Skin? Deep!

Scientists have found 66 million-year-old remains of a dinosaur with some organic stuff leftover. This is astounding that bits remain. They are getting info about the skin and how it relates to birds and reptiles. Recently, we saw a dinosaur exhibit at a mall (Metrotown!?). They had an animatronic adult T rex and a juvenile. The juvenile was covered in down. I have not actually come across the evidence for this covering. But maybe they have impressions or something like that. I have seen the pictures of the Archeopteryx with feathery impressions. Maybe the organics will add info.

Seahorsing Around

Male seahorses prefer larger females. The explanation is that females produce more eggs. Given that the males incubate the eggs, I don't know if the females are bigger than the males. I guess the females wouldn't get that much bigger than the males or the males might not be able to carry all the eggs. In most species where the males are bigger, that's usually the result of males competing for access to females and females preferrring larger males, presumably for protection and access to more resources. This still seems to affect the social structure of people.

Flying Cars

I think Blade Runner had flying police cars. The Fifth Element had flying traffic jams. Given the way people drive regular cars, I don't see how flying cars could be as common as in the Jetsons. Our brains are probably limited in spatial ability. We have licensed pilots but they have lots of room and others controlling them. I remember Spock commenting on Khan's two-dimensional thinking when flying a starship. It's good it's difficult to get enough power in a small enough size to make it currently feasible or I would expect more explosions overhead.

Will warmer waters keep king crab out of hot water?

Steamed king crab legs with minced garlic can be awesome. I claim to be concerned about the environment, but I rarely make political statements with my stomach. Temperature affects the distribution of king crabs and their speciation. Many species live really deep in really cold water. The ones we eat are toward the poles and relatively shallower. When I studied in Japan, I saw a video of their behaviour and caught fragments of a fisheries talk on their physiology. Warming temperatures seem to be pushing them poleward. I couldn't tell what this means for their numbers or their fishery.

Teaching an Old Bee New Tricks

Bees change jobs as they get older. Apparently, they go out foraging when they are older. Maybe since they become more expendable. Scientists found that if these older foragers were forced to do nursing jobs of younger ones, their mental abilities improved. I hope this applies to people too. As an older parent, I do think chasing after a four-year-old and reading picture books is keeping my brain from fossilizing. Certainly, parenting encourages you to clarify your values and re-think your jaded ways of looking at the world. Of course, this may also accelerate my physical decline.

Is Every Birdie A Critic?

A Japanese scientist tested how pigeons perceive art. Adults chose what they considered good and bad kids' art. Good was associated with being representational, which I consider problematic. Still, the pigeons learned to distinguish these, after being rewarded for choosing the supposedly good over the bad. They could also learn to distinguish pastels from watercolour. I didn't notice any discussion of the evolutionary significance of this for the birds. And I wonder if this simple-minded view of art accounts for the popularity of this Montessori based art program for kids, where they learn to make nice representational things.

Celebrity Memories

Poor Farrah. As an adolescent, I drew a pencil portrait of her, so her famous face is extra engraved in my memory. Bad enough to die relatively young, but then to die on the same day as the King of Pop. Like Mother Theresa dying at the same time as Princess Diana. Do any astrologers pick these things out ahead of time? Starting high school, eating in a food court with a black friend of mine named Michael, a cute girl in our class came over to our table. She asked him, "Are you Michael Jackson?" We laughed so hard.