Category: Adventuring

I was going to post a little blurb about how one result of the fact that reptiles and amphibians have been around much longer than mammals on planet Earth is how advanced many of their adaptations are. While armadillos have armor, no mammal has anything to compare to the turtle shell, a home the animal…

I overheard a woman at the museum remark to her kids upon seeing this exhibit, “Look at that. It’s a cast of a skeleton, not the real thing. And that’s a recreation. They don’t know people really looked like that. This is all just made up and these people don’t even care!” I lurked around…

This is my all-time favorite museum exhibit, and it’s only occupies one wall. This takes us from bacteria all the way up to mammals along a chain of increasing complexity. This is the most impressive display of diversity in life on planet Earth there is, and maybe my complete innability to do it justice in…

I happened to make it on opening day to this exhibit. TGAW, my wonderful adventuring partner, came along with me, pointing out all the most interesting parts of the displays I was too busy taking photos of to notice. I’d been eagerly awaiting the exhibit’s opening since I caught the following enticing glimpse of it…

When I look at the incredible wealth of biodiversity contained within just the class mammalia in its 164 million years of existence, it’s staggering what we don’t know. The immense number of species that weren’t preserved in the fossil record and stories that took place before homo sapiens arrived to witness them are fantastic example…

Something that always sorta blows my mind about human origins is that one of the ancient ancestors to all mammals was something like this: Edaphosaurus Boanerges You can view the complete flickr set here.

I’m ambivilent about the names paleontologists give to dinosaurs. Anatotitan copei sounds really impressive, until you discover it translates to “giant duck.” Corythosaurus casuarius (“Corinthian-helmet reptile”) You can check out the complete flickr set here.

Archaeopteryx lithographica Credit: Ryan Somma I’ve been trying to figure out what that ring of bones is in the eyes of bird and reptile fossils. Apparently its a sclerotic eye-ring, and there is some debate as to its function. Some argue that its primary function is in focusing the eye, which accounts for birds having…

Acanthostega gunnari We vertebrates might not be as numerous as the insect world, but our internal skeletons let us grow big enough to squish them. Fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals all owe our spinal and notochords for making us the most advanced form of life on the planet. You can check out the complete…

LED Bookmark Light For the fourth of July, I purchased 600 LEDs and 600 lithium batteries for the Port Discover Science Center to give out before the Elizabeth City fireworks display. Because I was afraid of the LED-throwies presenting a choking hazard, I decided to tape them to the top of bookmarks advertising the science…

Following TGAW’s Thread responding to the No Child Left Inside Coalition’s claim that “young people could identify 1000 corporate logos but fewer than 10 plants or animals native to their backyards,” I decided to take a shot at naming ten things in my yard. FAIL. If I counted the fruit trees, the mimosa tree, and…

Most of my photos from this large, science playground of a room came out as just blurs of motion, so dynamic are the displays. Giant molecules, genetically engineered potato plants, microbes, microscopes, and sculptures of the atomic fill the area, begging to be played with. Thermal Ryan View the complete flickr set here.