As HR Hadden says in Contact: “Why build one when you can have two at twice the price?” 

Folks might not realize that modern crocs are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to total croc diversity. The whole group (Pseudosuchia or Crurotarsi) goes back to the Triassic period and is a sister group to the dinosaur lineage (Ornithodira). There were little armored-plated herbivores, crocs with mammalian…

I genuinely cannot imagine what it will take to get the general public to give one flying shit about COVID again. No treatments or cures are suddenly available. The virus didnt go anywhere. Absolutely nothing has changed, and yet states are opening up and all kinds of people are making up their own reasons why not to…

Want to get in before the “because we’re testing more!” trolls start. Yes, we’re testing more. Yes, there are more positive tests. But that is still bad! When we test more and the cases DECREASE, then we are making progress. Testing more isn’t a valid argument in this case. 

That Borealopelta specimen really is a game-changer. I was lucky enough to see it in person a the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Natural History in Drumheller a couple years ago. As stunning as it is in photos, it’s absolutely jaw-dropping IRL.

Were you there? Then how do you know it’s not 100% real.../s

Can someone draw me a picture of what’s going on here?

No kidding, it’s really nice to have a not-terrifying story on this goddamned disease.
On a side note, the scientist’s name being Oh Myoung-don also made it look like the last two paragraphs of the story was written like a five year old was telling it and adding forgotten details.

Nobody seems to know, in a lot of cases. Ichthyosaurs have definitely been shown to be viviparous. Apparently plesiosaurs have recently been shown to be viviparous as well, my what a surprise, I seem to have missed that at the time. As for mosasaurs, well, maybe, although they’re allied to the varanid lizards and none…

That’s kind of you, thank you.

COTD (Comment of the day). Excellent, thank you. 

Underwater archaeology has taken off since the advent of scuba technology and particularly since the coming of the submersible robots. But that’s mostly dealing with material that’s in surficial, unconsolidated sediments. Actually finding Cretaceous or older deposits underwater is complicated by the thick layers of…

Two studies looking for antibodies, one from Stanford and one from USC are finding ~50X more folks have been infected than confirmed cases. If true, the good news is that it’s not nearly as deadly as thought, more like 0.2 to 0.5%. Still considerably worse than the flu. But, it also means it has spread much faster and…

They already made LadyHawke a long time ago.

Time for a Ladyhawke shout out. Good girl

Getting Musk off this planet hardly classifies as non-essential. 

I love how the cat lets gravity do all the work.

The cat food industry is a bizarre and inhuman machine... They’ll make food from anything...