Thanks to everyone who takes the time to read my eclectic mix of posts. As you know, I have been trying to get to 500 WordPress followers. As of today, I reached 501! I appreciate each and every one of you. Along with my followers on other social media, I now have 1,971 people following this blog. It makes it all worthwhile to spend the time posting knowing that I am bringing some funny, bizarre and interesting posts to so many cool people.
Filed under Humor and Observations
By Denise Chow
Published October 17, 2013
A close-up of the head region of the Alalcomenaeus fossil specimen with the superimposed colors of a microscopy technique revealing the distribution of chemical elements in the fossil. Copper shows up as blue, iron as magenta and the CT scans as green. The coincidence of iron and CT denote nervous system. The creature boasted two pairs of eyes (ball-shaped structures at the top). (N. STRAUSFELD/UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA)
This illustration shows the nervous systems of the Alalcomenaeus fossil (left), a larval horseshoe crab (middle) and a scorpion (right). Diagnostic features that reveal the evolutionary relationships among these animals include the forward posi (N. STRAUSFELD/UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA)
The discovery of a fossilized brain in the preserved remains of an extinct “mega-clawed” creature has revealed an ancient nervous system that is remarkably similar to that of modern-day spiders and scorpions, according to a new study.
The fossilized Alalcomenaeus is a type of arthropod known as a megacheiran (Greek for “large claws”) that lived approximately 520 million years ago, during a period known as the Lower Cambrian
. The creature was unearthed in the fossil-rich Chengjiang formation in southwest China.
Researchers studied the fossilized brain, the earliest known complete nervous system, and found similarities between the extinct creature’s nervous system and the nervous systems of several modern arthropods, which suggest they may be ancestrally related. [Photos of Clawed Arthropod & Other Strange Cambrian Creatures]
The arthropod family
Living arthropods are commonly separated into two major groups: chelicerates, which include spiders, horseshoe crabs and scorpions, and a group that includes insects, crustaceans and millipedes. The new findings shed light on the evolutionary processes that may have given rise to modern arthropods, and also provide clues about where these extinct mega-clawed creatures fit in the tree of life.
“We now know that the megacheirans had central nervous systems very similar to today’s horseshoe crabs and scorpions,” senior author Nicholas Strausfeld, a professor in the department of neuroscience at the University of Arizona in Tucson, said in a statement. “This means the ancestors of spiders and their kin lived side by side with the ancestors of crustaceans in the Lower Cambrian.”
The newly identified creature measures a little over an inch long (3 centimeters), and has a segmented body with about a dozen pairs of attached limbs that enabled it to swim or crawl.
“Up front, it has a long pair of appendages that have scissorlike components basically an elbow with scissors on the end,” Strausfeld told LiveScience. “These are really weird appendages, and there has been a long debate about what they are and what they correspond to in modern animals.”
Previously, researchers suggested megacheirans were related to chelicerates, since the extinct creature’s scissorlike claws and the fangs of spiders and scorpions have similar structures, said Greg Edgecombe, a researcher at the Natural History Museum in London, England.
“They both have an ‘elbow joint’ in the same place, and they both have a similar arrangement of a fixed and movable finger at the tip,” Edgecombe told LiveScience. “Because of these similarities, one of the main theories for what ‘great appendage arthropods’ are is that they were related to chelicerates. Thus, our findings from the nervous system gave an injection of new data to support an existing theory.”
Fossilized brain images
The researchers used CT scans to make 3D reconstructions of features of the fossilized nervous system. The scientists also used laser-scanning technology to map the distribution of chemical elements, such as iron and copper, in the specimen in order to outline different neural structures.
Though finding a well-preserved ancient nervous system is rare, the new study highlights the potential for similar discoveries, the researchers said.
“Finding ancient preservation of neural tissue allows us to analyzeextinct animals using the same tools we use for living animals,” Edgecombe said. “It suggests there should be more examples out there.”
About a year ago, Edgecombe and his colleagues found a different fossilized brain that revealed unexpected similarity to the brains of modern crustaceans.
“Our new find is exciting because it shows that mandibulates (to which crustaceans belong) and chelicerates were already present as two distinct evolutionary trajectories 520 million years ago, which means their common ancestor must have existed much deeper in time,” Strausfeld said in a statement. “We expect to find fossils of animals that have persisted from more ancient times, and I’m hopeful we will one day find the ancestral type of both the mandibulate and chelicerate nervous system ground patterns. They had to come from somewhere. Now the search is on.”
The detailed findings of the study were published online Wednesday in the journal Nature.
Filed under Humor and Observations
More cosplay pictures for your Saturday enjoyment!
NOTE: If you click on a photo, it will enlarge it, then you can look at the full size copies simply by clicking the arrows to the right or left.
Filed under Humor and Observations
Dmanisi skulls 1-5 show remarkable differences — and remarkable similarities. (M. PONCE DE LEÓN AND CH. ZOLLIKOFER, UNIVERSITY OF ZURICH, SWITZERLAND)
They had one thing in common, however: They were family — our ancient family, that is, from around 2 million years ago.
The world’s first completely preserved adult hominid skull from the early Pleistocene era looks surprisingly different from other skulls of the same era, yielding a remarkable insight: Man’s early ancestors appeared as physically diverse as humans do today, researchers said, and our family tree has perhaps fewer branches than today’s schoolbooks teach.
“It’s a really extraordinary find,” said paleoanthropologist Marcia S. Ponce de Leon in a press conference Wednesday announcing the findings. “For the first time, we can see a population from the early Pleistocene. We only had individuals before. Now we can make comparisons and see the range of variation.”
‘The five Dmanisi individuals are no more different from each other than any five modern humans or chimpanzees.’
– Neurobiologist Christoph Zollikofer from the Anthropological Institute and Museum in Zurich
The skull in question is a complete, 1.8-million-year-old ancestor of man, found in Dmanisi, Georgia, in Eastern Europe. The fifth such skull from the region spanning a period of a few centuries, it’s known at present only as “Skull 5” — it hasn’t received a clever name yet like Lucy, the remarkable African skeleton found in the 70s and dating back 3.4 million years. (Lucy is anAustralopithecus afarensis, an even more distant relative of modern man.)
The rarity of such artifacts makes studying them a challenge; other skulls from about 2 million years ago showed wide enough differences in shape that scientists have so far labeled them different species entirely: Homo habilis and Homo rudolfensis, for example.
Skull 5 is different, different even than the four other skulls found at Dmanisi. It was found in 2005, and ultimately matched to a jaw found in 2000 to make a complete skull. But after eight years of study, scientists on Thursday published a paper in the journal Sciencerevealing that Skull 5 is simply not that different from others.
“The five Dmanisi individuals are no more different from each other than any five modern humans or chimpanzees,” said neurobiologist Christoph Zollikofer, a co-author of the paper with Ponce de Leon, both of whom work at the Anthropological Institute and Museum in Zurich, Switzerland.
“The brain case is very small — around a third of [the size of] modern humans at 546 cubic centimeters — and at the same time, we have the face that is quite large, and the jaws are quite massive, and the teeth are big and large,” she explained.
“This is a strange combination of features that we didn’t know before in early homo,” Ponce de Leon said. Such a skull shape was previously unseen, yet it was actually more similar to the others than it was different, the team found.
“Dmanisi is the first site where we can really look into and quantify variation in fossil hominid population,” Zollikofer said.
The site itself is an intriguing location that David Lordkipanidze from the Georgian National Museum Tbilisi, Georgia — a third paper author — described as “a medieval city on a hilltop.”
When these early hominids were walking around, 2 million years ago, the climate was temperate and relatively humid, he said. The site was a short distance from water, situated on the remants of a lava flow. Beyond just skulls, some scattered evidence of daily life remained too, as well as a wide variety of plant and animal remains spread over an area spanning about 1.2 acres.
“We found stone tools and cut marks on animal bones, which indicate that hominids were actively involved in meat-processing,” Lordkipanidze said. One of the skulls had a wound on its cheek too, which could have come from a fight following an argument or something as simple as an injury in a fall.
“This was a place with stiff competition between carnivores and hominids. We found almost a hundred carnivores and it seems they were fighting for the carcasses. Fortunately for the hominids — and fortunately for us — they were not always successful.”
But the real revelation is the variation among these ancient creatures, who had long legs and short arms and smaller brains than us. What other secrets does this mountain range hold?
“We still have a lot to discover,” he said.
Filed under Humor and Observations
Some of the world’s most romantic travel destinations in pictures…
Photo: Wagman30
Photo: bEbO
Photo: Marcel Germain
Photo: B Tal
Photo: Muha
Photo: Jennifer Phoon
Photo: Pear Biter
Photo: Cuellar
Filed under Humor and Observations
These questions are good for several things: 1) personal re-evaluation and self-discovery; 2) as a tool to motivate you to do new things; and 3) as a tool for authors. The last one is important to writers like myself. You should basically be able to answer all these questions for your main characters. It really helps you to write them if you know them that well. It really helps you to live your own real life if you know yourself that well.
Filed under Humor and Observations, Writing
These are all from a reader contest on cracked.com
http://www.cracked.com/photoplasty_644_19-cool-design-features-hidden-stuff-you-use-every-day/
These are some features of products that were designed to be helpful but few of us know about.
Filed under Humor and Observations
Christopher Columbus and members of his crew on a beach in the West Indies, newly landed from his flagship Santa Maria on October 12, 1492. (ARCHITECT OF THE CAPITOL)
Although Christopher Columbus is associated with discovering America, the 15th century explorer actually first set foot upon modern day Haiti and the Dominican Republic. But people were inhabiting both North and South America for thousands of years before Columbus sailed the ocean blue.
Historians commonly believe that humans first crossed to the Americans from Asia 12,000 years ago. But a new exhibit in Brazil features artifacts dating back as far as 30,000 years ago, 18,000 years earlier than previously believed.
100 items including cave paintings and ceramic art depicting animals, hunting expeditions and even sex scenes of the early Americans are on display in Brasilia, Brazil’s capital.
The artifacts were found at the Serra da Capivara national park in Brazil’s northeastern Piaui state, which used to be a popular site for the hunter-gatherer civilization that created the artwork.
“To date, these are the oldest traces of human existence in the Americas,” Franco-Brazilian archaeologist Niede Guidon who has headed a mission to carry out large-scale excavation of Piaui’s interior since the 1970’s told the AFP. “It’s difficult to think there exists a site anywhere with a higher concentration of cave art.”
In addition to the artwork, Guidon said charcoal remains of structured fires found at the site are among other traces of the Serra dwellers.
“To date, these are the oldest traces of human existence in the Americas.”
– Brazilian archaeologist Niede Guidon
Some archaeologists disagree with Guidon that a few burnt flakes are not evidence of man-made fire hearths, but rather the remains of a natural stone formation.
However, Guidon contends the primitive civilization’s cave art provides enough evidence of early human activity.
“When it [cave art] began in Europe and Africa, it did here too,” she said.
The paintings date back an estimated 29,000 years.
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For a bit of retro-humor, here are some advertisements and products from years gone by…
Filed under Humor and Observations
Michael Bradley - Time Traveler 