Archive for November, 2014
There are 32 results found
Home » Archives for November 2014 » Page 4
T-Rex DNA Not digitally preserved: Why Jurassic Park Will Never Happen
Not digitally preserved: T-rex with feathers. We got lucky with our last two photos: Mammoths were in the news big today with a major find in Idaho (when this was originally published). Since we have DNA for many mammoth species (and elephants) we can use data science to study mammoths. Fans of the film Jurassic Park will be disappointed to learn that it looks like the same can never be said about T-rex DNA. The half-life of DNA is thought to be around 42,000 years, even in ice, whereas T-rex died out 60 million years ago, so all of its DNA is completely gone. Mammoths (and early humans like Neanderthals) have only been extinct for tens of thousands of years, so their DNA is still available for study. Why does it matter? There are tons of interesting questions about T-rex and dinosaurs that could best be solved by DNA. There’s the endless debate, for example, of whether T-rex as warmblooded or not-quite-warmblooded.… Read the restPaleo Diet Photo Blog: Mammoth and Rembrandts
After our last post, we wanted to try out the Paleo Diet near headquarters in Los Angeles, California. Look what they dug up from the world famous La Brea Tar Pits (Wikipedia) at the Page Museum! This is right next to the LACMA art museum, where we photographed the sunset over the Levitated Mass sculpture, one of our all-time most-liked photographs to date (when this was originally posted as an IG post). In addition to ancient mammoth fossils and giant pet rock art exhibits, there also are Picassos and Rembrandts in the same city block. (But apparently no Vermeer, although they did show the Vermeer documentary we discussed earlier. This is also a photographic follow-up to our earlier, much more serious Woolly Mammoth post on 11,000-year-old prehistoric art and preserving extinct species’s DNA.) Unfortunately, none of the restaurants nearby serve mammoth (and the ubiquitous Starbucks across the street from the mammoth’s bones also was out of their usual cold, shrink-wrapped mammoth sandwiches).… Read the restPhoto Blog: Levitated Mass Sculpture at Sunset
This is our photo of the Levitated Mass artwork (Wikipedia link) at sunset near our corporate headquarters at the famous LACMA art museum in Los Angeles, California. This photo was originally posted to our IG feed, where it remains one of our all-time most popular posts. (The row of palm trees in the background has been cropped in this version, as this was originally formatted for IG’s aspect ratio.) We thought we’d share it on our blog as well. (more…)… Read the restCaveman diet: data preservation of a woolly mammoth
No, this isn’t our sketch of an elephant. This is an 11,000-year old drawing by a Cro-Magnon prehistoric caveman (caveperson?) of a woolly mammoth in the Combarelles caves near Dordogne, France, as captured in the sketchbook of French archaeologist Joseph Déchelette (1862-1914). Apparently, this guy experienced the caveman diet and paleo diet first-hand. The gene sequences for the woolly mammoth and several related species have been available since 2008. Random gene drift is a type of molecular clock, and analysis of this genomic data allows the dating of the split between mammoths and African elephants. That happened six million years ago, around the time chimps split from what became humans. Mammoths did really well for a long time. They were imposing creatures, probably not easy to kill for most animals. Unfortunately, after six millions years, our ferocious ancestors’ hunting technology caught up to mammoths. (Unfortunately, the paleo and caveman diets weren’t too good from the perspective of the woolly mammoths.)… Read the restRecent Posts
Recent Comments
- florimee on genetic disease turns you into a real-life vampire
- Acculation on Alien Pioneer plaque starmap to 3D printed jewelry transmedia: maker movement data-driven multiplatform media
- Acculation on Free Video Data Science Assessment Tool
- Acculation on Free Business Advice Chatbot Product
- Acculation on Online Consultation with Dr. Krebs (Big Data and Management Consulting)
Featured Posts
Tags
analytics
animal
art
artwork
bigdata
blue
book
business
california
careers
classic
collage
colors
cool
data
drawing
encore
famous
figure
gadget
glitch
glitched
green
historic
historical
ideas
illustration
intelligent
light
mirror
more
old
photo
pop
popart
post
red
Sagan
science
space
story
tech
us
warhol
water