glad that one got away

The massive skull and jaw of a 13-million-year-old sperm whale has been discovered eroding from the windblown sands of a coastal desert of Peru.

The extinct cousin of the modern sperm whale is the first fossil to rival modern sperm whales in size -- although this is a very different beast, say whale evolution experts.

"We could see it from very far," said paleontologist Olivier Lambert of the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris, France, who led the team which found the fossil.

The giant 3-meter (10-foot) skull of what's been dubbed Leviathan melvillei (in honor of the author of "Moby Dick") was found with teeth in its top and bottom jaws up to 36 centimeters (14 inches) long. The discovery is reported in the July 1 issue of the journal Nature.

Living sperm whales have teeth only in their lower jaws and are specialized to feed on giant squid, Lambert explained. They suck down squid like large spaghetti noodles rather than catch the prey with their teeth. The much toothier fossil sperm whales, however, may have eaten more like a outsized-orca, or killer whale: chomping great big bites out of its prey.

"These are very unusual attributes," said cetacea evolution expert Ewan Fordyce of the University of Otago in New Zealand. "It's remarkably big. That is unexpected."

Another sign that this ancient whale had a killer bite is the large hole in the skull to accommodate a large jaw muscle.

"This was a hunting predator that took chunks out of prey," said Fordyce.

Yikes!!!!!

This one would even the odds against a whaler.

Discovery

the Windy City should change it's name..

to  Lightning City...

Lightning strikes three of the tallest buildings in Chicago at the same time! from Craig Shimala on Vimeo.

For the third time in the last 6 days, another line of nasty storms rolled through Chicago on Wednesday evening. In this clip you will see three of the tallest buildings in Chicago get struck by lightning at the same time. Willis Tower (Tallest), Trump International Hotel and Tower (2nd Tallest) and the John Hancock Building(4th tallest).

Craig Shimala

bigger but not better

it seems the infamous KFC Double Down has met it's match...

introducing the Grilled Cheese BurgerMelt.

This gut buster is served at Friendly's.

here are the stats.

1500 Calories
870 Fat Calories
79g Total Fat
38g Saturated Fat
180g Cholesterol
2090mg Sodium
101g Carbs
9g Dietary Fiber
4g Sugar
54g Protein

I might add, Friendly's motto is "Where Ice Cream Makes the Meal" and yes, that appears to be a dish of Ice Cream next to the burger.

The Consumerist by way of Neatorama

a little help

The Obama administration has pledged to come to the aid of the small to mid-sized farmer.

here is one result..

When Kathryn Thomas wanted to turn her sheep into lamb chops, the federal government required her to haul them across Puget Sound on a ferry and then drive three hours to reach a suitable slaughterhouse.

Not anymore. These days, the slaughterhouse -- and the feds -- come to her.
A 53-foot tractor-trailer rattles up to her farm on Lopez Island, the rear doors open and the sheep are led inside, where the butcher and federal meat inspector are waiting. When the job is done, the team heads out to the next farm.
The slaughtermobile -- a stainless steel industrial facility on wheels -- is catching on across the country, filling a desperate need in a burgeoning movement to bring people closer to their food. It is also perhaps one of the most visible symbols of a subtle transformation at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, long criticized for promoting big agribusiness.

"There are farming operations that are really big and do huge volumes of food and that's part of American agriculture and that's good," Deputy Agriculture Secretary Kathleen Merrigan said. "But there are a lot of people who want to do alternative markets, and we want to find a way to help them find a living and stay in rural America and help those towns and villages thrive. This really is a rural development strategy."

The agency is promoting small meat producers in part by funding and approving more mobile slaughter units, staffing each one with a federal inspector, educating farmers and USDA employees about the units, and setting clear guidelines for farmers who want to build one. In December, the department set up a toll-free help line dedicated to small producers.
"People want to buy their stuff locally and they want to buy it from you instead of the counter at Safeway or Food Lion or from some anonymous slaughterhouse that stuffed it full of antibiotics so it wouldn't get sick," said Dick Stoner, who raises black angus cattle on a farm in Sharpsburg, Md., near the Antietam Civil War battlefield.
Like neighboring farmers, Stoner sells some cattle to bulk slaughterhouses in the West. He has been consumed with the idea of a slaughtermobile ever since he heard Merrigan give a talk six months ago. "We've got all these farms within an hour and a half. All we have to do is connect the buyers in the city with these farms and figure out a way to get the meat to them."
At roughly $250,000, a basic slaughtermobile costs about one-fourth of a permanent facility and is likely to face less opposition from the community. "No one wants to live next to a slaughterhouse," Stoner said. "So getting a new one built, even on a farm, is almost out of the question."
"Mobile slaughter units are a bit of a quick fix," said Joe Cloud, a landscape architect who joined farmer Joel Salatin -- celebrated among the "locavore" movement -- to buy a small slaughterhouse in the Shenandoah Valley in 2007 that was about to shut down. Their operation, T&E Meats, is so busy they are turning away business.

"You still need to cut up the meat, you need saws, grinders, stuffers, vacuum packers, smokehouses, curing areas, drying units and all of these things that take a lot of space," Cloud said. "I just don't see how we're going to rebuild the local community-based system using mobile units."
Merrigan agrees. "This is just one strategy," she said.

by Lindsey Layton of The Washington Post

watch out Iron Chef!!

TexSquid knows cookin'

  Name that Cooking Technique
 
  Score: 100% (10 out of 10)

a great bleacher bum

only at Wrigley..




I'm positive it was a Old Style.

they built this city

from GIZMODO

Back in 1990—top—Shanghai looked like a lovely green city. Only twenty years later—bottom—you can film the second part of Blade Runner in it.

Shanghai has always been an important place. Located on the Yangtze river's mouth, this Chinese city was already a world commerce hub back in the 30s. But it wasn't until Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms that the city exploded. Only fifteen years later, it became the largest cargo port in the world. Twenty years later, it's the megalopolis you are seeing in this photo

now that's urban renewal gone amuck.

.

a sure hit

ladies and gentlemen....


CHICKEN MONKEY DUCK





sing along, won't you

something about this appeals to me

the solution to the Gulf of Mexico or maybe other deep water oil spills could be..

Super Quick Undersea Incident Device

or S.Q.U.I.D.

from the inventors website..

Most underwater solutions attempt to hold the pressure using concrete and stiff metal piping. Unlike an oil spill containment dome, the SQUID uses no chemicals in the water, equalizes pressure by allowing the oil to naturally flow to the surface in a contained fashion, and even allows salvaging of that oil for use, rather than burning it off or letting it dissipate across the ocean's surface. This solution uses flexible high strength plastic to capture every drop of oil and is impervious to deep sea currents and low temperatures. It "goes with the flow" of the water.

The scale of the SQUID can be altered, based on the size of the sea floor leak site and depth needed at the rig site. Current prototypes are 48' in diameter, easily assembled on site (sea surface) by divers and tug boats. The ring is delivered hollow; once it is assembled, a heavy agent will fill the inner ring, allowing the ring to sink, while deflating the flotation devices holding the ring above water.

The ring then sinks to cover the leak site, draping the high strength plastic around the leak site, creating a guided flow to the surface. The connection points between the ring and plastic are porous, allowing divers and equipment to flow freely in and out of the shroud, facilitating work to fix the leak or build anew.

The SQUID can be used to control disasters like the one the Gulf of Mexico and British Petroleum are facing right now, or to capture and capitalize on sea floor oil leaks like this that occur naturally all the time.

New World Inventions

Tracy Staedter at Discovery News contacted S.Q.U.I.D. 's creator Steve Dvorak.

I called Dvorak to ask him about his idea, which is so simple and seemingly workable that surely anyone at BP who knows about it must be having a "DUH" moment.

I asked Dvorak about whether the ring and sleeve would suffer from the buildup of the icy methane hydrates, which rendered BP's containment dome a failure.

In short: No.

"The specific gravity of hydrates is a little less than water, so they will continue to rise."

Plus, the sleeve is wide enough that it won't cause a bottleneck. The other advantage to this proposed solution is that it will contain gases and keep the oil from moving toward the coast. And repair operations can go on, such as directing remotely operated subs, while the sleeve is covering the well.

"This is such a low cost option, it seems like why not try it?" said Dvorak.

So far BP has not contacted Dvorak directly about his innovative solution. But they have submitted questions to him via second parties and he said he has "heard from people directly down the food chain from BP saying this is a great idea." And if this solution doesn't get used on the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe, it could be used any number of other rigs leaking in the Gulf.

I say let's give SQUID a try!

song and dance

Pretty cool...