a poetry reading by:
the dust dances tooi’m intoxicated by the way you drink
up the sun, with your lips, and tongue
and open palms,
the warm air fills up our lungs
and i long so much
to touch all of the places
that light drips from your skin.
“OOH LOOK, DEY DRAWIN’”
“Is this for an assignment or something?”
“Are you guys students?”
“Damn, you draw the SHIT out some bears.”
I laugh, but I’m actually pleasantly surprised that the public at large responds really positively when they see you sketching. As if it is something laudable; worthwhile even.
The pig-nosed turtle was my favorite by far. Also, dat Memphis heat is here. I need to hydrate better next time.
M101
Only one thing prevents spiral galaxy M101 in the constellation Ursa Major the Great Bear from making every observer’s top ten list — its surface brightness. Covering slightly more area than the Full Moon, M101’s light spreads out so much that only large amateur telescopes (those 12 inches and larger in aperture) do it justice. M101 still represents one of the sky’s “grand design” spiral galaxies — one with prominent and clearly defined spiral arms. Usually, the arms mostly or completely surround such galaxies. Only about 10 percent of all spiral galaxies fall into the grand design category. (12.5-inch Optical Guidance Systems Ritchey-Chrétien telescope, SBIG ST-11000 CCD camera, LRGB image with exposures of 315, 55, 55, and 55 minutes, respectively)
The Loneliest Whale in the World.In 2004, The New York Times wrote an article about the loneliest whale in the world. Scientists have been tracking her since 1992 and they discovered the problem:
She isn’t like any other baleen whale. Unlike all other whales, she doesn’t have friends. She doesn’t have a family. She doesn’t belong to any tribe, pack or gang. She doesn’t have a lover. She never had one. Her songs come in groups of two to six calls, lasting for five to six seconds each. But her voice is unlike any other baleen whale. It is unique—while the rest of her kind communicate between 12 and 25hz, she sings at 52hz. You see, that’s precisely the problem. No other whales can hear her. Every one of her desperate calls to communicate remains unanswered. Each cry ignored. And, with every lonely song, she becomes sadder and more frustrated, her notes going deeper in despair as the years go by.
What’s in your Easter Egg? A… dinosaur?!
Every kid knows how Easter eggs wind up in their yard. According to the canonical weirdness that is the holiday tradition, the Easter bunny delivers the colorful eggs overnight. But the origin of the eggs themselves is hardly ever mentioned. According to a well-timed press release from the University of Leicester, non-avian dinosaurs are the best candidates for some of the candy eggs hidden away on lawns.
There is some real science behind the silliness. In the latest issue of Palaeontology, researchers Nieves López-Martínez and Enric Vicens described a new type of dinosaur egg discovered in the Cretaceous strata of northeastern Spain. The roughly 70-million-year-old eggs, given the name Sankofa pyrenaica to distinguish them from other egg forms previously found, exhibited a strange combination of features.
The profile of the newly described egg type is most similar to that of archaic birds. But, according to López-Martínez and Vicens, the microscopic structure of the Sankofa eggs shares more in common with those laid by non-avian dinosaurs such as Troodon than with birds. The Sankofa eggs exhibit a mix of characteristics seen in both non-avian dinosaurs and archaic birds. Without fossils of the chicks developing inside the eggs, or even associated bones of adult animals, exactly what sort of creature laid this egg is ambiguous.
Well, guys, if you find a baby theropod running around your living room the morning you wake up to open your easter basket, let me know, because I’ll gladly take it off your hands!
