Fossil Humor

[DWhatley]

Not ceph but cute

 

[Architeuthoceras]

The latest, not quite as funny.

 

[DWhatley]

No, it is down right scarey.

http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/867160.html

http://www.mailtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081214/NEWS/812140335

Poudre algae an unsolved mystery

Algae Toxin Identification Unravels Fish-Kill Mystery

 

[Level_Head]

No, it is down right scary.

I think you would enjoy--if that' the right word--Richard Cowper's short story ""A Message to the King of Brobdingnag". Among other places, it's in a collection called Armageddons, which will give you a clue. The protagonist is a plant researcher with a ... nitrogen fixation. He decides that algae can help.

 

[DWhatley]

The collection title is enough to keep me away. My mother told me that, as a teen, she left a popular movie in tears and decided never to watch tearjerker movies again. After Love Story I made the same decision but extended it over time to not intentionally reading or watching anything that was fictional and depressing. Thought provoking is good and I enjoy both fiction and non-fiction of this sort but I see no reason to depress myself during my leisure time, there is enough in reality to fill that niche.

I will say that I finally stopped reading Michael Crichton after Sphere as wrapping up every novel with his, OK, my word allotment has been met so everything goes back to normal, no explanation needed, endings.

 

[Level_Head]

The collection title is enough to keep me away. My mother told me that, as a teen, she left a popular movie in tears and decided never to watch tearjerker movies again. After Love Story I made the same decision but extended it over time to not intentionally reading or watching anything that was fictional and depressing. Thought provoking is good and I enjoy both fiction and non-fiction of this sort but I see no reason to depress myself during my leisure time, there is enough in reality to fill that niche.

I wonder if you saw the movie WALL?E? It's a sort of fossil humor, in that the title character collects "fossils" of human civilization.

I will say that I finally stopped reading Michael Crichton after Sphere as wrapping up every novel with his, OK, my word allotment has been met so everything goes back to normal, no explanation needed, endings.

Understood. Sphere was, of course, a cephalopod story in part, but not one that gave any real insights into the creature. Sort of an "alien possesses giant squid"--though not with the same style as the alien wearing "an Edgar suit" in Men in Black.

Crichton continued the same abrupt ending concept in "Timeline"; I like much of his work, but found this unsatisfying.

But speaking of fossil humor ... I have this book:

http://i.pbase.com/v3/89/475089/2/50755961.ThePreHistoryoftheFarSide.jpg
(The image does not seem to display in the image tags unless the url is also included. Odd.)

The creature pictured (the dinosaur, not the boy) will be taken by most to be a Tyrannosaurus. It seems, instead, to be an Allosaurus--it has three claws on the forelegs. The proportion is not right (it seems to me) for the otherwise similar Carcharodontosaurus--that animal's arms were small indeed.

Or its head was too large:

(The one in the video seems actually to be a Tyrannosaurus.)

 

[DWhatley]

With Larson, no telling but he seems to have given the creature some sort of Scottie dog or cat ears, possibly as a suggestion as a pet?

 

[Level_Head]

The projections on the skull that look a bit like dog ears are actually part of a real allosaur skull. While they could be mistaken for eye-protection ridges, they're much higher than the eyes.

This link shows a good full-sized model of the animal, including those projections.
http://mrsfagone.com/dinoimages/allosaurus.jpg