The Making of “K-T”
I know of at least a couple of people who were curious how I went about making my latest art, "K-T." Here is an abbreviated walkthrough...
First came the idea. I've had the general idea of the composition in my head sometime: a view from a mammal ancestor's burrow of the distant K-T meteor.
When I decided to actually make it with the free and open-source Blender and GIMP, I first made a very quick (like 5 minute) sketch of my idea layout (Note: You can click on all images for larger versions):
Hilarious sketch up of the idea. Looks like it was made by a two-year-old.
Next up: modeling the creatures. All objects are modeled as a 3D mesh, working with them and sculpting them at times much like clay - except it's all in the computer.
Velociraptor polygonal mesh
Velociraptor Model - color and shadow to help see curvature
Next up comes the coloring, texturing, and addition of fur.
Velociraptor Texturing and Fur - an early test
In reality, the coloring and texturing is done on 2D images (using the free photoshop-like GIMP), which are then mapped onto the 3D mesh:
Velociraptor Color Map
Next up: a poseable armature has to be made and applied to the 3D mesh. Think of this as an actual skeleton that the mesh will deform with.
Velociraptor Armature Rigging
The armature has to be tested with lots of poses to make sure the mesh warps correctly.
Smile for the camera!
Rinse and repeat for the other objects:
Mammal with fur
Your great x 10 to the alot grandpa
Now start putting objects into the scene:
Basic Scene
More detail
And finally we have everything in place
Scene Mesh
Scene solid objects
At this point alot of time is put into positioning lights and tweaking textures so that everything looks good. Lighting is probably the hardest thing to get right (especially with fur).
Finally, the image is rendered and the image levels and coloring and effects are tweaked using GIMP.
Note: you can get a super high-res large poster of this artwork here.
"K-T"
"K-T" Close-up
All in all, the entire process took 3 weeks. I could have easily spent another 3 weeks tweaking and fixing many aspects of the piece and adding more details, but I was pretty much ready to move on to something else. So, I got it to the point where I was happy with it as is.
I hope you enjoyed it!
Carnival of Evolution #18
Three-Spined Stickleback
Welcome to the Carnival of Evolution #18!
First off - big news here at the Carnival. As you can see, my edition is late again. I can't seem to find the time to keep up online anymore (thanks alot starfish gene cloning). Thus it is with both disappointment and excitement that I am turning over administration of this carnival to Bjørn Østman of Pleiotropy. Bjørn has been a constant contributor to the CoE, and in his own last edition, he really rallied the troops and put out a great edition. He has shown such a constant passion for the subject that I have every confidence that the Carnival of Evolution will be much better in his hands than my own.
Now, all that being said, on with the show...
Research Blogging *or Literature Blogging
See - this is why I chose Bjørn to be the new organizer of this here carnival:
Bjørn Østman presents B:III evidence for evolution (which is just a theory) posted at Pleiotropy, in which he presents a Florida opthimologist's ridiculous take on why evolution is not a fact. Bjørn's funny summary of the guy's publication:
"Here's an outline of his letter:
- Darwin quote-mining.
- Probabilities, neglecting selection, assuming the eye is an accident.
- "Consider that the eye..." is really complex.
- "And where did X come from?" (Here, X = the chiasm.)
- Haeckel's drawings.
- An analysis of rhodopsin molecule’s homology
- The fruit fly is still a fruit fly."
- More Darwin quote-mining.
Zen Faulkes presents Extinction through fornication posted at NeuroDojo. Remember that classic case of sympatric speciation from college bio courses (yes I'm dating myself, here)? You know...the sticklebacks that were separating into benthic and pelagic forms? Well, apparently they're back together as one happy thriving population, and it is perhaps due to the reintroduction of crayfish ("crawdads" for my fellow redneck southerners). A must read article.
Zen Faulkes presents Let your neurons relax, the predators are gone! posted at NeuroDojo, in which he discusses a recent paper testing the hypothesis that crickets living without bat predators will lose sensitivity in neurons primarily dedicated to detecting bats.
Shuna Gould presents Endosymbiosis - a big tangled mess of algae posted at Lab Rat. "Post on the symbiotic theory and the evolution of plastids, in particular how comprehensive phylogenetic analysis of diatoms and other protists has raised questions about the origin of chromalveolate symbionts" This post also talks about another favorite topic of mine right now: Horizontal Gene Transfer.
Evolutionary Discussion...
Dan presents Creationists and Birding posted at Migrations. In his own words: "I use the question of 'Can creationists appreciate the birds as much as evolutionists' to explain the phenomenon of speciation from an ornithological standpoint." I personally, found this to be a much more interesting read than I first expected from the title. There's a good bit of history of evolutionary thinking in here, as well as a succinct answer to the posited question - one that any evolutionary biologist can hopefully predict.
Johnny presents Venomous Fables and Phenotypic Variations at the Molecular Level posted at Ecographica. I found this to be a truly entertaining post - not many could so easily wrap up thoughts on Heroditus' war writings, an Aesop's fable, discussion of the toxic cocktail in pygmy rattlesnake venom, and evolution all in one nice little package! As a timber rattlesnake researcher in my ancient past, I always hold such conversations a special place in my heart...
Surbhi Bhatia presents Eve is the Natural Ruler: Adam on verge of Extinction posted at The Viewspaper - an interesting discussion on the hypothesis that in 5 million years, the Y chromosome will disappear. I definitely learned a thing or two in this post, though I think the conclusion is presented a bit more foregone than should be.
John Suter presents Arachnid Lungs Evolved From Horseshoe Crabs posted at Kind of Curious. A short lesson on arachnid lung evolution, with discussion of a TV series I am also watching right now: Sir David Attenborough's "Life in the Undergrowth."
Andrew Bernardin presents Males Flashing Other Males posted at The Evolving Mind. Let me just reprint his first sentence - then you will go read his post:
"Any observer of nature will have noticed that many of the males are so colorfully “dressed” they seem ready to enter a gay pride parade."
Andrew Bernardin presents How Life-Forms are Like Legos posted at The Evolving Mind. Could also be titled, "How proteins are NOT like legos." Another great - and short - read.
That concludes this edition. CoE#19 will be hosted by the always superb and funny writer (and my friend) Christie Lynn at Observations of a Nerd.
For now, you can still submit your posts using our carnival submission form. This form may change - but you can always find out submissions information at http://carnivalofevolution.blogspot.com/.
*image credit: Stickleback picture by user SuperIDR on Flickr, and used under a Creative Commons license.
Carnival of Evolution #13 – FYI:Science!
Okay, so I'm a week late posting the link (sorry!), but the Carnival of Evolution #13 is now live in technicolored form at FYI:Science!.
A Tale of the Hunt for Fossil Shark Teeth
As someone who has been a lifelong fossil collector, I have a terrible, unforgivable sin to admit: I lived for eight years in North Carolina and never knew of the existence of Aurora, NC.
Mind you, since moving here for graduate school, fossil hunting had fallen off of my priority list, largely owing to the fact that central Carolina rocks are basically all metamorphic (melted and recrystallized by heat and pressure). And I've never been the gung-ho research-fossil-sites-and-go-hunting type. Since I began collecting while living in the Ozark mountains, it was more of a walk-through-my-parents-woods-and-see-what-fossils-I-find-today sort of hobby, with a few far-flung excursions in the mix.
Well that all changed a few weeks ago. My wife, some friends, and I spent a couple of days at Topsail Beach, NC.
Actually - scratch that - it began a few month's ago, when Christie at Observations of a Nerd reported an awesome find of fossil shark teeth in Florida, and then - like the wonderful person she is - sent me a handful of them.
Shark Teeth from the wonderful Christie (Note to Christie - they are ray dental plates - not stingray barbs - just learned that - see below)
Back to Topsail Beach, circa a few weeks ago.
I said to myself, "Self - it's the ocean - there are bound to be fossil shark teeth. You (I) will not allow me (myself) to leave this beach without finding at least one shark tooth."
So I spent all my beach time on Saturday perusing the sands for teeth.
To no avail whatsoever. I never saw one.
The next day, I began again, searching much more intently. While combing the fresh tide-swept beach, I saw a tiny black triangle amidst the shells. It was a shark's tooth!!
The filters through which my perception is sifted were now calibrated. Within the next few hours I had a nice handful of tiny teeth. I was ecstatic.
(Note for the fossil pros and beach inhabitants out there: feel free to laugh at my ignorance of what constitutes awesome shark teeth. But these were just about the coolest things I had ever found - at the time.)
Hold your applause - you ain't seen nothing yet
Tiger Sharks - grrrr...er...meow
Thus was I hooked on shark teeth.
The next necessary stops in my tale are the mountains of West Virginia and hills of Pennsylvania.
Some of you know that I will recently begin a new job at Carnegie Mellon University. As such, we have driven there twice recently. I am utterly awed by the massive amount of roadcuts through the mountains of the two states, all of which reveal millions upon millions of years of Earth's natural history in it's geological strata. I felt the fossil-hunting bug really kick up several notches while driving through those strata.
Thus, in anticipation of my move, I began hunting online for potential fossil sites in Pennsylvania. In this endeavor I discovered The Fossil Forum. Through this forum, I discovered not only a huge community of avid fossil hunters, experts, and enthusiasts, but also that North Carolina has some of the most amazing shark tooth sites in the country.
"Self," says I, "it's bad enough that you've been here so long without discovering North Carolina's fossil sites - but now you are leaving? I forbid you (myself) from leaving until you have visited these sites. Got it?"
It was decided - the July fourth weekend was my only free one from now until the move, thus I would make it a fossil-hunting weekend. I would spend Friday in Aurora, NC and Saturday at Green's Mill Run, a creek in Greenville, NC.
As fate would have it (though we will soon see that the result would have been the same with any weekend, fate or no) a dude by the name of MikeDOTB (Michael Taggert) on the Fossil Forum, was also making the exact same trip this weekend. We decided to meet at the shark-digging piles at the Aurora Fossil Museum on Friday (Note to parents in NC - TAKE YOUR KIDS HERE! Free digging teeth by the thousands to their little hearts' content). Mike said he would be there by 7AM and I would try to get there by 9AM (it's a 3.5 hour drive for me).
NOTE: See Mike's Trip Report here - he has some amazing shark teeth!
I was too excited. I couldn't sleep at all the night before. So I slid out of bed and out the door at 3AM arriving at the piles in Aurora by 6:30AM. (The piles are Pungo River Formation sediment - age ~18-22 million years - donated by the nearby PCS phosphate mine).
It was just me. Not a soul in sight anywhere. Alone - in a beautiful dawn with giant piles of Miocene sediment to sift through at my leisure.
I saw my first tooth within about ten seconds of glancing at the piles. My collection grew fast and linearly from that point onward. Before too very long, a nice man showed up to sift as well. It turned out that he was a Fossil Forum member too (runner50) - a Kansas Science teacher on a trip around the country to spread his recently deceased wife's ashes at their favorite locations (including St. Claire, Pennsylvania which has some amazing fern fossils, which he showed me). Many of the ancient teeth he was collecting were for his students/class. Despite the sadness of his tale, it was incredibly heartening to meet such a man teaching in Kansas, a place we all probably know needs good science teachers!
In "the wild"
Mike showed up later than he had planned, but as soon as he got there we hit another nearby pile, meeting a guy named Brian in the process. We chatted for quite a few hours as the three of us sifted for teeth in a couple different locations. Brian, another Fossil Forum member, gave me a dolphin vertebra among other things.
Dolphin Vertebra - Thanks Brian!!
Fossil enthusiasts are awesome people, based on the few I've met!
Mike, Brian, and Me - sifting the piles in Aurora, NC
Mike, showing how it's done with his giant 1/2'' mesh screen
The piles
I almost look like a real paleontologist. Or not...
Before the day was up I had amassed a huge pile of little shark teeth, though no lunkers had given themselves up. I had already watched in envy as Mike pulled several beautiful teeth from the piles. However, I wasn't really jealous, as I was too excited from the insane numbers of teeth I was finding with my smaller 1/4" mesh screen. After about 13 hours straight (no lunch break or anything), darkness began to loom. So Mike decided to collapse the pile we had been digging into. Wet internal sediment began falling and we both began picking through it as more fell. In about a third of a second a shiny glint caught my eye in the muddy dirt. I snapped at it like a greedy hungry chicken.
It was a big Extinct Giant Mako (Isurus hastalis)!
Extinct Giant Mako make-o me happy
Also, it had a small bit of feeding damage at the very tip (which makes it only cooler to me). Now go back and compare that to my first teeth from Topsail...
Without further ado, I give you the rest of my collection from Friday, filled with makos, tigers, sand tigers, snaggletooths, cow sharks, and even one small nearly complete tooth and some pieces of megatoothed sharks (C. megalodon and/or chubitensis).
Note: I have zero tooth ID skills, so forgive any errors. There are almost certainly teeth "out of place"! I arranged these pretty quickly.
(Click for larger)
The Multi-Million Year Old Catch
Aren't they pretty?
A few of these were given to me by Mike - I don't remember which ones. Thanks Mike! He also gave me the coolest thing I now own...keep reading.
Snaggletooths and Tigers
Sand Tigers et al
Megalodon/Chubitensis?
Makos, giant megalodon chunk, and others...
Requiems, Coppers, Hammerheads? No idea...
Broken cow sharks
Ray dental plates (for grinding munchies)
The little guys (Mike estimated ~1200 total teeth)
Did you know a single shark can go through 30,000 teeth in a lifetime?
And of course, I found some other cool stuff as well...
Shark Vertebrae
How cool is that?
Coral
Love the detail in these things!
So I had a great haul - and searing back and arms as payment to Mother Nature for her bounty. But back pain or no, we had another whole day to go.
Mike and I high-tailed it to Greenville and crashed at the Motel 6, after spending at least an hour rinsing and gawking at our fossils. Mike gave me most of his teeth, except for the near perfect ones he deemed fitting for his collection. What an awesome dude!
Then again, this is a guy who has 30,000 teeth! Also, he seemed to know every single shark species, their scientific names, whom is thought to have begat whom evolutionarily, and he could instantly tell the ID of each tooth. Oh yeah, and remember how I said "Fate" had led me to want this trip at the exact same time that Mike announced that he was planning a trip? Yeah, well, he has gone on this trip almost every weekend since January.
Yeah - he's an enthusiast alright... Thanks Mike - you rock!
We awoke the next morning and headed for the dirty, trash-filled, broken glass-laden creek running near East Carolina University campus known as "Green's Mill Run." This place is famous for yielding big megalodons and great whites (and ancient soft drink bottles and bongs). The creek cuts through layers from the cretaceous to the pliocene, so things found in it can range from about 2.5 to 145 million years old!
The story was much the same at "GMR". I found quite a few great teeth (though I didn't feel as inclined to pick up every tiny tooth after the previous day), including another awesome Mako.
This was while I was still clean...
Mike found an AMAZING great white, and lot's of other great teeth - many of which he gave to me.
Mike's Great Whites
I sat and watched an awesome freshwater eel hunting minnows in one beautifully sunny pool - a first for me. We didn't have freshwater eels in NW Arkansas (that I'm aware of).
Mike found and gave me what I easily consider the coolest fossil I now own (he already has several): the fossilized inner ear bone of a whale. What kind? not a clue.
Whale's inner earbone
We visited one particular spot in the creek that cuts through this crazy shell layer filled with huge scallops and various mollusks.
Fossil Sea Scallop (as opposed to land scallop)
Some sort of big bivalve - whole and heavy!
By 6PM my back and arms would not let me sift a single more shovel load. Thus we called it a day.
Here's the total haul from Saturday:
The GMR Catch
What would have been HUGE megalodons, a very nice Mako, and a rootless great white
The Makos and the White
The other shark teeth
Another cool fossil that exists by the millions in GMR is the belemnite. Belemnites were cephalopods related to modern cuttlefish. Only one part of it's body is normally fossilized: a calcite rod in it's body that assists in maintaining proper buoyancy. These things are just cool looking - orange and long and pointy, with a translucent character in the water.
Fossilized Belemnite guards (or rostrum)
And finally, the creek has quite a lot of pieces of whalebone:
Fossilized whale bone (and a cretaceous oyster - according to Mike)
All in all, this was by far the coolest natural history excursion I've been on (or perhaps second best behind a trip to Big Bend where I found an ammonite 4 feet in diameter - I left it there). If you read this far - I hope you enjoyed my tale. If you didn't...well... you can't see this anyway.
The total weekend haul!
Cat included for scale 
Next up: fossil hunting in Pennsylvania in the next month or two! When exactly or where I don't know. But it will be fun!
Grandpa’s Pet Therapod
nope - not a fake at all...
I hang out online sometimes with a bunch of like-minded fossil-enthusiasts (The Fossil Forum).
Tonight somebody posted this:
Just watched the new this evening and they were talking about a dig going on right now outside of Glen Rose, on the McFall ranch. The news showed the footprints of the therapod and the human prints together. It was interesting. For report go to cbs11tv.com
So I mosied over to the Dallas, TX CBS news site and found the article "Local City Known As Dinosaur Capital Of Texas, by Arezow Doost."
Sounds innocuous enough for a title, right? Then I read the first three sentences:
"Did you ever think that there were dinosaurs in North Texas?
As it turns out, this is one of the most prolific areas for dinosaur tracks in the state. One group of scientists have even found tracks dating back millions of years."
Read that last sentence again:
"One group of scientists have even found tracks dating back millions of years."
Cause, you know, all those other groups found tracks that weren't millions of years old...
(for those of you who missed out on elementary school, dinosaurs went extinct at the end of the Cretaceous sixty-five million years ago.)
Absolutely hilarious...and mind-numbingly maddening.
After reading a bit more, then you learn what it is really about:
"Scientists believe that one of the most unique findings is human prints dating back to the same period as the dinosaur prints. "We are looking for the truth," said Baugh. "We don't want anything else but the truth.""
I rolled my eyes. Obviously, I had a feeling what I would find out with a little search, but I decided to check out the scientist quoted in the piece, because I thought it was a bit odd that he said "We are looking for the truth. We don't want anything else but the truth."
You see, that is a very non-scientist thing to say in a media piece, and it instantly threw up a red flag to me. I say this because when one is actually in the practice of being a good scientist, a statement like that is like a commercial fisherman saying "no really, we're just out here to catch fish." What else would a fisherman be fishing in the ocean for? If you're a scientist, a statement like that is less than unnecessary.
Yeah this guy, Carl Baugh, is a young earth creationist discredited in the scientific community and with a questionable education. He is obviously seeking to prove his own wrong beliefs - not actually do what good scientists do, which is let the data speak for themselves. Check this out for some rather hilarious reading on Baugh: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Baugh
Sigh...it is Texas after all (I was born and raised in east Texas, FYI)
As an added moronic bonus, if you look at the url of the story you'll see that it's filed under "pets."
(http://cbs11tv.com/pets/Texas.Dinosaur.Capital.2.1069336.html).
What kind of of idiots are running that station?
One thing about the fossil record - it's insanely consistent across both time and continental space, if fragmentary. And it has consistently shown us that human and therapod existence is quite a few tens of millions of years apart.
Hell, mammals were barely existent back then, compared to today. But primates? LOL - no.
***
Side note: I'm going fossil hunting in Aurora, NC tomorrow and at Greens Mill Run in Greenville, NC on Saturday!! Shark teeth here I come. Please just let me find a megalodon.