Paleo, petro, and whatever else seems interesting

A place for interesting things I find. None of these photos are owned by me unless otherwise stated.

[jurassicsunsets]

⦕⁅⁅⁅ɔ  ⦕⁅⁅⁅ɔ  ⦕⁅⁅⁅ɔ  ⦕⁅⁅⁅ɔ  ⦕⁅⁅⁅ɔ

you have encountered a group of trilobites! reblog to help them on their journey

[geopsum]

If it worked, we’d be the first to tell everyone. And we’d all be much more well-adjusted and I’m sure no one can say geologists are well-adjusted.

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

Across the world, protesters and activists are working hard to convince our governments that dramatic change is needed, now, to ensure that our black siblings and neighbors are not only able to survive, but thrive, instead of suffer under systematic antiblack racism and white supremacy. 

We here on Palaeoblr are committed to doing our part for that struggle - but we can’t do it alone. As such, this weekend we will be hosting a Stream on Twitch: 

The Dino Nerds For Black Lives Stream 

During this stream we will be raising funds for The National BailOut Fund and The Bail Project - which both help individuals arrested by police to make exorbitantly high bail amounts, which greatly affects black people even when there aren’t extensive protests occurring. We also will be directing funds to local Black Lives Matter chapters as well as Ranowo Campaigns. More info about how donations will work will come in a later announcement, but all proceeds will go to these charities. 

In return, we plan on rallying eagerness for donations by having a variety of guests across the paleontology community - individuals from Darren Naish to Thomas Holtz to Pete Makovicky and more - to talk about their work and answer questions given by those who donated. We also will have artists working on their work, joking and riffing by our silliest science communicators, and of course, dinosaur-related gaming. 

We hope to see you all there from 6PM (Pacific Time) on June 19th until Midnight on June 22nd (Pacific Time). The twitch channel for the project is https://www.twitch.tv/dinonerdsforblacklives. 

Please, reblog, share, repost, tweet, and spread the word. And if you would like to contribute to the project, email us at [email protected]. 

Thanks,

The A-Dinosaur-A-Day Team

[fthgurdy]

Re: the last post, the article mentions that some places use clams to test the toxicity of the water. It’s like that in Warsaw- we get our water from the river, and the main water pump has 8 clams that have triggers attached to their shells. If the water gets too toxic, they close, and the triggers shut off the city water supply automatically.  

The clams are just better at measuring the water quality than any man-made sensors.

Edit: check out this documentary trailer : https://vimeo.com/408820791

[zvaigzdelasas]

God Bless Our Troops

[looksmokin]

They hot glued a spring to a clam and gave it full control over the water supply

[boomstab-papa]

@becomedog​, you are so right

[becomedog]

EXCELLENT!!

[topios]

More mayshroom dinosaurs.

[topios]

Continuing my mushroom dinosaur series.

[topios]

I’ve been doing a Mayshroom challenge with a dinosaur theme. These were the first 4.

[zekor]

Ahhhhh these are amazing!

[little-witchys-cottage]

They be blessing

[hellenhighwater]

no bones jones

[cryptid-stimming]

x

[kylaralynn]

Ghibli Leaf Boi

[sabertoothwalrus]

unmute

[copperbadge]

I have never so joyously reblogged a bird video in my life. 

[dukeofbookingham-deactivated202]

Source

[blueelectricangels]

if you read in a frog paper “specimen was released in the field immediately after capture” chances are very good that what it actually means is

“i dropped the damn frog and despite the fact that we fell all over each other no one could recapture it”

[blueelectricangels]

sometimes when i am sad i go read through the tags on this post, because they are 70% other biologists saying things like “AND ALSO FUCK FIELD MICE” and “THAT CRAB ALMOST BROKE MY FINGER” and I am reassured that I am not the only one who has bobbled a wood frog right into their cleavage.

plus six or seven people who just….can’t figure out what a frog paper could possibly be. (guys it’s…a scientific paper. about frogs.)

and this one

which made me laugh despairingly because i mean

bro you don’t even know.

[jumpingjacktrash]

what is the code entomologists use for “i stepped on it, i’m so sorry, it was dark out and the specimen was very small”

[coolmanfromthepast]

“Impromptu dissection was performed under less-than-optimal lighting conditions.”

[jumpingjacktrash]

‘impromptu dissection’ is an alarming phrase in any context and i thank you for it

[inky-petrel]

What’s biologist for “the little fucker BIT me and I yote it into the undergrowth on reflex”?

[tawghasa]

“Specimen was removed from the study pool due to abnormal interaction responses”

[vilkalizer]

I am reblogging this 98% for the second to last comment holy shit I’m fucking choking

[elfwreck]

I’m enjoying the tags/replies discussing the proper conjugation of “to yeet.” I am in favor of the decision that the future perfect is “will have yitten.”

[woefully-undercaffeinated]

Expanding this, NASA has a few gems from their report language:

“Underwent unplanned rapid disassembly” – it exploded, and it wasn’t an explosion we wanted to happen

“Lithobraking maneuver” – it stopped because it hit the goddamned ground.

“Engine-rich exhaust” – the engine bell melted or evaporated, or the engine ejected itself out the back of the rocket without having a very good reason to do so.

“Fishing orbit” – the craft is in the ocean instead of space and we didn’t mean to put it there

“Thrust was observed along an undesired vector” – the engine leaked and the rocket spun off into oblivion.

“Wearing his manager hat” – a moron who shouldn’t be an engineer (a reference to the infamous quote “take off your engineer hat and put on your manager hat” in the meeting in which the Challenger was cleared for launch)

“Received an unrequested transfer” – he’s dead.

[kittydesade]

LITHOBRAKING MANEUVER

[trashzy-deactivated20211214]

Puffin

[synapsid-taxonomy]

Sometimes Wikipedia vandalism is good

[paleontologymemes]

This is not what I meant when I said birds are dinosaurs...

[wodneswynn-deactivated-deactiva]

Archaeologists: “Uhhhh, there’s still a lot of debate about how effective leather armor really could have been on a battlefield. Alas, we shall never know.”

Punks: “Hey, fresh cut, the boneheads carry knives sometimes so make sure and lift a good leather jacket. It’ll save your life.”

[equality-is-anarchy]

Layers layers layers! Slashes won’t do shit even to most t shirts but a stab will ignore the shit outa your leathers. Layers will keep the blade from getting as deep as it otherwise would and gives more for it to snag on if it serrated.

Armour has always been about layers.

Example 1200s minor noble: linen shirt, gambeson (layered and quilted linen with wool insulation), chain mail, surcoat, arming cap, helmet, coif, bigger helmet.

Another example Alexander era Macedonian hoplite: linen tunic, greaves, 1" of tightly pressed and laminated linen, helmet (probably with some sort of arming cap/padding inside), big ass shield.

Layers save lives.

[jackironsides]

Yes! Cloth is hard work to cut with a knife. When they were trying to ban (sword) duelling in Europe, they banned people from carrying around shields/bucklers, so your defensive tool was a cloak wrapped around your non-sword fist, with plenty of loose fabric to catch your opponent’s blade. You might get your cloak torn, but you’re less likely to get your skin sliced up, and that’s the important thing.

[jenniferrpovey]

You know what is a surprisingly amazing material for armor?

Silk.

Silk.

The Mongolians used silk vests because silk isn’t broken by an arrow, and you can use the silk to gently pull the arrow back out, even if it’s barbed. They also often used silk as the backing for leather armor.

The first bulletproof vests were made in Japan and Korea. Out of, yup, silk. Silk could stop black powder bullets, but was rendered obsolete by higher powered modern firearms. A combination of silk and metal was experimented with, but dropped because of the expense of silk.

Franz Ferdinand was wearing one such vest when he was assassinated, but it didn’t help because of where he was hit.

The US military is now looking into something called Dragon Silk, which is spider silk made by GMO silkworms, to make body armor that might be more comfortable than the current kevlar vests.

Silk, people.

[deliriumcrow]

You want proof about silk being able to stop an arrow? Try sewing it with the wrong machine needle in place. I have shattered – literally shattered – needles that were too thick. They just will not pass between the tightly woven fibers, even when in a machine that can go through your actual fingers. And that was just a lightweight taffeta, not something woven to be intentionally impenatrable.

It is horrible at stopping slashes, though. Whether by the blade of scissors, roller cutter, or well honed dagger or sword, it just falls to pieces like it never meant to be whole in the first place. This is, again, where your layers come in – a nice heavy leather for slash damage, a dense silk for piercing. You probably want to put something under it though, silk against sweaty skin is unpleasantly sticky. It *clings*. Eww.

[drpathetique]

Useful things elementary school neglected to teach me, exhibit #5839

[phosmic]