Linkfest: Sexy Plumage

First, "ask and ye shall receive"! Thanks to everyone who offered and/or sent me a pdf of the nature article in my last post. The pictures look much clearer since I was able to grab them directly from the source! And I promise I'm actually going to read the entire article once I have the time!

Now a couple of links.

Science Crimes: How the Democrats Tried to Destroy Dinosaur Art - you can't make this stuff up. Politicians certainly weren't subtle back in the day.

"Work on the paleozoic museum caught the attention of William 'Boss' Tweed, the notorious figurehead of the city's corrupt Democratic political machine, who denounced the project (there was no apparent graft that could be had from an institution built around collecting fossils). Hawkins, a Londoner raised to believe in the virtue of making public declarations at Hyde Park Corner, held a demonstration in support of the museum during which he openly denounced Tweed. That evening, Tweed's henchmen entered Hawkins's studio and destroyed the dinosaur sculptures."

Early Dinosaur's Feathers Were for Show, Not Flight - A good example for demonstrating that evolution is not goal-oriented. The Jurassic Epidexipteryx couldn't fly, but sported fancy feathers which, like those of a modern peacock, could be used to entice the ladies.

"How YOU doin'?"

Never Say Die: Why We Can't Imagine Death - Slightly off-topic maybe, but I found this Scientific American article too mind-blowing to not share.

"...the brain is like any other organ: a part of our physical body. And the mind is what the brain does—it’s more a verb than it is a noun. Why do we wonder where our mind goes when the body is dead? Shouldn’t it be obvious that the mind is dead, too?"

Er... and uh, finally, I just noticed that my lovely Coldplay evolution photo has been bumped from the front page, so here it is again, color-balanced to match my blog layout! (Oh god, someone help me!!)