Adorable Art With Dead Things

IT'S BEAUTIFUL

We've often described our decorational scheme as Serial Killer Chique, largely because as paleontologists we are both inclined to think of bones as beautiful rather than icky. To make animal innards palatable decorational choices for our friends and guests, we've started to experiment with different craft techniques.

Cope Loves Marsh 4Eva

Somewhere Cope and Marsh are rolling over in their graves right now... in order to gaze lovingly in the direction of the other. If you don't understand the context of this glorious drawing, please click here... it's not quite fanfic, but it definitely is the most productive Meaghan has ever been while suffering from a cold.

Bears, Bugs, and Bogs, OH MY! (Aka, Fieldwork In Alaska)

The Vengeance Team are old pros at dealing with fieldwork in some pretty desolate places, including the bowels of Eastern Oregon and the red rock desert of Southeast Utah. We've always got our sweat glands operating at full capacity, and we typically guzzle gallons of water by the hour while hiding in the postage stamp-sized shade offered by emaciated juniper trees, fighting the temptation to jump into the swimming pool mirage we've just hallucinated. Not only are we used to the heat, we've also got the certifications to keep us safe out there, too. We are both wilderness first responders, which in theory means we can help keep you safe in a wilderness setting but in practice just means we get to drunkenly brag about the awesome ways we've set fake femur fractures.

So naturally Vengeance Team North Division had little fear as she headed up to the great state of Alaska to work in Denali National Park and Preserve. Amy had read the job description, convinced herself she could handle it, and them promptly stopped thinking about it. Now, after a few months of work, she is ready to share her experiences in the North, and help you, gentle readers, prepare for any fieldwork that you could (and should!) be doing in Alaska. 

Blackout Science Rage: Proposal Edition

No introduction today, we're just going to dive right in: Meaghan recently received the following critique for a proposal requesting funding for her oreodont research.

"The premise that by examining extinct organisms we know what modern organisms are threatened is fundamentally flawed, unless you can demonstrate that the causal mechanisms are identical. Is it really the teeth that define the successful (or not) morphologies?”

Please allow Amy to nerd-translate:

"Studying dead critters to understand modern living critters is horse shit unless you can show that they were influenced by the exact same forces. Do funny shaped teeth really determine the success of certain oreodonts?"

Originally when Meaghan read this she didn't get past the first sentence because she flew into a paleo-rage; upon second glance she is still a grumpy Gus but less likely to make noises that make her roommates think she is possessed by demons or possibly hoarding a room full of cats in heat.

1800's Paleontologists Say the Darndest Things

The best part of lit review is the google images.

Meaghan has been doing a lot of literature review lately. This requires a lot of scouring the back pages of Google Scholar for 200-year old articles, and whining incessantly to her office mate about how people from the 1800's couldn't cite each other (stop making up page numbers and publication dates, Cope!!!). It's sort of like dumpster diving at a really boring library. But sometimes there are gems amidst the miasma of scientific horse shit, and Meaghan presents to you now some of the more bizarre things she's found recently in the dung pile that is Oreodont Taxonomy.