Terrifying 6ft skull of ‘ocean T-Rex’ unearthed from cliff after 150 million years
Story by Abigail O'Leary • 22h

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news...e515649a958a8e&ei=24

The 7ft long head belonged to pliosaur, an enormous predator that ruled the waters around Britain's Jurassic Coast 150 million years ago. The fossil is not only one of the biggest and most complete dinosaur skulls ever found but it also represents a new species of the ferocious marine reptile.

Not sure how this qualifies as political, but it is neat.

it's pronouns are, of course
has/been

quote:

Originally posted by crbutler:
Not sure how this qualifies as political, but it is neat.

Someone will claim it can't be 150 million years old, since the earth is only 6000 years old, or whatever.

quote:

Originally posted by Magine Enigam:

quote:

Originally posted by crbutler:
Not sure how this qualifies as political, but it is neat.

Someone will claim it can't be 150 million years old, since the earth is only 6000 years old, or whatever.

What we don't know, ( what I don't know,) seems to grow not reduce annually.

I think sometimes the real rip off of finite life on earth is not knowing.

Me? I don't know about Spain or Jordan, I don't know about Roman roads, the Tigris and Euphrates, Wooly Mammoths, Passenger Pigeons, Australia's crocodiles and historical Great Zimbabwe.

M.E.'s above is another thing I'd like to know about but because my existence here is finite I do not and it's aggravating.

quote:

Originally posted by Scott King:

quote:

Originally posted by Magine Enigam:

quote:

Originally posted by crbutler:
Not sure how this qualifies as political, but it is neat.

Someone will claim it can't be 150 million years old, since the earth is only 6000 years old, or whatever.

What we don't know, ( what I don't know,) seems to grow not reduce annually.

I think sometimes the real rip off of finite life on earth is not knowing.

Me? I don't know about Spain or Jordan, I don't know about Roman roads, the Tigris and Euphrates, Wooly Mammoths, Passenger Pigeons, Australia's crocodiles and historical Great Zimbabwe.

M.E.'s above is another thing I'd like to know about but because my existence here is finite I do not and it's aggravating.

You cannot possibly catch up, only fall further behind. Even if you spent every waking minute learning, there are thousands of specialists in hundreds of disciplines discovering new information or new links between existing information every day.

You can't even stick to one "branch" of science and keep up, there's just too much.

Narrow it down to just Wooly Mammoths: If you start tomorrow and learn everything that is currently known about them when you get done there will be a metric shit-ton that was learned while you were catching up.

quote:

Originally posted by Scott King:

quote:

Originally posted by Magine Enigam:

quote:

Originally posted by crbutler:
Not sure how this qualifies as political, but it is neat.

Someone will claim it can't be 150 million years old, since the earth is only 6000 years old, or whatever.

What we don't know, ( what I don't know,) seems to grow not reduce annually.

I think sometimes the real rip off of finite life on earth is not knowing.

Me? I don't know about Spain or Jordan, I don't know about Roman roads, the Tigris and Euphrates, Wooly Mammoths, Passenger Pigeons, Australia's crocodiles and historical Great Zimbabwe.

M.E.'s above is another thing I'd like to know about but because my existence here is finite I do not and it's aggravating.

Totally agree! In 2 million years time the Andromeda galaxy will merge with ours and for a time before that it will be the dominant fixture in our nights sky. I feel a sense of loss that I wont get too see that, just as I feel loss that I never got to see the giant elk, the monstrous pachyderms that once lived.

quote:

Originally posted by Jefffive:

quote:

Originally posted by Scott King:

quote:

Originally posted by Magine Enigam:

quote:

Originally posted by crbutler:
Not sure how this qualifies as political, but it is neat.

Someone will claim it can't be 150 million years old, since the earth is only 6000 years old, or whatever.

What we don't know, ( what I don't know,) seems to grow not reduce annually.

I think sometimes the real rip off of finite life on earth is not knowing.

Me? I don't know about Spain or Jordan, I don't know about Roman roads, the Tigris and Euphrates, Wooly Mammoths, Passenger Pigeons, Australia's crocodiles and historical Great Zimbabwe.

M.E.'s above is another thing I'd like to know about but because my existence here is finite I do not and it's aggravating.

You cannot possibly catch up, only fall further behind. Even if you spent every waking minute learning, there are thousands of specialists in hundreds of disciplines discovering new information or new links between existing information every day.

You can't even stick to one "branch" of science and keep up, there's just too much.

Narrow it down to just Wooly Mammoths: If you start tomorrow and learn everything that is currently known about them when you get done there will be a metric shit-ton that was learned while you were catching up.

And that is terrible don't you think?

quote:

Originally posted by Scott King:

quote:

Originally posted by Jefffive:

quote:

Originally posted by Scott King:

quote:

Originally posted by Magine Enigam:

quote:

Originally posted by crbutler:
Not sure how this qualifies as political, but it is neat.

Someone will claim it can't be 150 million years old, since the earth is only 6000 years old, or whatever.

What we don't know, ( what I don't know,) seems to grow not reduce annually.

I think sometimes the real rip off of finite life on earth is not knowing.

Me? I don't know about Spain or Jordan, I don't know about Roman roads, the Tigris and Euphrates, Wooly Mammoths, Passenger Pigeons, Australia's crocodiles and historical Great Zimbabwe.

M.E.'s above is another thing I'd like to know about but because my existence here is finite I do not and it's aggravating.

You cannot possibly catch up, only fall further behind. Even if you spent every waking minute learning, there are thousands of specialists in hundreds of disciplines discovering new information or new links between existing information every day.

You can't even stick to one "branch" of science and keep up, there's just too much.

Narrow it down to just Wooly Mammoths: If you start tomorrow and learn everything that is currently known about them when you get done there will be a metric shit-ton that was learned while you were catching up.

And that is terrible don't you think?

Nah, it's great. You can dip into any area of interest you haven't dug into recently and there's always some new and interesting stuff to learn. Somebody probably found another mammoth thawing out of the permafrost somewhere already this month that we'll learn something new from. Or a sinkhole exposed Roman ruins under some town we never knew were there.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news...88c82c7d973cc&ei=167

Lost world of crystal-clear lagoons discovered in desert
Story by Harriet Brewis • 1h

https://www.msn.com/en-us/trav...988c151c9619e9c&ei=9

What it's like to visit the Atacama Desert, the driest place on Earth
Story by Chris Moss • 1mo

quote:

quote:
Originally posted by crbutler:
Not sure how this qualifies as political, but it is neat.


Someone will claim it can't be 150 million years old, since the earth is only 6000 years old, or whatever.

And that’s political? Discussing the age of earth is political?

Sometimes, it is refreshing to see a discussion on something of general interest rather than left wing/ right wing bullshit!
I agree with Scott, the knowledge that there is much you can't know and can never experience is profoundly sad. I often fall asleep wondering of things I'll never know. Maybe that knowledge is one of the consolation prizes we get when we check out. Regards, Bill

quote:

Originally posted by Bill Leeper:
Sometimes, it is refreshing to see a discussion on something of general interest rather than left wing/ right wing bullshit!

I agree. That's my intention in the OP. Meanwhile, in the background, some find ways to conflate everything, including religion and science, into politics.

quote:

Originally posted by tomahawker:

quote:

quote:
Originally posted by crbutler:
Not sure how this qualifies as political, but it is neat.


Someone will claim it can't be 150 million years old, since the earth is only 6000 years old, or whatever.

And that’s political? Discussing the age of earth is political?

Is this political enough for you?

https://www.publicnotice.co/p/...hnson-christofascism

The Christofascism of Mike Johnson
The new House speaker is an opposition researcher's goldmine.

(excerpts)

Young-Earth Mike
Does Johnson think the earth is 6,000 years old? Reporters haven’t found any direct quotes where he’s said so publicly. But there’s a lot of circumstantial evidence that he does based on his longtime association with the cause of young Earth creationism. That’s an evangelical movement that claims the Bible’s account of history is literally true, and tries to square that with the fossil record. Young Earth creationists can be found debating whether brontosaurs could fit on Noah’s ark.

One of the leaders of the young Earth creation boondoggle/movement is Ken Ham. Ham is the founder of the Ark Encounter Theme Park and the Creation Museum, two young Earth creationist propaganda institutions located in Kentucky. Johnson’s nonprofit legal ministry Freedom Guard, where he was chief counsel, represented Ark Encounter in lawsuits over its tax exempt status, which Kentucky withdrew because the park required employees to hold young Earth creationist beliefs.

====================================================

https://news.yahoo.com/house-s...seum-235936048.html?


Before arriving in Washington less than a decade ago, House Speaker Mike Johnson, a deeply religious Christian, was a legal crusader associated with a fringe evangelical movement called “young Earth creationism,” based on a literal reading of the Bible’s Book of Genesis that posits the Earth is only several thousand years old.

In the mere hours since Johnson was elected speaker Wednesday, he hadn’t had to address his views on creationism and evolution. But his close ties to a leader of the creationist movement and his past legal work — on behalf of the Ark Encounter creationist theme park, where children can learn that dinosaurs were passengers on Noah’s Ark — seem to suggest that he’s also personally aligned with these beliefs.

“The Ark Encounter is one way to bring people to this recognition of the truth, that what we read in the Bible are actual historical events,” Johnson said in a 2021 interview with Ark Encounter founder Ken Ham while guest-hosting the radio show of Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, an evangelical activist group.

Ham’s views are what you would expect for a person who operates a “life-size” Noah’s Ark museum that features dinosaurs catching a ride on a biblically accurate 300-cubits-long ark.

“We can say, 100 percent absolutely for sure, that people lived with dinosaurs!” Ham writes in his 2000 book, “Dinosaurs in Eden.” As a believer in biblical inerrancy, he believes the story of Genesis is both literally true and that its first 11 chapters hold all of the answers about how to live a moral life. He has cited the teaching of evolution as the reason for modern society’s ills and supports waging a culture war to fight back against atheists and materialists.

Johnson’s congressional office did not respond to a request for comment about his views on young Earth theory, whose adherents believe the planet is 6,000 years old and that humans walked the Earth at the same time as dinosaurs. The scientific community regards creationism as pseudoscience and is generally in agreement the Earth is an estimated 4.5 billion years old.

============================================

https://lailluminator.com/2023...ike-johnson-extreme/

New House speaker Mike Johnson holds extreme views on climate change, science
Louisiana legislators and progressive activists warn Johnson’s polite demeanor masks dangerous ideas

Sweeney complained that while Johnson hasn’t championed legislation that would improve the lives of his constituents, like raising the minimum wage, “he has gone out of his way to defend in court, and otherwise, groups that believe the earth is 6,000 years old.” Sweeney was referring to Speaker Johnson’s advocacy on behalf of the Ark Encounter theme park and Creation Museum in Kentucky.

==============================================
https://theconversation.com/be...-his-politics-216954

Before he was House speaker, Mike Johnson represented a creationist museum in court. Here’s what that episode reveals about his politics

While it might not seem obvious, one of those connections includes his legal work on behalf of Ark Encounter, the massive tourist site in Kentucky run by Answers in Genesis, or AiG, and its CEO, Ken Ham. Ark Encounter and its companion site, the Creation Museum, propagate Young Earth Creationism, or YEC, which is the notion that the Earth is but 6,000 years old and that the geological formations seen today were formed by a global flood that took place around 4,000 years ago.

But this one has been upadted to new age BS.

quote:

The Iceman’s new genome also reveals he had male-pattern baldness and much darker skin than artistic representations suggest. Genes conferring light skin tones didn’t become prevalent until 4,000 to 3,000 years ago when early farmers started eating plant-based diets and didn’t get as much vitamin D from fish and meat as hunter-gathers did, Krause says.

Skin color based on plant based diets? 100% BS

https://www.sciencenews.org/ar...-dna-ancestry-genome

quote:

Originally posted by Aspen Hill Adventures:
But this one has been upadted to new age BS.

quote:

The Iceman’s new genome also reveals he had male-pattern baldness and much darker skin than artistic representations suggest. Genes conferring light skin tones didn’t become prevalent until 4,000 to 3,000 years ago when early farmers started eating plant-based diets and didn’t get as much vitamin D from fish and meat as hunter-gathers did, Krause says.

Skin color based on plant based diets? 100% BS

https://www.sciencenews.org/ar...-dna-ancestry-genome

Marigold petals [source of lutein pigmant] and maybe annatto [source of bixin pigment] can be added to chicken feed to impart a yellow color to the skin. This yellow coloration supposedly makes the bird more pleasing to the eye of the housewife when she's shopping. IIRC it's more of an east coast thing; at least it was many years ago. I don't think however that consuming red or black licorice will turn you into an Indian or Afro-American.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_skin_color

Human skin color

Another area of interesting sea monsters is the Orca whale.

When I was in Alaska, it was well known that there are two types (for lack of a better word) at least.

They are called migrant and resident. The migrants eat other marine mammals, even swimming deer or moose. The residents eat exclusively fish.

I may not be 100% correct on that, but that's what I understand to be true.

Here's some add'l info - maybe too much.

https://www.scientificamerican...ight-in-front-of-us/

Killer Whales Are Speciating Right in Front of Us

Killer whales appear to be splitting into several separate species, perhaps because cultural differences among populations are driving them apart

https://youtu.be/SBLmGmzjGiw?si=_w9Psl4Ug6rL1V2X

Searching for Type D: A New Species of Killer Whale?

=========================================================

The following video is rather long-winded, but interesting as it shows the depth of the research and history.

Here's the short version where the guy starts talking about the mammal eaters vs the fish eaters.

https://youtu.be/ysLKddzLvII?s...x6J3VRpzyNOocd&t=630

Here's the long version:

https://youtu.be/ysLKddzLvII?si=RkUrHgwR2wj6Lf8a

The Truth of Orca Evolution

That beach is maybe 45 mins from me. I used to take my kids fossil hunting there and found quite a few interesting things but nothing remotely like that. It’s best after a good storm has smashed up the cliff a bit.

They are actually a Dolphin, rather than a whale.

Have you seen the news about the ones that have been sinking boats off Europes coast?

https://www.livescience.com/an...-do-the-same-but-why

And orcas off the South African coast are eating the livers out of great whites. To the point, they ( the sharks) have moved off the Cape.
Barred owls have been working their way across the US from east coast to west for a century now.
The US F&W now want to shoot them to protect the spotted owl.
Nature changes constantly, or they go extinct.
Over 99% of species has gone extinct since the beginning of life on earth.
But the orcas I'm blaming on climate change!!

quote:

Originally posted by shankspony:

quote:

Originally posted by Scott King:

quote:

Originally posted by Magine Enigam:

quote:

Originally posted by crbutler:
Not sure how this qualifies as political, but it is neat.

Someone will claim it can't be 150 million years old, since the earth is only 6000 years old, or whatever.

What we don't know, ( what I don't know,) seems to grow not reduce annually.

I think sometimes the real rip off of finite life on earth is not knowing.

Me? I don't know about Spain or Jordan, I don't know about Roman roads, the Tigris and Euphrates, Wooly Mammoths, Passenger Pigeons, Australia's crocodiles and historical Great Zimbabwe.

M.E.'s above is another thing I'd like to know about but because my existence here is finite I do not and it's aggravating.

Totally agree! In 2 million years time the Andromeda galaxy will merge with ours and for a time before that it will be the dominant fixture in our nights sky. I feel a sense of loss that I wont get too see that, just as I feel loss that I never got to see the giant elk, the monstrous pachyderms that once lived.

I know it all, just gimme a call…900-999-9999 ;-)