Category: My Personal Life

Thunder Thighs

Perusing the BBC today, the headline “Dinosaur had thunder thighs” leapt off the page and made me laugh, so I couldn’t help but share it here. Coming from a background where I was in a sorority as an undergraduate, I can assure you that when someone dropped the term “thunder thighs” they were not talking about dinosaur muscles. But this is a case of scientists having a sense of humor, using the term to name a new dinosaur species.

The species is a sauropod, a type of dinosaur characterized by their long necks and tails. According to the researchers, the fossilized hip bone is larger than the hips in other similar species. This along with the unique shape of the hip socket which shows a large space for muscles to connect, led the researchers to conclude that B. mcintoshi would have had powerful legs capable of delivering strong kicks.
A representation of some long necked sauropods.
Source: Wikimedia Commons

The dinosaur species is technically called Brontomerus mcintoshi from the Greek bronto for thunder and meros for thigh. Leading to the common name, thunder thighs. The researchers from University College London who discovered the significance of the fossilized remains (which are fragmentary, but enough to draw conclusions) named the species the way they did because it would have had extremely powerful and muscular legs.

The fossils date back to the Early Cretaceous Period, and are estimated at 110 million years old. The finds were uncovered in the Hotel Mesa Quarry in Grand County, Utah. The site is known to have been scoured by fossil hunters, leaving researchers to speculate whether other interesting finds (like thunder thighs) may have been carried off to private collections.

I like the BBC’s coverage of this scientific find so much, because they had fun with the name of the species, but not so much as to dilute the importance of the find. The article is detailed and (I think) does a good job of explaining what is significant about the species and the location where it was uncovered. If nothing else, the title alone is clearly a success because it got me to read the entire article.

It is important to note that the bones were discovered in the 1990’s and stored at the Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, but the significance of the hip bone wasn’t discovered until Dr. Mike Taylor from University College London evaluated them in 2007. Results of this study were published recently in the journal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica.

The Results Are In

Well my first semester of Grad School is officially closed. Grades came out today, and for the first time in my 17 years of schooling, I managed to pull off a 4.0!

When my Dad retired he went back to school to get his Master’s degree and he graduated with a 4.0, so I made a bet with him that I could pull off grades like that too.

I’m glad I didn’t fail at our bet in my first semester, that would have been a disappointment. I still have three to go, but at least I’m starting off in great shape to have a GPA I can be proud of. Now I can turn my attention to getting ready for school to start again in mid-January.

Woodpeckers From Space

The article Space Laser Spies for Woodpeckers by Jonathan Amos for the BBC caught my eye today due to the way that I woke up this morning. I’m home in New Jersey for the holidays, and the back side of my parents house is wood so we’ve had a few woodpeckers stop by in the past.

Source: New Jersey Birds.com

This morning I fell out of bed, startled by what sounded like an attack from robotic woodpeckers. I stumbled out into the hall, only to figure out in my half-asleep state that the noise was radiating from the inside of the house, from the plumbing. Following the noise, I found my Mom in the basement doing laundry. Apparently the noise the sink next to the washer makes is very similar to a robotic woodpecker attack. I know you all appreciated that little anecdote, but now on to the scientific side of woodpeckers.

Researchers at the University of Idaho are developing lasers that can be attached to satellites to woodpeckers in the state to determine which parts of the forests they favor. The researchers hope the satellite guided lasers will be a better way to track the woodpecker, which is an indicator species. Being an indicator species means that if the woodpecker is healthy and thriving in different parts of the forest, then it is likely that the forest itself is healthy and doing well.

If the laser-satellites prove to be a successful way of surveying for a species, it could eliminate more labor-intensive and costly means of surveying like sending people into the forest on foot to assess the environment’s health. This is an instance where I have to say, even though we still don’t have flying cars, we are definitely living in the future.

Advantages to Being on the Left

As a left handed person I found this article: ‘Left handed’ coiling snails survive more snake attacks by the BBC’s Victoria Gill, pretty interesting. I love hearing stories of left handed superiority. According to this article, a certain species of snail that has shells that coil either clockwise or counterclockwise is experiencing natural selection due to their shell orientation.

Due to the way snakes suck a snail out of its shell, and the way snakes jaws are formed, only snails that have shells that coil to the right are susceptible to predation. Snakes just can’t suck a snail out of a shell that coils to the left. Ha! Left handed dominance! According to researchers, the snails are starting to branch off into their own species, because eliminating the threat from snakes has been really beneficial for their population.

I’d also like to take a moment to point out that the idea that left handed people are sadistic is a myth. The word sinistrality is used to refer to left handed people because it is derived from the Latin word sinestra which means left handedness. Nothing to do with demons, sorry.

I take pride in being left handed but it can be a pain at times (like when I was learning how to write). Apparently left handed people have a shorter life span than right handed people based on accidents caused by using tools, and equipment designed for right handed people. I guess I better watch out.

But I do have good company in my left handed ways: Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton (the likable Presidents!) Joan of Arc, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Paul McCartney, Charlie Chaplin, Robert DeNiro, Cary Grant, and Marilyn Monroe (lots of others too I just found these the most interesting.)

Book Review: War

Last week I read Sebastian Junger’s War. I think that because of my close proximity to September 11th, I feel pretty strongly about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, yet reading this book made me feel like I don’t actually know a damn thing about them. Even from Junger’s point of view as an embedded journalist, I feel like I learned a lot about the war.

warWhen I was at Lehigh I met a veteran named Matt that I though was amazing for his willingness to talk candidly about his tours in Iraq. He was from New York and joined after September 11th, he told me he joined because you can’t let something like that happen in your backyard, you have to stand up and fight back. Talking to him was my first real glimpse of what war is like.

We talked about what it was like to go from being in a war zone to suddenly being transplanted onto a college campus, especially one like Lehigh. In the land of polo shirts and flip flops all of his tattoos and his combat boots certainly didn’t fit in. He got called back to Iraq in 2009, and I graduated and left Lehigh so I’ve lost track of him since, but I still really appreciate everything he was willing to share with me about his experience.

My memories of talking to Matt definitely shaped the way I viewed Junger’s reporting. From what I already knew about what Matt said being in the Army was like, I have to say I think that Junger did a great job of accurately relaying what he saw and experienced. I don’t doubt what Junger says happened during his visits to Afghanistan, he was able to paint scenes in a way that conveyed not only the action, but the emotion (or lack there of) of each situation.

War is a good read, and I recommend it for anyone who wants to get a glimpse of what Afghanistan is actually like. But, I also recommend talking to veterans themselves, no one else can tell their stories the way they can, not even Sebastian Junger.

Also for anyone interested, Junger did make a documentary about the unit that he embedded with (the same one in the book) called Restrepo. It won the 2010 Grand Jury prize for best documentary at the Sundance Film Festival.