Inquiry into Nature in the Spirit of John Ray
These are quick stories or news items with less commentary. These may be short stories or comments about other natural history stories from other sources
Today Creation.com (Creation Ministries International) published a story about the amazing preservation of clearly identifiable gall mites. My Facebook feed proclaimed the following: ”Gall mites magnificently preserved in amber ostensibly 230 million years old are just the same as mites found alive today” with a link to the story HERE. The gist of the article […]
How long would it take for falling dust to accumulate into a mound 2 1/2 miles tall? Answers in Genesis has commented (Wind, not water, may have built the Martian Mount Sharp) over the weekend on the same research article that I referenced in my post last week (NH Notes: Did Wind and Dust Create a […]
Large depressions, layers of rocks, precipitated minerals in rock cracks, erratic rocks strewn about, mountains inside of craters: these are just a few examples of the diversity of landscapes on Mars that the Curiosity rover has discovered and been investigating the past six months. The mountain at the center of the crater that Curiosity […]
A few nights ago I finally decided it was time to find out what had been making periodic strange noises in my attic at night for the last couple of months. I had looked up there once before and couldn’t find any signs of anything unusual so I thought it was just in the gutters […]
One small site in Spain has yielded 1800 fossil bones from at least 18 species of extinct large animals. That is the update today about a fossil site that has been under investigation for 10 years. The site represents one of the best sites for fossil carnivores because of the unique circumstances under which it […]
I have been thinking about Elephants the last couple of days and may write more about elephant following in the vein of my recent posts on horses. For now I just want to introduce you to one really weird extinct elephant. I call it an elephant because of its obvious similarities but just like with […]
What happened to huge dinosaur eggs that were either abandoned or broke prematurely? You might think that this is a question that is impossible to answer, but there have been dinosaur eggs that have been discovered with intriguing evidence of scavenging of various forms. I recently came across a report from 2011 that I […]
What is pseudoscience and how does one recognize it? Scientists and philosophers have long struggled to answer this difficult question. A book published last year, The Pseudoscience Wars: Immanuel Velikovsky and the Birth of the Modern Fringe by Michael Gordin, helps to further refine our understanding of what pseudoscience is by examining the rise and fall of […]
A quick natural history note this morning. I was looking for some information for my class and ran across this image which was just too cool not to share. It shows a form of trace fossil. Trace fossils are not fossilized remains of actual organisms but instead are evidence of the past presence of organisms. […]
I’m posting a short follow-up to a story about huddling penguins that I wrote about a few weeks ago (Heat-sharing Huddling Penguins – A Benefit to Selfish Behavior?). I was pointed to a really fascinating set of videos that show emperor penguins in the process of forming huddles. You can see these videos embedded in […]
