Category: General

The Biggest Carnivore: Dinosaur History Rewritten

This is an interesting little report from livescience.com on the Spinosaurus.

The history of the paleontology of the Spinosaurus is s fascinating story. Spinosaurus, a large theropod dinosaur was discovered in Egypt around the turn of the 20th century by the German paleontologist, Ernst Stromer.

Stromer’s collection went to a museum in Munich (if I recall correctly) which was bombed out of existence by allied attacks in the 1944. The specimen were completely destroyed. The was a documentary on one of the Discovery channels recently about a group who recently went back to Stomer’s dig sites and brought back more Spinosaurus fossils.

This new report is now estimating that Spinosaurus was the largest yet discovered meat-eating dinosaur, at 55′ long from head to tail.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Paleontology, Science

My friend John is doing the second-wedding ceremony thing in Thailand.

Don’t you think these figurines on his wedding cake are an amazing likeness?

Incidentally, you can look at more of his Thailand photos on his flickr page.

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This has been a big week for James!

He said “beep” the other day (but not repeated the feat) and today he decided he wanted to walk.

Grandpa was over and he just started walking. he’s been trying for weeks, but he’s only managed 2 “steps” before collapsing.

Today he just started with 3 steps at a time and worked his way up to crossing the living room.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Family, Kids

Jurassic beaver swims into view - Large early mammal was first to get furry. From nature.com

Ever see the cliché ending to virtually every program on the extinction of the dinosaurs where the Tyrannosaurus Rex skull lies in the sand with the mouse-like mammal crawling out its eye socket?

Until now, the fossil record has only yielded small, shrew-like mammals living during the Mesozoic Era (Triassic, Jurassic & Cretaceous periods). The assumption has been that dinosaurs so completely dominated that era mammals were unable to thrive until the following Cenozoic era.

This new find out of China is an amazingly advanced beaver from Jurassic period China.

While this certainly means a re-think of when mammals began their advance towards world-dominance this doesn’t seem as surprising to me. Prior to the Mesozoic, during the Paleozoic, the earth was dominated by creatures known as the Mammal-like reptiles (Therapsids). These were displaced during the Triassic by dinosaurs and apparently gone by the Jurassic, but they are the direct ancestors of mammals. It doesn’t seem that impossible that mammals had more of a head start than previously thought.

The process of fossilization requires being at the right place at the right time, and some places (rivers, seas, oceans) are more conducive than others. Further, those places now have to be exposed. There are certainly far more creatures that did exist than we could ever possibly expect to find.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Paleontology, Science

Many Dino Fossils Could Have Soft Tissue Inside from the National Geographic Society

This is a fascinating report concerning the “fossilized” soft tissue discovered last year.

The traditional view of the fossilization process should result in no soft tissue remaining.

In a nutshell, when a creature dies, it’s soft tissue rots (or is eaten) away, leaving the bones and hard parts, which then get covered and slowly mineral-laden water erodes them replacing them with rock in, essentially, and exact replica so exact that you can see the original growth rings, etc.

Only on the rarest of occasions does soft tissue or skin imprints get fossilized, but they, too, are converted to mineral in the process.

The discovery last year yielded what appears to be un-mineralized soft tissue. After a year’s research, the team has discovered this may not be as rare as previously thought, and if so, the whole process of fossilization may have to be re-thought.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Paleontology, Science

Proud parental moment today:

We were eating a Wendy’s, and we’d been there for about 30 minutes.

There was an elderly couple who had been there since before we arrived. As they got up to leave, the gentleman came over to our table and said, “Excuse me. I just wanted to tell you that you have two of the cutest children I’ve ever seen.”

Technorati Tags: Blog, Family, Kids

When did they start making 8-pack sodas?

Is this so they can catch bigger sea otters?

It’s just all wrong, it doesn’t fit naturally in the hand like the 6-pack does. Should you spread your fingers uncomfortably wide and hold using the two outer gaps, or use two adjoining ones and have the whole thing be lop-sided?

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My son said his first intelligible word today, both my wife and I heard it clear as a bell.

We each spend a lot of time saying “Mommy” and “Daddy” to him in the hopes he’ll echo it back to us.

So how were we rewarded?

He’s recently taken to holding out his finger so that one of us will hold out our finger and tough them together. When I do that, I first touch his finger and then reach over and touch his nose and say, “beep.”

Today I did that and he looked right at me and said, “beep.”

I suppose an onomatopoeia is a word and we have to count it, don’t we?

Technorati Tags: Blog, Family, Kids

To quote the blurb on the menu from Slice of Sicily:

Founded in early 1999 by Bill and Donna, Slice of Sicily is now regarded as the pizzeria of choice in the Northeast Phoenix, with a combination of 25 years experience, old family recipes and using only the finest ingredients, the art of creating the best traditional Italian food around has been mastered. As for service, once you walk in… you are family!

While I’m not sure that I’d consider 38th Street and Indian School to be “Northeast Phoenix” certainly I can attest to the family approach to the service. It’s one of the friendliest restaurants I’ve eaten in.

It was a holiday, and business was apparently slow, but most of the customers who came in appeared to be regulars and the staff knew their orders before the customers did.

It wouldn’t matter if it was the friendliest restaurant in the world, it would be all for naught if the food wasn’t good.

My pizza was pretty good. I’d have no problem recommending it.

It’s a typical New York style and the smallest available size is 14″, which, typically, results in a floppy center, and this pie was no exception to that unfortunate rule. Despite that, the crust was properly browned on the bottom and tested good.

Similarly, the cheese and the sauce were quite good. My only reservation on this pizza was that I wasn’t too crazy about the strong-flavored pepperoni. In future, I’ll probably try for a cheese only or sausage pizza.

Price: 14″ = $10.45, Price per square inch = $0.07 (0.068)

Conclusion: Recommended

Slice of Sicily
3724 E Indian School
Phoenix, AZ

Technorati Tags: Blog, Food, Pizza, Pizza Week, Restaurant, Review