"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age."

"To the Old Ones" - by David Lange

"Laughing Mantis Studio" - http://LaughingMantis.com

Prints of my works are now available in my Redbubble store at http://LaughingMantis.redbubble.com

"Ocean Invasion #2: Nectar for the Orcas"

"Ocean Invasion #2: Nectar for the Orcas"

Closeup

Get your poster here!

Previous works:

"Ocean Invasion #1: Octopus arborealus"

"K-T"

"Ocean Invasion #1: Octopus arborealus"

Click for larger. NOTE: actual resolution quality of the piece is MUCH higher than these compressed jpeg images.

Get a POSTER here

"Ocean Invasion #1: Octopus arborealus"

Closeup

Modeled & Rendered in Blender2.52. Post-processing in GIMP 2.6.

I was asked by another artist whether my inspiration was the "Save the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus" campaign. Honestly,  I actually had never heard of such a thing, and was a wee bit disappointed to learn of it's existence Then again, a tree octopus is too cool an idea for to have not already been thought of.

The first is the Bat Star, Patiria miniata (formerly Asterina miniata) and the second is the California Sea Cucumber, Parastichopus californicus. Click on image for larger versions.

Bat Star, Patiria miniata

Bat Star, Patiria miniata - this one has 6 arms!

Bat Star, Patiria miniata

Bat Star, Patiria miniata - tube feet (also note the tiny brown polychaete worm)

California Sea Cucumber, Parastichopus californicus

California Sea Cucumber, Parastichopus californicus

California Sea Cucumber, Parastichopus californicus

California Sea Cucumber, Parastichopus californicus - the mouthparts look a bit like cauliflower heads when submerged.

California Sea Cucumber, Parastichopus californicus

California Sea Cucumber, Parastichopus californicus - I smell a bad SyFy channel movie in the making...

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!

However, one of them is now complete. I present for your viewing pleasure, my new paleontology-inspired artwork:

"K-T"

Sixty-five million years ago, a daily struggle occurs in the midst of the world-changing event that would result in the demise of the non-avian dinosaurs and the eventual rise of our own lineage of mammals.

If you or someone you know would like a poster print of this work, you can BUY IT HERE. Or you can browse a couple of my other pieces (more forthcoming).

Note: The poster is MUCH larger and higher resolution (these web images don't do justice to the actual level of detail). I can make other sizes available (or on other products). This took me three weeks to create, using the free and opensource  Blender and GIMP software packages.

Here's a cropped piece to give you an idea of the true detail level:

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:

1. Darwin quote-mining.
2. Probabilities, neglecting selection, assuming the eye is an accident.
3. "Consider that the eye..." is really complex.
4. "And where did X come from?" (Here, X = the chiasm.)
5. Haeckel's drawings.
6. An analysis of rhodopsin molecule’s homology
7. The fruit fly is still a fruit fly."
8. 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.

Emerald Isle, NC

Last weekend we had a short but nice going away get-away with some friends (psychology graduate students, a parole officer, and a lawyer/rockstar) in Emerald Isle, North Carolina.

My dorky goal was to find more fossilized shark teeth (see previous awesome finds here), in addition to the obvious general goal of having a salty time.

Unfortunately, a storm kept most of the cool ocean debris from washing ashore until Sunday morning. Nevertheless, I found quite a few interesting things.

First off: fossil shark teeth!

Fossil Shark Teeth

The Haul:

The Haul 1

The Haul 2

The Haul 3

Skate Egg Case:

Skate Egg Case

Unknown wicked fish jaw:

wicked fish jaw

Shell Fossils in matrix:

Shell Fossil Cast in matrix

Shell Fossil Cast in matrix

A cool fossil of what I think is a bryozoan.

Fossil Bryozoan

I found a nice piece of fossilized bone. Of what? Who knows? Probably whale or dolphin. Or perhaps mermaid.

Fossil Bone

I also found several chunks of what I believe is either anthracite coal, or the next metamorphic step - graphite (I'm no geologist - thoughts?). It's very light weight, very hard, and very faceted - which doesn't come across very well in still shots:

Anthracite Coal?

Anthracite Coal?

One of the coolest things I found is a relation to organisms I will soon be working with in my new lab: starfish!!
I found two of these, both beautifully colored and still alive. They were washed ashore by the storm, so I tossed em back. I have no idea the likelihood of their survival, but I can say they didn't wash back ashore over the next two days. (I'm awaiting the expertise of Christopher Mah of the Echinoblog for species identification).
Update: it's a Royal Sea Star, Astropecten articulatus. Quoth the EchinoMaster: "Basically..they are your stereotypical "sand star" predatory on infaunal bivalves and pretty common on sandy-muddy bottoms of the Northeast US.  Attractively colored animals to be sure!" Thanks Chris!

Starfish

Check out those details!

Tube Feet Alive!!

We also got to hit the NC Aquarium in Pine Knoll Shores. It's a pretty rad place, so I was way more interested in pointing my eyes at all the ocean wonders, rather than pointing a camera. But I did get this cool shot of a gator.

Gator

Ooh - and apparently someone else took a shot of us there - me and John playing with the rays (the ray touch tank was by far the coolest part!).

Petting the stingrays

Topsail Island, NC

A month ago, we also had the opportunity to hit Topsail Island, NC.

Fun was had. Things were seen.

Shark Teeth (Yes - I showed these before).

Great colors!

Ocean smoothed - but still pretty wicked

Mole Crabs (Emerita sp.)

Mole Crab (Emerita sp.)

Ghost Crab (Ocypode sp.)

Ghost Crab (Ocypode sp.)

And that's it - images are all I have for you at the moment. Enjoy.

I swear, I will have slightly more posts once I get moved to Pittsburgh and settled.

And just because I never show her (she's camera shy), I'm sneaking in this shot of my wife:

Three Psychologists