Julia Child makes primordial soup.

It’s a really really really nice fossil…

…but it’s still just a fossil.  I’m referring to Ida, the fossil of what will soon be named Darwinius masillae, which is almost certainly not our direct ancestor.  I don’t have time to go into detail*, here’s someone else’s blog post with tons of links.

*(but I will quip that chains have links, trees don’t)

Sux2B an ant, example # 827.

Direct YouTube link.

Bryophytes in action.

They spew into the air…

…and they dance

Direct YouTube links: spew, dance.

Dinosaurs in the Civil War

photo by Robert Kimberly

Dinosaur Kingdom
It’s 1863 and Union soldiers have discovered a hidden valley filled with dinosaurs. Now the Yankees plan to use the dinos as weapons of mass destruction against the South.

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Kunst-Formen der Natur by Ernst Haeckl

All 400 pages on Flickr, or download a 260 MB PDF from here.

How to do open brain surgery without impairing the patient’s banjo-playing abilities.

“Banjo Used in Brain Surgery” per the BBC.

“If you had six legs, where would your ass be?”

Nick Park and Creature Comforts weigh in on the origin of life.

Direct YT link
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Extant Anomolacaris look-alike.

Image links to plate in a Flickr stream, but check out the Bibliodyssey post.

Water bears: even more badass than you thought.

They were sent into space and exposed to the cold, the vacuum, the unfiltered cosmic and solar radiations, and they not only survived but upon return reproduced at the same rate as a control group.

Primary source, probably behind a paywall.

Wired’s article.

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