's. The electric car is both a car of the past and of the future, that is, it would be if it weren't snuffed out by consumer foolishness/apathy, oil companies, car manufacturers, the California Air Resources Board, etc. But why?  Read More »

When we last left Galileo he was struggling for his life, hoping to magnify some of the sun's rays with a piece of glass he stowed away in his sleeve into a heat beam to cut his way out of the ropes that bind him. Nearby the Grand Inquisitor laughs evilly. "You will never escape you heretic! You love the sun so much? Prepare yourself to feel what it is like on its surface before you taste the torment of Hell! Muahahaha!" Wait.... scratch all that. Galileo was never burned at the stake. I must admit this came as a bit of a surprise to myself this summer when I first read of what REALLY happened to the famous scientist. Hundreds of years after his death, he still seems to be a poster-child for scientific martyrdom at the hands of religion (and in a way, he actually is), often cited as an example of how religion can be destructive. This, however, is the real story...  Read More »

Last year while I was emplyed as a lowely "team-member" at Target, I thought it funny that the Christmas displays were coming out in October. I don't know about other stores, but if you walked down one of the main aisles, right behind the Halloween candy and displays, were lighted snowmen and wreaths. I found it a bit odd to start pushing the Christmas stuff so early, but then again Target didn't pay me to think. In any event I remember the days leading up to Christmas, where we had a special "team huddle" over it being ok to say "Merry Christmas" rather than "Happy Holidays." A year later, with Thanksgiving around the corner, I wonder if the fallacious "War on Christmas" is going to raise it's ugly head this year.  Read More »

"He was aware that a wise man should always respect the folkways of others, to use Carrot's happy phrase, but Vimes often had difficulty with this idea. For one thing, there were people in the world whose folkways consisted of gutting other people like clams and this was not a procedure that commanded, in Vimes, any kind of respect at all."-- (Terry Pratchett, The Fifth Elephant)  Read More »