Stannous Flouride's Book of Truthiness

Lovely 1952 MG TD on Stanyan Street

This new Jurassic dinosaur wasn’t discovered by a paleontologist, but by a seven-year-old child. (Are you as jealous as I am?)

On February 4, 2004, while hiking around southern Chile with his geologist parents Manuel Suarez and Rita de la Cruz, young Diego Suarez picked up a few bones he found on a hillside. His parents immediately recognized them as a rib and vertebra of a little dinosaur, and, with his sister Macarena joining in, Diego and his family scoured the site for more.

Now, more than a decade later, the dinosaur has been named for Diego and the place it was found: Chilesaurus diegosuarezi:

Based on several specimens unearthed at the site, Fernando Novas of the Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales and his co-authors announced the new plant-plucking theropod this week in Nature.

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/meet-chilesaurus-new-raptor-dinosaur-vegetarian-diet-180955101/#5Av2OQu0Tw1ZTcj2.99

Citing the growing negative opinion of Sea World for its imprisonment and enslavement of sentient creatures for cheap entertainment, Mattel Toys has decided to retire its Overseer Barbie along with any other toys or products branded with Sea World.

Let’s hope that the days of using these beautiful creatures as clowns is nearing its end.

Professor David Lerner carrying out pollution tests with tampons:

The cotton that makes up tampons is unique, in that it’s completely natural and untreated. As a result, the material is able to easily and effectively absorb different chemicals that it comes into contact with and clearly show the presence of these substances. Dr Lerner is using the feminine products, like litmus paper, to test for chemicals known as optical brighteners in freshwater. Found in laundry detergent, shampoos and toilet paper, these chemicals are used to keep items bright and white.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/how-scientists-monitoring-water-with-tampons-180955008/

This movie, which shows some amazing views of San Francisco in the 50s, was a pilot for a TV show of the same name.

It was CBS’s response to NBC’s hugely successful Dragnet and set in SF as counterpoint to that show’s LA setting. Syndicated reruns of the series were broadcast under the title San Francisco Beat.

You can watch the whole film here:

I was just loaned a DVD set of the first 16 episodes but have been told that all 6 seasons (1954-1960) are available from various sources online.

Jacob is straight, and Anthony is gay, but Jacob figured who better to go to the dance with than someone he considers a brother?

Jacob popped the question by unfurling a giant banner that read “You’re hella gay, I’m hella str8, but you’re like my brother so be my d8!”

Anthony is on the student council, and is often responsible for planning school dances, but lamented that he never gets asked to go.

“He’s a real man,” Anthony said of Jacob in a post, “given that he has the guts to fulfill my gay student council dream of always helping out planning dances, and never getting asked. I couldn’t ask for a better person in my life.”

An archaeologist has discovered liquid mercury at the end of a tunnel beneath a Mexican pyramid, a finding that could suggest the existence of a king’s tomb or a ritual chamber far below one of the most ancient cities of the Americas.

Mexican researcher Sergio Gómez announced on Friday that he had discovered “large quantities” of liquid mercury in a chamber below the Pyramid of the Feathered Serpent, the third largest pyramid of Teotihuacan, the ruined city in central Mexico.

Gómez speculated that the mercury could be a sign that his team is close to uncovering the first royal tomb ever found in Teotihuacan after decades of excavation – and centuries of mystery surrounding the leadership of the cryptic but well-preserved city.

The discovery of a tomb could help solve the enigma of how Teotihuacan was ruled, and Joyce said that the concentration of artifacts outside the tunnel chambers could be associated with a tomb – or a set of ritual chambers.

A royal tomb could lend credence to the theory that the city, which flourished between 100-700AD, was ruled by dynasties in the manner of the Maya, though with far less obvious flair for self-glorification.

But a royal tomb cold also hold the remains of a lord, which may fit with a competing idea about the city. Linda Manzanilla, a Mexican archaeologist acclaimed by many of her peers, contends that the city was ruled by four lords and notes that the city lacks a palace or apparent depiction of kings on its many murals.

That’s it over my left shoulder a few weeks ago:

Much more on the subject here.

The dark squares that make up the checkerboard pattern in this image are fields of a sort—fields of seaweed. Along the south coast of South Korea, seaweed is often grown on ropes, which are held near the surface with buoys. This technique ensures that the seaweed stays close enough to the surface to get enough light during high tide but doesn’t scrape against the bottom during tide.

This second, highly enlargeable image of the surrounding coastal area shows that there are hundreds of square kilometers under cultivation:

(An even higher resolution image can be found here.)

Two main types of seaweed are cultivated in South Korea: Undaria (known as miyeok in Korean, wakame in Japanese) and Pyropia (gim in Korean, nori in Japanese). Both types are used generously in traditional Korean, Japanese, and Chinese food.

Since 1970, farmed seaweed production has increased by approximately 8 percent per year. Today, about 90 percent of all the seaweed that humans consume globally is farmed. That may be good for the environment. In comparison to other types of food production, seaweed farming has a light environmental footprint because it does not require fresh water or fertilizer.

NASA Earth Observatory image by Jesse Allen, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Caption by Adam Voiland.

These mandalas are the creations of baker Stephen McCarty‘s Sukhavati Raw Desserts, all are vegan and several are all-raw. Not my first dietary choices by I’d not push my chair away from the table were they presented to me.

The colors used in McCarty’s cakes are all made from natural plant and fruit extracts. His creations include a banana-jungle nut butter-chocolate cheesecake, coconut-lime-raw vegan cheesecake, and an acai-blueberry-mango cheesecake.

One of the better Photoplastys in a while examines a world where humans are less sex-obsessed.I know the winning entry already applies to about half the women I know:

http://www.cracked.com/photoplasty_1444_if-everyone-suddenly-didnt-care-about-sex/
-Ogden Nash