A quick place to find me and what's going on is to find me on FAcebook! I'm on it more than not...
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?ref=profile&id=1203979725
And, now, the pot-bellied Nothronychus is in the news as a complete fossil.
Pretty cool, that they finally found the complete skeleton.
These dinosaurs have been the weirdest things on everybody's mind.
We were able to complete the designs from several specimens, and now we have a complete one.
Weirdly, the most wonderful dream of power is that the creature was found in America, not in China.
It was first described in China, along with so many dinosaurs found there, it's nice to know that
we still have some cool discoveries to be made.
Also, it was found in southern Utah, in the early Cretaceous.
That's also unusual. Not the standard Colorado, Wyoming, or South Dakota.
Discoveries are made all the time. Let's keep it up.
http://www.livescience.com/animals/090714-clawed-dinosaur.html
Wendy wore a beautiful dino-tee shirt I designed and painted. This shirt was of a purple Brontosaurus.
Now Brontosaurus is a bit of a misnomer, since, the first name
given to the animal was Apatosaurus, named after some vertebrae, I believe.
Anyway, Brontosaurus became more popular, since the
full skeleton was in the Smithsonian. It got in all the textbooks,
dinosaur books for kids, and Apatosaur was just a minor player.
Later, they found out that the vertebrae of Apatosaur were actually the same as
Brontosaurus. Apatosaurus was described and named first. What can you do. To add insult to injury,
the skull on the Smithsonian skeleton of Brontosaurus, which was found near the body,
turned out to be from a different dinosaur, another long-neck, Camarasaurus.
So, now Apatosaurus- "deceptive lizard"- is the more significant scientific name,
but still Brontosaurus is the cooler name - "thiunder lizard.".
There is an article in Science News about Edmontosaurus.
The tooth dentition seems to indicate that it ate ground plants like grasses.
Well, there weren't grasses as we know them during that time.
Nevertheless, it was ground plants like ferns, not tree leaves.
That's a big distinction,
We paleontologists could already see indications of that with the revised posture
of the hadrosaurs. In the past the first researchers had these duck-billed dinos
walking like humans in a landscape of strange beasts.
But to get the dinosaur skeletons to stand that way, the preparers had to break the tail bones. That's where paleontology and physics clashed.
Now, we understand that these duck-bills were more quadrapedal than bipedal, though they could certainly do both. As quadropeds, the heads of these dinosaurs would be closer to the ground, not up in the trees, or heaven-forbid, eating duckweed in a swamp!
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/45126/title/Flexible_molars_made_chewing_champions_out_of_duck-billed_dinosaurs__
A new dinosaur called Limusaurus has been discovered in China, from the Jurassic period.
It has hands that are very similar to the structure of birds' hands.
The similarity is that bird's wings are made of the second and third finger of the hand.
This dinosaur has diminished front claws where the second and third finger are dominant.
Paleontologists are touting this as more definitive proof of the relationship to birds and dinosaurs.
All this is well, great, and it's kind-of beside the point.
Birds were well established by the late Jurassic, with Archaeopteryx.
All this change must have happened in the early Jurassic and even in the Triassic.
What's great about the Triassic is that we have all of the definitive forms of dinosaurs, pterosaurs,
ichthyosaurs, and others, so why not look for birds there as well?
If we only find dinosaurs, then perhaps birds are a Jurassic dawning. That's cool, too...
In four days, The Venice Eco-Fest is going to have a great time with me.
"Ron Schmidtling plays with Rexy the T-rex and it really goes to town on little kids.
We have a great time, and nobody gets eaten."
I play at 3 pm, in the children's area, which is next to the children's playground at Venice Beach.
It should be easy to find. We'll see. I hope they have parking for me.
It will be a great day all day, since so many eco-friendly projects will be there.
I am happy to support and promote International Humanities Center.
This is going to be fun fun fun.
i will play Canalization for the first time, and also show the 4Rs song.
And please visit the 4Rs booth - kids learn reusing paper with origami.
There I was, all working on making a new revision for the Dinosounds book, so I
listened to it once again and realized a weird thing.
In "Aborigines in the Pleistocene", and in "Anomalocaris", I rag on Crock Hunter.
I do Steve Irwin impressions, and not that good.
I'm not sure I want to put this out again, now after his death.
It really kind-of makes fun of him.
Not really what I want to be known for, and it was only timely back in the day.
Now what? That's four songs that I can't put in to the new version for little kids.
May as well do an entire new book...
Hey, how about Eco-Saurus? Duh!
More bizarre is the fact that finally the government is acknowledging Global Climate Change.A new map of Louisiana shows what we can expect as water temperatures rise.It's pretty interesting if you're in Baton Rouge - soon you'll be on the beach!Buy that property now, and in 50 years (or sooner) you'll be enjoying the Coast.And that's how I roll. Be grateful for everything, and we can overcome this change.These changes are happening whether we like it or not.The question is, will people change? We're in this situation because, on the whole, we aren't as awake as we need to be.And when the rocks and trees cry out (like now), it's time to wake up.
A friend of mine from Long Beach, Mississippi, asked me about a term I used in a description of photos from my local field trips. I used the term "Antidiluvean".
It means "before the flood", referring to Noah's flood.
Now, most scholars consider this to be Pleistocene age, or older- Mammoths, mastodons, sabre-tooth cats.
I like the term. It's now used when talking about anceint Mu or Atlantis-
Those bad people that got wiped out by God, because they developed their civilization recklessly.
Anyway, the end of the Pleistocene was horrific, with disastrous floods all over the place, rising sea levels, and entire cities swamped. Why? Because the ice sheets in Canada and elsewhere melted.
That's a fact. And, it's a moral lesson we need to heed.
If the icecaps melt any more, the oceans could rise up to 300 feet.
No more coastal towns. Millions of buildings destroyed. Souls lost to the waves.
All Christians should be rampant environmentalists.
Dinosaurs are really great beings that have power.Dinosaur puppets also have a power. The design is really sensitive when considering the eyes.I have a dinosaur puppet named "rexy". Every cute dinosaur is named "rexy".At least mine is a t-rex. Anyway, its eyes are small black dots, kind-of neutral like the Simpsons' eyes.He can be all kinds of things due to how I make him interact- the neutral eyes allow a wide variety of emotions.There is anoter dinosaur that someone offered to me to use, but the eyes are big and "cute". Like Mickey Mouse.I finally realized what voice he could have- with big cute goofy eyes, he reminds me of Tommy Chong.That's the voice I'll use. "Wow, dude, everything's cool. Chill out!"
I really struggled against doing a concert at the Venice Eco-Fest on June 27th, 2009.
There was this wedding for my bass player and fellow scinetist at the Getty Museum.
Emily and I are playing classical music for the wedding. It's the same day.
Now, I practice guitar almost every day, generally folk stuff or rock stuff.
Classical is a whole nuther creature! It's hard! I really have to practice every day!
The wedding is in the morning. I wrangled with the God of Time, and he said- Go!
So, It's a whirlwind tour. Classical in the morning, a quick toast to the new couple,
Then off to the Venice Eco-Fest to the kids at the playground on the beach.
The organizers have a big stage just for me, with great sound, and I'll be there.
Will you? I hope so!
The real reason a guy does blogs is to score.Why else do it? It's all about rock and roll girls, and girls like dinosaurs...don't they?Have dudes been mistaken? Oh, wow, girls aren't after dinosaurs, they like diamonds!That's a different "D" word. Wait a minute. Where do dinosaurs and diamonds come together? In the ground!
In Arkansas, there is a diamond mine, and north of that is a blastoid locality.That's a pretty cool coincidence. Do girls like blastoids? Kinda'...Well, it's all digging in the ground. Score, right? However, I saw the dudes that dig in those mines. They ain't pretty. It's the guys that cut the stone, and then show it to the girls that score. Whatever-Wrap a blastoid in diamonds- spiffy, sparkly, shiney!
When dinosaurs are shown as bird-like, the creators can go too far. I would never make a dinosaur look too much like a peacock. That's pure speculation.Sometimes, we all need to get some perspective in the process.No one can say how a dinosaur re-acted to a situation, so what can we say?There are tracks and traces dinosaurs, so we can observe the record of theiractions in stone and that is the most we can say for real. There are running tracks, walking, and...A recent discovery in southern Utah revealed the resting trace of a theropod-a meat-eating dinosaur. What was cool was we could finally see how the creature held its arms.Mainly paleontologists had thought that a theropod could hold its hands like grasping rotating hands.In the stone preserved was the imprints of a Dilophosaur-type theropod, andit held its front claws perpendicular to the ground, facing inwardlike in clapping position. That's real evidence to show how dinosaurs held their front claws, so now, when artists do their reconstructions, they can take this into account. Artists like me...here's the link:
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/41389/title/Dinosaur_handprints_reveal_birdlike_arm_anatomy
It is fascinating that so many people are into the new discovery from Messel, Germany. The fingernails are a wonderful distinguishing feature for the creature. I had no idea that lemurs had claws. This is interesting that we have a separation between lemurs and apes in the Eocene. There are actual ape fossils from North America in the Eocene, though they are mainly in the form of isolated teeth. I have never found one, though. They are practically considered micro-fossils.
What I love is that it brings the fossil community into the public eye. Evolution mechanisms are still a mystery, though we are learning more and more each day.
I'm not sure dinosaurs and lemurs lived together in a true sense of the word...
New fossil trips on the horizon are in the works. Stay tuned!
I have been encouraged to make my hand-painted dinosaur shirts available in girls' sizes, and the Venice Eco-Fest was a perfect opportunity to do so. Wow, they were very popular, and I will continue to make them. If you want one, please e-mail me. Friends from the Center for Spiritual Development booth had fun modelling the shirts.
Jimmyo and I worked on this card. Classic. It's perhaps our first artistic collaboration. We went to USM art school together, and one of my fondest memories is arguing how to clean a rapidograph pen. Yeah, We had it going on. The first 4 songs Anvil played together was: "Rock n Roll All Nite" - Kiss, "Come Together" - Aerosmith/Beatles, "Brown Sugar" - Rolling Stones, and "Godzilla" - Blue Oyster Cult
I recorded these songs last year as a tribute to the writer and co-founder (along with Jimmy Burril) of Next Window, Brian Huddell. It's great to work on music by a powerful writer, and I'm glad he liked them enough to post them.
Weirdly enough, we called ourselves "Anvil" until we found the other band had put out an album.