iBiome

Elf lobby blocks Iceland road project

this is bloody brilliant

Elf advocates in Iceland have joined forces with environmentalists to urge authorities to abandon a highway project that they claim will disturb elf habitat, including an elf church.

The project has been halted until the supreme court of Iceland rules on a case brought by a group known as Friends of Lava, who cite both the environmental impact and the detrimental effect on elf culture of the road project.

via www.theguardian.com

under pressure

not much time to think let alone blog these days, but this is pretty awesome:

 

 

The backstory:

In the summer of 1981, the British band Queen was recording tracks for their tenth studio album, Hot Space, at Mountain Studios in Montreux, Switzerland. As it happened, David Bowie had scheduled time at the same studio to record the title song for the movie Cat People. Before long, Bowie stopped by the Queen sessions and joined in. The original idea was that he would add backup vocals on the song “Cool Cat.” “David came in one night and we were playing other people’s songs for fun, just jamming,” says Queen drummer Roger Taylor in Mark Blake’s book Is This the Real Life?: The Untold Story of Freddie Mercury and Queen. “In the end, David said, ‘This is stupid, why don’t we just write one?’” And so began a marathon session of nearly 24-hours–fueled, according to Blake, by wine and cocaine. Built around John Deacon’s distinctive bass line, the song was mostly written by Mercury and Bowie. Blake describes the scene, beginning with the recollections of Queen’s guitarist:

‘We felt our way through a backing track all together as an ensemble,’ recalled Brian May. ‘When the backing track was done, David said, “Okay, let’s each of us go in the vocal booth and sing how we think the melody should go–just off the top of our heads–and we’ll compile a vocal out of that.” And that’s what we did.’ Some of these improvisations, including Mercury’s memorable introductory scatting vocal, would endure on the finished track. Bowie also insisted that he and Mercury shouldn’t hear what the other had sung, swapping verses blind, which helped give the song its cut-and-paste feel.

 

Happy Life Day!

this didn't seem so campy when I was eleven.

 

jellyfish

i know now they're blossoms, but my first reaction seeing David Chihuly's glass ceiling in the lobby of the Bellagio a couple of weeks ago was slack jaw admiration at the most beautiful rendering of jellyfish (in hand-blown glass) i had ever seen.  The ocean enthusiast in me i think.

Rare fossil of marine reptile unearthed in Alberta oilsands

EDMONTON — The fossilized remains of a prehistoric sea creature inadvertently unearthed by a Syncrude worker last week offers researchers new insights into the evolution of a top-of-the-food-chain reptile that swam in northern Alberta's tropical sea up to 115 million years ago.

"This thing would be many tens of metres (from) the surface" of the earth, said Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology curator Donald Henderson, who was at the site Thursday. "If it wasn't for the digging, we would never see this."

Heavy equipment operator Maggy Horvath was shovelling ore at the oilsands company's Mildred Lake mine site on Nov. 14 when her shovel exposed the neck and upper vertebrae of a plesiosaur.

A team from the Drumheller-based Royal Tyrrell was called in. But removing the fossil from its resting place, where it is now pushing through the face of a cliff about five metres above the mine pit's base, is a tricky job that hasn't even started.

"The rock is really crumbling and there's lots of fractures," said Henderson, noting there are safety and equipment issues. At this point, researchers have only begun to comb through the rubble removed from the cliff face in search of the plesiosaur's head and more of its neck.

via www.vancouversun.com

Cornuproetus

 
though sale of Alberta fossils seems to be tightly controlled, if not outright forbidden, Drumheller shops have no shortage of fossils obtained from other jurisdictions in the USA and beyond.  I indulged myself in a few purchases, including this little Devonian trilobite.

rocks of ages

The Royal Tyrrell Museum, in dry proximity to Drumheller, Alberta, was an unexpected and welcome treat, appealling to every geekly layer right back to my tender childhood.  One of my earliest memories of "what I want to be when I grow up" was a burning desire to be a paleontologist, stoked by books introducing me to Tyrannosaurus (six inch teeth!), Diplodocus, and Stegosaurus (it could fit in my classroom!).  This museum ties the Vancouver Aquarium for my affections. The exhibits were well turned out and rich in information, and the kids programs brought us back for a second day, searching for fossils in the eroded runoff among the crumbling badlands. 
This image is Black Beauty, a rare mineral-blackened Tyrannosaurus rex fossil found in the Crowsnest pass, Alberta.  I want to go back.

the future is iPad

We were very good this year and Santa brought us a new toy.  So much has been written about the iPad there is little original to say.  it's a beautiful device, and introduces the next phase in our relationship with information.  We don't type extensive documents at home - our home computing needs focus on access to the internet, scheduling, music, photos etc.  All far better managed through a touch interface tablet.  And some of the Apps are just wonderful - Starwalk, for one, is breathtaking.  The lack of a USB port, precluding a direct connection with our camera, is a bit of a flaw.  Nonetheless this is clearly a breakthrough machine, and I look forward to the next iterations.

one breath

Freediving is the ultimate sport. Pushing physical limits into an acutely dangerous environment. This video of a freediving "base jumper" into a blue hole is....breathtaking.

i agree with Wesley

This is a very cool photo