330 Million Year Old Amphibian Imprints Discovered

This is cool! Science Daily is reporting on the discovery of 330 million year old fossil imprints discovered in Pennsylvania. The imprints are not actually fossils in the sense of being mineralized bone, rather they seem to be natural molds of the animals in question.

Yes I’m Excited!

As Kambiz points out Bill Bass and the Body Farm debuted on Boing Boing today!

Deleting Government Emails: The Epidemic Spreads

I’m sure some of you remember all the fuss about the White House deleting emails? Apparently, the epidemic of government officials deleting their emails is spreading to the Governor of Missouri. According to a recent St. Louis Post-Dispatch article an employee of Governor Blunt’s was recently fired for sending Blunt an outline of Missouri law on the policy of Blunt and company deleting their emails:

Social Groups Stabilize Ecosystems

Not exactly novel news, but an interesting study nonetheless. There is even an application to human evolution and the extinction of the megafauna:

Know Your Primate: Quadrupeds

Like any other adaptation, locomotor adaptations are influenced by the ancestry of the species being considered. Consequently, primate species have evolved a wide number of solutions to the the same basic problem. In the case of locomotion, this has lead to a wide and varied locomotor repertoire. In previous posts I looked at how the competing demands of food and locomotion can affect the primate skeleton and discussed vertical clinging and leaping. In this post I will look at quadrupedalism.

Boston in the World Series? Release the Manatees!

Blogiversery

Laelaps post reminds me that my third blogiversery was actually on 10/3/07. I don’t know how I missed that. Hard to believe I have been blogging for three years now.

Cane Toads Get Osteoarthritis

In Bones, Bodies, and Disease Calvin Wells frequently mentions examples of pathology from the animal kingdom. For example, in discussing osteoarthritis Wells mentions that the condition has been observed in dinosaurs, Miocene gavials, crocodiles, and Pleistocene cave bears, cave hyenas, and Bos primigenius. We can now add Australian cane toads to the list.

Okay, What the He#&

First it was Science News Daily now Science Daily has joined the insanity. Probably just jealous that they are not as endearingly cute as the naked mole rat. Feh!

Know Your Primate: Nycticebus coucang

Order: Primates
Suborder: Strepsirrhini
Family: Lorisidae
Genus: Nycticebus
Species: Nycticebus coucang
Common Name: Slow Loris
Nycticebus is a genus containing two allopatric species (Nycticebus coucang and Nycticebus pygmaeus). The slow loris is native to parts of Bangladesh, Assam, Burma, Vietnam, Thailand, parts of Malay peninsula, and parts of the Philippines. They occupy primary and secondary forests, and bamboo forests.