“And this part is called the thagomizer, after the late Thag Simmons” — Gary Larson, 1982
And who says paloentologists don’t have a sense of humor? Discover Magazine reminds us that the spiked tail-end of a stegosaurus REALLY IS called a “Thagomizer”, in honor of this classic Far Side cartoon.
In fact, here’s a message board post that dates back to 1995 citing the use of “thagomizer” in the legitimate academic literature, and you can find it mentioned in other glossaries of paleontology terms.
Good Evening Mr. and Mrs. North America and all the ships at sea…
NEWS FLASH! Paleontologists in China have uncovered the remains of a huge raptor that helps sceintists bridge the evolutionary gap from dinosaurs to modern birds. Gigantoraptor erlianensis was 10-12 feet in height and weighed over 3000 pounds, and sported feathers and a beak.
NEWS FLASH! British researchers have discovered that plants have the ability to detect other plants of the same species in their area through “recognition” of chemical patterns in the surrounding soil. Furthermore, individual plants will respond to this information and change their absorption of nutrients in the soil to benefit the overall survival of their “siblings”.
NEWS FLASH! An independent consortium of research agencies studiyng the human genome has released a study which finds that so-called “junk DNA” is actually far more crucial to determining genetic traits than previously believed and may, in fact, be more important to the overall function of the genome than individual genes. These findings challenge much current thinking about human genetics, but at the same time also promise to yield a much better understanding of the biochemical process of life.
NEWS FLASH! A whopping 68 percent of registered Republican voters DO NOT BELIEVE any of the above. This recent Gallup/USA Today poll produced some truly disturbing results that show that in the overall population, 44% of Americans do not believe in evolution. When analyzed for religious affiliation, fundamentalist Protestants and so-called “moderate” Protestants reject modern science in favor of mythology and make-believe by a wide margin, with Catholics only slightly more likely to believe in science. Seculars and Jews were the most likely to believe in science and evolution.
Comments:
I am profoundly mortified by 44% of my fellow Americans. I was actually embarrassed for those Republican candidates when they stated publicly that they don’t believe in evolution. I mean, seriously, how do they face normal people after saying s**t like that with a straight face?
Posted by shelley [URL] on 06/15/07
Where are the normal people at?
These people are just stupid. It’s not even ignorance at this point. It’s just stupidity.
Pretty soon, they’ll be questioning whether electricity is real.
Posted by Sarah [URL] on 06/15/07
Researchers at Harvard published an article in the journal Science yesterday that says they’ve found similarities in the proteins of Tyrannosaurus Rex fossils to those of modern-day chickens.
Sounds like they’re gonna need a re-write for the ending of Jurassic Park IV…and a really big fryolator.
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