Exhibit A: Fossils indicated many, many species of large mammals living in North and South America before the arrival of human beings.

Exhibit B: Lack of fossils indicating the absence of such many, many species of large mammals after the arrival of human beings, strongly suggesting that we came, we saw and then we kicked some giant sloth ass.

Exhibit C: Lots of alternate hypotheses from scholars including asteroid strikes, climate change.

Exhibit D: New research out of the University of Wisconsin shows another take.

This article has some interesting moments. Specifically, the way the team gathered the data involved measuring levels of spores that would have been deposited as part of animal dung and looking at things like the growth of oak forests, which were made possible by the disappearance of large grazers. That is an interesting thought. The truly "wild and untouched" North America may have looked entirely different from the one first encountered by European settlers. In other words, the extinction caused the climate change, not vice versa. The dating of the fossils show that the animals were extinct before the asteroid in question hit and also before the arrival of the Clovis culture. However, butchered mammoth remains in Wisconsin remain a wrench in the gears.

A team headed by Oregon Health and Science University's Eric Gouaux has just finished mapping the complete molecular structure of a closed glutamate receptor common in the human brain. It's thought that this receptor might be "crucial" to learning and memory. There were a few surprises. For one, the pairs of subunits differ from each other "completely."

Possible applications? Treatments for Alzheimer's, treatments for epilepsy and zapping children's brains so that they can spend less time in our dinosaur industrial-revolution-model educational system and more time at the sort of hands-on learning that took place through most of human existence without sacrificing the raw science, history and math that they need to survive in a post-industrial world. (That last one may take a while.)

In other news, I've been scouting around for word on the Yangtze soft-shell turtles. It seems that the Suzhou Zoo did attempt to breed them again, but nothing hit the mainstream news.

Legend of the Speaker, season two, episode two, the bill to prevent coed competitive flencing has passed in the house, but—(flencing is removing the blubber from whales; let's go.)


( Baneling )

Dunno if I like this one. Most Twilight parodies are "Hey look! Twilight is stupid!" That, by itself, isn't funny. This one has plenty of chortleworthy moments.

"So you never had a nickname?"

"No."

YES YOU DID AND THEY CALLED YOU "TEMPIE."

Good God. This show has gotten dumb.

( Blah. )

...eating ice cream with pretty boys? I WANT TO GO TO THIS CLUB! And are these women really obese? Sure, they're fat, but I'd have figured them for just overweight. Still, it's nice to see beautiful big women on TV. This is one way in which I'm glad the nineties are over.

Vatel is awesome. I reread Sex with Kings not long ago and it's cool to know the deal with Athenais de Montespan and Louise de la Valierre. (Spellings are subject to change when I feel like looking them up.) It's so gorgeously detailed...

The New Moon movie was mostly true to the book and mostly quite enjoyable to watch. There were lots of moments of hilarious awkward and of course the movie takes only a bit of the edge off the book's unbalanced story structure. There were two big things that struck me (other than Taylor Lautner's fabulous physique. Good God...)

( Spoilers, including last-line spoilers. )

Things that impressed me? FIGHT SCENES. They actually let us see Felix toss Edward around like a rag doll. And they might have robbed us of the sight of spooky elder vampires petrifying in their old age, but they did let us see Edward's head literally crack like an eggshell as he gets slammed into the floor tiles.

I also like that they expanded Alice's role and showed Bella actually missing someone in addition to Edward. I really wish that both the books and movies had gotten more into the Bella-Alice friendship. Also, the idea that a person's spouse is the only relationship they need is a relatively new one. If even a romantically obsessed book series like Twilight can focus on the fact that Bella is getting the entire Cullen clan and not just Edward, then maybe we're moving toward a healthier idea of what love is.

Also, Michael Sheen is the champion of creepy. As my buddy not_tragedi put it, he was "To Catch a Predator creepy." Sorry, Bill Nighy; he played Aro before you played Greyback!

Legend of the Sneaker, the true footwear will triumph—you know what, I can't do it. It's just coming off as stupid. I don't know if I can laugh at this today.


But we have an opening scene of Rahl's statue being torn down. It's funny. Eight years ago, no one would have thought that a tyrant's statue being pulled away would be ominous. Remember that ep of the Twilight Zone? Yeah, nothing but good there.

...and why would there already be a statue of Rahl in Queen Milena's courtyard? Even with the takeover, statues take time! What, did Rahl have a whole bunch of them mass-produced so that they could be erected in a hurry?

Well, the big flaw with the first season was that Rahl didn't seem evil enough. Maybe they'll fix it this time.

( Legend of the Bigger Bad )

What did the Girl Scouts put in those cookies?! I scarf some dough before scrubbin' the cutting boards and now I have the Doors' greatest hits running through my head!

And Happy Hoppy Frog.

PLEASE DON'T BE STUPID! THERE IS SO MUCH STUPID IN REAL LIFE (sob!) SO... SO MUCH!

"Iron Leprechaun"? Fingers crossed. That doesn't have to suck. Please, please don't suck!

( Gordon Wyatt... I hope... )

Hey, there was an ep of Bones that I missed! ...and it's about chickens. This does not bode well.

Hey! Jeffersonian Girl Scouts found a dead body? But there wouldn't be so much variation in age. Okay, Cam yells at police for messing up crime scenes. No way in this universe are even the most impeccable science fans "professional" in her estimation. Also, no way would they go from clapping to booing. Their troop leader or other supervisor would tell them to stop.

( 'Pluck You'? Good grief. )

"The Paul G. Getty museum is the center of culture in Los Angeles."

Wow. That explains why it looks deserted.

( I hardly even mind that the challenge is a repeat. )

I have to wonder if my NaNo isn't hooked up right. They keep ending my days at eleven instead of at midnight. I tend to upload my postcount around that time, so it keeps looking like I do huge jumps every two days.

And now, Happy Hoppy Frog sets out on his journey to cross the oceans of Vembro to save the Werdcount people of Nanowrimia V!

It turns out some elementary schools forbidding "scary" costumes on Halloween.

Now some of these rules are reasonable—no fake weapons, take off the mask during class, no racially offensive stuff—but since when are vampires and zombies too scary for kids? They're traditional! The schools are instead encouraging "positive costumes," such as historical figures and food items. Now you know I love food and history, but come on!

Joel Bishoff’s children will make the cut at Riverside Drive. His second grader will be Dorothy (not the witch!) from “The Wizard of Oz,” while his fifth-grade son will wear a costume depicting a box of Wheaties.

“I’m not sure what is driving this memo,” Mr. Bishoff said. “But perhaps it is reaction to years past. Sometimes kids will have those ‘Scream’ masks, but usually not too blood and gutsy. I mean, can’t parents have discretion? The fact is, if parents are too stupid to not send kids to school with hockey masks as Jason, they are probably too stupid to read this memo.”

Sing it, responsible parent! Count Chocula is not too scary for school.

Oh, and don't get me started on these guys:

“Several years ago, there was some push back in our community,” said Mr. Hernandez, the school district spokesman in Plainfield, Ill. “Some people thought Halloween was a Satanic ritual. Well, let’s not say Satanic — let’s say they were not comfortable with what it represents.”

Ummm... Halloween represents COSTUMES AND CANDY. That's it. Maybe it meant something else five hundred years ago, but now? Costumes. Candy.

Up for the late showing of Project Runway before tomorrow, when I head for GOREFEST!!

Yay! Let us poke high-strung professional designers and make them do tricks for our amusement. Today's fashion nuggie: outfits based on tourist postcards!

( Wish you were Dior. )

I'M GOING TO GOREFEST YAY and here's a meme.

1. Pick ten of your favorite books or series.
2. Post the first sentence of each book. (If one sentence seems too short, post two or three!)
3. Let everyone try to guess the titles and authors of your books.

( Some of these are crazy easy, but I'll be surprised if anyone gets number five. )

No immunity from here on out!

Who the crud is Bob Mackie? Oh a fashion guy. Cristina Aguilera... Huh.

( Aguilera )

Heh. Throwing stuff at the electric fence? Good start.

( this must be a Halloween ep, because they're all on sugar high )

It's happened, people! A student has been sent to reform school for bringing an eating utensil to school. Apparently, a Swiss Army Spork is a deadly weapon.

By the way, HE'S SIX.

By the way, the knife/fork/spoon combo was issued by his CUB SCOUT TROOP.

( I'll zero tolerance you! )

Okay, on one level, I'm glad that Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize, but on the other I think it would have been more appropriate to award it to him after closing Guantanamo Bay or clearing things up in Iraq or Afghanistan or mediating some great dispute, as Teddy Roosevelt did. Someone on NPR mentioned that it might be more appropriate if he turned it down and requested that it be awarded to the Iranian democratic protesters.

Still, hey, water on the moon! That could be cool.