"Smelling isn't everything" said the Elephant. "Why," said the Bulldog, "if a fellow can't trust his nose, what is he to trust?" "Well, his brains perhaps," she replied mildly.” (C.S. Lewis)
So if you ever go to Morocco and have any interest in fossils you have to go to the Museum on the southern end of Erfoud and visit their Prep Lab. The quality of work coming from this small museum is some of the best in the world.Addendum: Note these comments from reader BJN:
Pictured here (in order of appearance):
1. Very large Crinoid plate, these are generally preped with an acid splash and then cleaned up a bi afterwards as seen here.
2. A smaller plaque but just as noteworthy; this is a new species of Crinoid and is being preped by having a black filler spread over the specimento make it stand out from the matrix a bit more and when it dries they remove the excess. This is to ensure the fossil doesnt fall apart.
3. A large trilobite plaque featuring several species of animals. First you notice the huge ammounts of Selenopeltis bucci, secondly there are two species of starfish pictures, and finally there are various other species of trilobites present-Asaphus, Onnia, and Bomstrella.
That's not a prep lab, that's a production floor for industrial fossil processing. The use of "bondo" is not really legitimate fossil prepping. It makes marginal, scrappy material look better on display in someone's office or home. The worst of what you get out of Morocco is "bondo bugs", typically trilobites that are mostly colored polymer clay cast onto a substrate of rock. There may be some actual fossil, or sometimes nothing at all. The rock is worked with air scribes to make it look like the specimen was prepared by hand. If bondo bugs are sold as reproductions, that's fine, but many dealers sell them as the real thing and much higher prices.
Horsetail Fall is a small, ephemeral waterfall that flows over the eastern edge of El Capitan in Yosemite Valley. For two weeks in February, the setting sun striking the waterfall creates a deep orange glow that resembles Yosemite's historic "Firefall."Via BoingBoing.
Jaroslav Červený has found that when red foxes pounce, they mostly jump in a north-easterly direction. He thinks that they’re using the Earth’s magnetic field to hunt.This totally fascinating ability is discussed in more detail at the link, and illustrated here -
Červený spent over two years studying wild red foxes in the Czech Republic, with the help of a 23-strong team of wildlife biologists and experienced hunters. The team recorded almost 600 mousing jumps, performed by 84 foxes at a wide variety of locations and times.
They found that foxes strongly prefer to jump in a north-easterly direction, around 20 degrees off from magnetic north. This fixed heading was important for their success as hunters. They were more likely to make a kill if they jumped along their preferred axis, particularly if their prey was hidden by high cover or snow. If they pounced to the north-east, they killed on 73% of their attacks; if they jumped in the opposite direction, they success rate stayed at 60%. In all other directions, only 18% of their pounces were successful...
Červený suggests that a red fox could use the Earth’s magnetic field as a “rangefinder”, to estimate the distance to its prey and make a more accurate pounce. This targeting system works because the Earth’s magnetic field tilts downward in the northern hemisphere, at an angle of 60-70 degrees below the horizontal. As the fox creeps forward, it listens for the sound of a mouse. It’s searching for that sweet spot where the angle of the sound hitting its ears matches the slope of the Earth’s magnetic field. At that spot, the fox knows that it’s a fixed distance away from its prey, and it knows exactly how far to jump to land upon it...
The images above illustrate the results of an unusual artistic collaboration between the French artist Hubert Duprat and a group of caddis fly larvae. A small winged insect belonging to the order Trichoptera and closely related to the butterfly, caddis flies live near streams and ponds and produce aquatic larvae that protect their developing bodies by manufacturing sheaths, or cases, spun from silk and incorporating substances—grains of sand, particles of mineral or plant material, bits of fish bone or crustacean shell—readily available in their benthic ecosystem...Nature of Neptune posted this video of the process in 2008:
After collecting the larvae from their normal environments, he relocates them to his studio where he gently removes their own natural cases and then places them in aquaria that he fills with alternative materials from which they can begin to recreate their protective sheaths. He began with only gold spangles but has since also added the kinds of semi-precious and precious stones (including turquoise, opals, lapis lazuli and coral, as well as pearls, rubies, sapphires, and diamonds) seen here...
"Goldman described the sandfishA cylinder pulled through sand generated lift, but the lizard's head generated "negative lift," keeping it submerged.as a little lizard that lives in the desert in North Africa. When startled, it can burrow 10 cm beneath the surface in less than half a second. Its wedge-shaped head, which biologists believe gives the critter its lightning-quick burrowing ability, was the project's inspiration..."
"On an earlier research project, Goldman's CRAB Lab used high-speed x-ray imaging to observe the lizard's movement when submerged. They found that it doesn't use its legs when swimming through sand, instead tucking them by its side and slithering like a snake."Additional information at Physics Buzz.
