Stars and Dinosaurs

So I have this habit of asking everybody I come across to tell me their favorite dinosaur. I’ve even gotten a couple of famous folks to answer me.

I figured I’d do a post that I’ll keep updating whenever I get a new response.

Here’s what I have so far:

Michael Rooker (Actor, replied during a phone interview): “Megalodon’s a good one. That’s always very impressive. When you go to the science museum and you walk through that huge mouth. It’s impressive.” (Megalodon actually popped up after the dinosaurs – from 28 million to 1.5 million years ago – but sharks have been around for 450 million years so I’m gonna let him run with it. He also told me he’s fond of giant sloths and saber tooth tigers, which lived 33 million to 9,000 years ago.)

Megalodon

Megalodon jaw

Michael Rooker as Merle Dixon on The Walking Dead

C. Thomas Howell (Actor, replied on Twitter): “I’m going with the Pteranodon to answer your question! ;)”

Pteranodon

C. Thomas Howell

Thomas Gibson (Actor, replied on Twitter):  “It would be a toss up between the adorable Micropachycephalosaurus, or, of course, the Bambiraptor…not kidding!”

Micropachycephalosaurus

Bambiraptor

Thomas Gibson

Joe Mantegna (Actor, replied in a Criminal Minds chat): “David Rossi….T Rex….what else!”

T. rex

Joe Mantegna

Jason O’Mara (Actor, replied on Twitter): “That was a ‘Nykoaptor’ My fave : ) RT @explodingegg:@jason_omara You gonna make good on telling us what your favorite dinosaur is tonight?” (Nykoraptor actually isn’t a real dinosaur. It’s a created dino on the show Terra Nova)

Nykoraptor

Jason O’Mara

Mercedes Rose (Actor, replied in person while filming Black Eyed Kids film): “Is velociraptor really one? Those would be my favorites because they’re really scary.”

Velociraptor

Mercedes Rose

Haunted Sunshine Girl (real name withheld due to stalker issues) (Actor, replied in person while filming Black Eyed Kids film): “What are those ones with the armored heads and that shovel tail? I think they’re really cool. Their heads are really square looking.” (I’m thinking she means Euoplocephus)

Euoplocephus

Haunted Sunshine Girl

Lou Diamond Phillips (Actor, replied on Twitter): “I’m gonna go with Triceratops.”

Triceratops

Lou Diamond Phillips

Michael Cudlitz (Actor, replied on Twitter): “GINKO. (tree)” (technically not a dinosaur, but I’m gonna let him run with it.)

Ginkgo, a tree that’s been around since at least the Permian, 270 million years ago

Michael Cudlitz

Brian Dietzen (Actor, replied on Twitter): “I’m gonna go with my son’s favorite, T-Rex, and my favorite, plesiosaur. (Love the Loch Ness Monster!)”

T. rex

Plesiosaur

Brian Dietzen

Darren Dalton (Actor, replied on Twitter): “I’d have to go with the Postosuchus. Badass of his time! Bring it on, T-Rex!!!”

Postosuchus

Darren Dalton

Rick Dunkle (Writer, replied on Twitter): “Brontosaurus!”

Brontosaurus

Rick Dunkle

Ed Asner (Actor, replied on in a phone interview with me): “How can you resist Tyrannosaurus Rex? I’m also intrigued by Triceratops. I’d like to see how he’d (T. rex would) survive (trying to eat) a triceratops. They have a lot of plating.”

T. Rex

Triceratops

Ed Asner

Mikhael Ricks (NFL Tight End/Wide Receiver 1998-2004, replied on Twitter to a request by my friend @LouisahT): “Stegosaurus.”

Stegosaurus

Mikhael Ricks

Dayne Johnson (Makeup Artist, Makeup Department Head, Criminal Minds): “Since joe has the T rex, ill go with my second favorite.. Triceratops.”

Triceratops

Dayne Johnson

Tom Arnold (Actor, comedian, replied on Twitter): “T-Rex because they found true happiness in their 4th marriages.”

T. rex

Tom Arnold

Looks like there’s more cool dinosaur information on this Tumblr, but I can’t vouch for whether the answers are real or not: http://whatsyourfavoritedinosaur.tumblr.com/

If you ever wondered if I was certifiably insane…

Here is some proof that I am. Today, in honor of Thomas Gibson responding to me on Twitter, I have sacrificed six eggs. Check out the full goofy effect here – and check the last few seconds for a laugh:

The aftermath is here:

Chief Straus and the unsubs

The Fox, The Reaper and the other unsubs

Science: It’s a Dinosaur!

Thanks to my friend Amedeo over at Flying Flashlight, who just sent me a link, I got to meet a new dinosaur this morning called Medusaceratops lokii.

And as anybody who’s known me for more than about five minutes could tell you, I’m always up for meeting a new dino.

If there were a football team back in the late Cretaceous period, about 145 million to 65 million years ago, made up of this guy and his fellow Ceratopsidae dinos (such as his cousin, the more well-known Triceratops) this guy would almost certainly have been a fullback. He’s got one heck of a helmet — complete with three-foot-long bones over his eyes — to protect that noggin of his.

You could bounce a boulder off this guy's head and barely make a scratch (Art of Medusaceratops © Donna Sloan)

Can’t you just imagine them calling out plays?

OK Medusacera, you grab the ball and go left. I'll stick my horn through the safety... (Image from the Chicago Academy of Sciences)

Actually, though, the big stocky dino lived 78 million years ago, about 10 million years before his Triceratops cousins popped up on the scene. But a gal can dream, can’t she?

Medusaceratops, who gets New Age cred for being a vegetarian, was discovered in Central Montana and recently classified as a new dinosaur type by Michael J. Ryan, Ph.D., a scientist at The Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

Ryan named him after Loki, the Norse god of mischief, because he was a bit confused at first as to what sort of dinosaur he had, according to this story at PhysOrg.com: Scientists announce new horned dinosaur

One of the confusing things about Medusaceratops was also something that made him quite hunky with the ladies (uh, unless he was a lady). He had a lot of extra ornamentation and frills — such as you can see in this artist’s depiction. That ornamentation was a sort of prehistoric “bling” to impress the opposite sex, Ryan told PhysOrg.com.

Just check out this sexy guy (art of Medusaceratops © Luis Rey)

Welcome to the family, Medusaceratops! And congratulations on your find, Ryan!

Cheers,
-SueVo

Musings: Share a Little Air With History

You might have heard the myth that we’ve all shared the same molecules of air with each other and with prominent figures in history — like Gandhi, Lincoln, Genghis Khan or Richard Simmons.

Well, as luck would have it, the myth is true.

It's highly likely that you have about 227 air molecules from this guy in your lungs right now.

Going with my trend of using the Internet to follow up on every idiotic thought that comes to mind, I just came across an uber-nerdy explanation of why the breath theory is true — so I thought I’d pass it on.

It’s here on Newsvine.com:

The Odds That You’ll Breathe a Single Molecule of Air That Once Traveled Through the Lungs of Jesus.

The author calculates how many air molecules we have in our lungs, compares them with the number of air molecules out there in the atmosphere and takes into account atmospheric mixing — bringing us to the reason why we’re all breathing the same air as Richard Simmons.

Let’s try to simplify it even more:

Each breath we take is about 6 liters of air, which contains about 16,100,000,000,000,000,000,000 molecules of gas (that’s 161 sextillion for those of you playing at home).

The story looks at Jesus, who was about 32 when he died. And in that period of time, it estimates that he inhaled about 32,500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 molecules of air (or 325 decillion)

Overall, there are about 112,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 molecules of gas in our atmosphere (or 11.2 quattuordecillion particles).

Those molecules get mixed up every year, through wind, chemical interactions, the frequency of airplane flights, etc.

So what are the odds that you’re sharing the air molecules of Richard Simmons — or somebody hunkier like Thomas Gibson or Jeremy Northam — right now?

Chances are good that you're sharing air with this guy

You're also probably sharing air with these two

Doing the math, the writer of the story found that if you divide the total number of air particles inhaled by Jesus in his lifetime by the total number of particles in the atmosphere, you get a 1 in 3,450,000,000,000 chance of any one of those particle entering your lungs at any given time.

But if that sounds like a long shot, remember that those are the odds for just one air molecule — and you have 16,100,000,000,000,000,000,000 molecules in your lungs right now.

So if you run the odds for all of the molecules in your lungs right now — it turns out that you just inhaled 4,685,100,000,000 molecules (or about 4.685 trillion) that were once within Jesus’ lungs over his lifetime.

And even if you trap 99 percent of the air molecules that Jesus or Richard Simmons has inhaled in their lifetimes — doing the math it still turns out there are at least four of those molecules in our lungs at any given time.

If you shrink it down further, it appears we each have about 227 air molecules from a single breath by Jesus or whoever.

As the author of the story says:

“The reality is that the odds of breathing a single molecule of air that once passed through the lungs of Jesus, even in a single one of your breaths, is near certainty. The odds of encountering even one of those molecules within your entire lifetime is even more certain.”

So be happy, my friends. Because in some really weird cosmic way you just made out with Rudolph Valentino, Jeremy Northam, that guy you had a crush on in high school, and well, unfortunately, with Richard Simmons.

And don’t worry, you straight guys out there — for you that means sharing air with Farrah Fawcett, or some other sexy women you like to drool over.

All you guys (well all of us, actually) are also sharing air with Farrah Fawcett

What does this mean? Nothing really. But hey, you’re the one that just made out with me — I hope you enjoyed it.

Cheers,
-SueVo

Saying Goodbye to a New Mexico Temple of Science

OK, so maybe the words ‘temple’ and ‘science’ shouldn’t go together in a headline, but of all the science institutions I’ve covered during my 14 year career as a reporter here in New Mexico, possibly the one I revere the most is the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science.

It has everything a science nerd girl could possibly want, and more — dinosaurs, space exhibits, cool rocks, a big IMAX theater, a planetarium and even a collection of fossilized dino dung, called coprolites.

One of two dinosaur sculptures that graces the front of the museum

I’ve been going to the museum ever since I was a student at the University of New Mexico. I remember getting a chuckle out of the “Evolator” — which is a pseudo-ride in the museum, an elevator that takes you through the history of geologic time.

Before leaving the Land of Enchantment, I wanted to pay a farewell visit to the museum, and say hello to one of my favorite science sources, Spencer Lucas, who’s a paleontology curator there.

Spencer Lucas in his office at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science

Some of the best adventures I had as a reporter came from Lucas’ help and input. He’s taken me to see a lot of New Mexico’s geologic treasures all over the state — and in the process has taught me a lot about them.

In my time as a reporter, we’ve visited the Prehistoric Trackways National Monument, and seen it transform from a somewhat secretive site into a now public area that is protected and known as the world’s most important research area for Permian aged animal footprints.

Through that site, you can see what animal behavior was like 300 million years ago. And that’s pretty darned cool considering there were no cameras or video recorders back then.

While visiting Lucas’ office this afternoon, he showed me a couple of his favorite fossils, including this one from Trackways that hasn’t been written up yet:

A scorpion left this impression on the sands in Southern New Mexico 280 million years ago.

The same fossil, with a finger for scale.

This scorpion fossil, which Lucas said is about 280 million years old, is cool because it shows both a track where the creature walked and an outline where it lay in the sand. If you look at the right side of the image, you can see lines where its spine dragged on the ground, and dots where its feet touched. And on the left you can see where it rested before continuing its journey.

Fossils like that are extremely rare, but abundant at Trackways, which Lucas had a hand in preserving.

Here’s another one from the site, which shows tiny jellyfish impressions in the sand:

These circular imprints are fossil jellyfish imprints.

Another one of Lucas’ favorite fossils is much younger, and bigger, than the impressions left at Trackways. Back in the archive — which has always been my favorite hidden part of the museum — he showed me a 3 million year old mastodon jaw:

Lucas holding a 3 million year old mastodon jaw

The creatures, known more for their range in South America, originally evolved in North America about 3 million years ago, Lucas said. And areas like New Mexico, Texas and California mark the northernmost part of where they lived.

“There’s some debate as to when they actually got to South America, and I’m part of that debate,” Lucas said. “Not everybody agrees. But that’s the nature of science and scientists.”

The shelves in the museum’s archives are full of these sorts of treasures. And going into the giant warehouse of fossils has always sort of felt, to me anyway, like walking into a cathedral of science. I’m awestruck by the shear amount of fossils, their size and their range through time.

Lucas in the museum arcive, looking at rows and rows of New Mexico fossils

Lucas collected many of these fossils himself. And in his 22 years at the museum he’s seen it grow immensely as a resource for geologists around the world, he said.

“Before the state of New Mexico built this museum in 1986, what was paleontology in New Mexico?” asked Lucas, who grew up in Albuquerque. “Most of it was from museums in other places. Scientists would come study the geology in New Mexico, collect samples and then take them back to museums in other states. In 22 years since I started here in 1988 we went from virtually no collection to now having over 60,000 catalogued fossils and over 100,000 in the collection.”

The scope of work covers almost every time period and includes unique finds — such as the world’s oldest mammal, the skull of a tiny mouse-like creature that lived in the Triassic period, from about 251 million years ago to 200 million years ago.

The fossil is one of Lucas’ many collected discoveries.

In 2007, when the museum was redying its Triassic Hall, Lucas — who’s always good with a sound bite — held the fossil on his fingertip and told me: “That’s our distant ancestor, many grandpas ago — the first of the begats.”

The museum now houses the largest Triassic exhibit in the Americas. And it allows visitors a rare opportunity to walk through large exhibits of the three time periods when dinosaurs existed: The Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous.

As part of the museum’s effort to increase understanding of these time periods, more recently, while I was a reporter at the Santa Fe New Mexican, Lucas took me to see the only confirmed Tyrannosaurus rex footprint in the world.

It’s safely hidden in Northern New Mexico — but what a thrill it was to look at such a rare find.

Here’s a couple videos of Lucas talking about the site that I took for the paper:

And before leaving from my last visit to the museum before heading out to Portland, I also grabbed a quick video of Lucas talking about yet another cool hidden treasure in the archive — skin impressions from a 75 million year old duck-billed dinosaur:

I’m really going to miss the museum and the access I had to the staff over the years. Budgets may be tight, and Natural History is feeling the pinch as much as anybody, but I hope people realize how important and special a place like this really is.

If you find yourself in Albuquerque, I can’t recommend enough that you pay a visit and check it out.

Farewell, my museum. And stay cool!

Cheers,
-SueVo