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My Tiktaalik Made It!

He's even more adorable than I could have thought. 

I had such a long day at work yesterday. I just started a new shift and adjusting to it has been very rough. I went from working 3PM-11PM Monday-Friday, to 7AM-3PM Thursday-Monday. 

Yeah.

Needless to say, I worked a long stretch from when my new shift started after the old one ended, and had to completely redo my sleeping habits. I've also been training someone at work, which has been trying but he's getting better, but it adds to be already exhausted state. I ended up having to stay 4 extra hours at work yesterday, having been up since 4:30AM and on the edge of sanity I was a touch grumpy.

Meeting my Tiktaalik definitely made my day all worth it.

A lot of goodness.

The holidays came a little late for me this year, so I'm just now getting my hands on some simply amazing things my family and friends got for me this year. One thing I actually meant to post about in the past was something given to me early in December, but I wanted to wait to post one big post about all the goodness.

But before I dive into my fan-girling, there was a new article posted about a new GIANT, sea-dwelling, ancient crocodile called Machimosaurus rex. This dude was about 30 feet long and lived during the Cretaceous period. There's a great video through the link as well as the article, so I recommend checking it out!


This year was awesome for really unique and cool dinosaur/paleontology swag. My best friend got me the first thing I'm going to gush about as a "silly gift", but it turned out to be one of the most entertaining toy I've had in a long time.
It may look like an ordinary giant green beetle, but it's actually a giant green beetle made of what I assume is compacted saw dust with little bugs encased in acrylic buried inside. The goal of this cute little thing is to "excavate" these little buggers out of the big beetle with the tools provided. It comes with a scraping/digging tool, a magnifying glass and a little brush to knock away the enormous amount of dust that happens when you start scraping away at a sawdust beetle.
While this toy is a blast, I do recommend digging on a solid surface that's easy to clean because you will get this shit everywhere.

The end result are these cute little bugs that I will be keeping in my tiny Zelda chest that makes noise when you open it.

Spider, Scorpion, and Beetle 

I'm a huge coffee drinker, so getting me a coffee mug for xmas is a fantastic idea. I have a really awesome clay coffee mug my best friend got me a couple years back, so finding one equal to my Stegosaurus mug was not an easy feet.

A feet only my partner in science, Jess, could accomplish.

I will never not thing color changing mugs are extremely cool, so this beautiful ridiculous masterpiece is right up my ally. In it's neutrual state, the picture is that of a Brachiosaur, T-rex, and Deinonychus hanging out swamp side, defying space and time. These awesome dudes are from three totally different time periods but that didn't stop them from getting together and having a good time.

You have no excuse for not seeing people now, if these guys can make this magic happen.

What's so cool about this, is not only do they slowly turn into skeletons when my favorite hot beverage is being poured into it, but little name plates appear at their feet like a museum display. I freaking love this thing!

Before coffee

After coffee

Before coffee

After coffee

I made a video on Instagram if you want to go check it out. XD

My father-in-law is a mastermind of giving cute gifts for xmas. Me and my husband have gotten some awesome things over the past years, but the Indominous Rex Chia Pet has got to take the cake.

The moment I put this picture up on Instagram, my feed blew up with likes (for me anyway, I'm not followed by a lot of people). 

I've never had one of these things before, so I'm looking forward to seeing how its uh...coat...grows? It's the perfect amount of ridiculous and I'm very excited. I'm actually soaking the planter now so I get plant the seeds today. I'll absolutely post progress pictures.

Last but certainly not least is something that I believe has sparked a whole new collectors need in my soul. I had heard about Canada's amazing dinosaur coins before, and was always so incredibly jealous at the country's open acceptance of science in their culture. I would love to see something like this in America's mint, but I think we still have a long way to go. These beautiful works of art are stunning, and many of them are still around to purchase. One of my favorite coins they have ever produced isn't a dinosaur, but is our fishy ancestor Tiktaalic, which I think I've talked about before. 

I adore this creature and everything it means for understanding the history of life and evolution, so having this amazing coin given to me last night was breath-taking.

Small side note, my dad was a huge coin collector when he was a kid, and had an impressive collection still when I was growing up. Sadly, that collection has since been lost or sold, so I always have a bit of a fondness to coin collecting, even if it wasn't something I personally got into. It was something he really enjoyed, and I'm sad the collection is no longer around.

I recently had heard on the latest I Know Dino podcast that the Canadian mint had put out another t-rex coin. I think I'm going to try and start buying these things and making my own, incredibly niche, coin collection. These things aren't in circulation of course, but they're beautiful and definitely collectors items. 

I love my new coin so much!!

I'm glad to finally be able to share these fantastic things on my blog. I'm going to hopefully get more studying done today for my Coursera class and finish up some housework, so maybe I'll post again soonish.

Until then!

-M

Your Inner Fish series free to watch online!

Our really cute fish ancestor

For those of you who have not meet the amazingly adorable Tiktaalik, you’re missing out on meeting one of our earliest fishy relatives.

Plus look at that face!!

Neil Shubin, the paleontologist who found Tiktaalik, wrote a book about his findings a couple years ago called Your Inner Fish.

I highly recommend the book if you ever get the chance, but he also did a multi-part series on PBS by the same name which is now free online. I ended up rewatching the first episode tonight at work and still found it compelling and fascinating, even though I was watching it for the second time. I’m glad I did, because I forgot how well crafted the series was, even as a fan.

The series came out last year and Dr. Shubin was featured on It’s Okay To Be Smart, a fantastic YouTube channel about all kinds of scientific topics. On that episode, Shubin talks a little bit about the gene responsible for finger development in animals, and how they manipulated it to grow extra digits on chickens. It’s mad scientist level awesome.

The show is broken down into three parts each about an hour long: Your Inner Fish, Your Inner Reptile and Your Inner Monkey. Each segment takes the viewer on a journey through our evolution to reveal the leftover traits we have as humans that can be traced back to each of these key stages. Dr. Shubin does a fantastic job explaining these complex aspects of evolutionary biology in an energetic way, keeping you engaged and interested. Graphics are used while he talks about the complex structure limb formations and genes, how the jaw is formed and so on, to clearly illustrate exactly what he is explaining.

His enthusiasm about paleontology and evolution mirrors that of Neil DeGrasse Tyson when he talks about the stars; you can’t help but be sucked into the wonder and awe of the science.

You can watch all three episodes of Your Inner Fish here!!

Now, if you have completely fallen in love with how absolutely adorable Tiktaalik is, which I don’t blame you, then please get this song stuck in your head so we can sing it together sometime.

Oh, and happy Hanukkah!!