The Coolest Pair of Socks Ever

Really, check them out.
I showed them to Mrs. Afarensis – hoping I could finagle a pair – at which point she sighed and said “you are such a geek” with a heavy emphasis on the word geek. I’m not sure if that means I can order them or not. I hate ambiguity…

Whale Fossil Damaged: An Update

In reading the coverage given to the recent damage done to the whale fossil in Wadi Hitan several things stand out. First, coverage in the mainstream media was negligible to non existent. Second, even in coverage outside the US nobody seemed much interested in asking members of the paleontological community for comments.

Mass Grave of Plague Victims Found

National Geographic Has an interesting story about the discovery of a large number of mass graves. The graves were found in Venice on the island of Lazzaretto Vecchi and belong to several centuries worth of plague victims.

Chororapithecus Round Up For Those Who Speak Spanish

For those who speak Spanish El PaleoFreak has a roundup and commentary on Chororapithecus.

Four Stone Hearth Is Up!

Four Stone Hearth hot from the intranets is now available at Hominin Dental Anthropology. Check it out!

UD Says “You Don’t Actually Expect Us To Read Science Articles?”

Seriously when a commenter asked:

I’m still new here, but I can’t help but ask…do people actually read the articles before declaring they falsify evolution?

Dine and Chaco Canyon

Apropos of the fact that I just finished reading David Hurst Thomas’ book Skull Wars: Kennewick Man, Archaeology, and the Battle for Native American Identity – an interesting read, I highly recommend it – I thought I would pass on links to two articles in the Farmington Daily News.

Noooooooooo!

What incompetent hack thought that up? Remaking, beg pardon re-imagining, The Day the Earth Stood Still is, to say the least, one of the stupidest ideas I have ever heard. I don’t think I’ll be seeing it – even when released on DVD. You have to draw the line somewhere.

The Greek Fires Seen From Satellite

Chuck Jones, of the Carl & Elisabeth Blegen Library of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, left a link to a picture of the fires in Greece seen, I assume, via satellite. Astonishing.

How Much Earth Could an Earthworm Move, If an Earthworm Could Move Earth?

It’s a profoundly interesting question and Charles Darwin experimented to find the answer. I bet you all thought I had forgotten about my series on Darwin’s experiments! Darwin came up with a couple of different methods for answering the question. This is one (In this one Darwin also notices a phenomena familiar to archaeologists – but you will have to figure that one out on your own):