Per Ahlberg

Shades of George Formby:

"Now I go strumming kittens,
to earn an honest bob,
for a nosey Parker it's an interesting jo_AAAARGH GET IT OFF ME!!!"

Hey diddle diddle,
The cat and the sopranissimo ukulele

You think of it that way because the early Holocene - the time of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers in "primeval" forests - was already an ecological disaster zone. A shell of what it had been; an ecosystem stripped of all the really big environmental engineers like elephants and rhinos.

The greatest tongue-twister is surely the fossil primate Ekgmowechashala zancanellai, but in all its you-didn't-really-read-it-did-you? simplicity, my all-time favorite is Homo erectus.

A planktivore is the most terrifying hyperpredator imaginable. Its victims count in the tens, nay, hundreds of thousands. All consumed without a moment of pity.

A red sandstone bridge over the river Neckar. The old town of Heidelberg in the background.

The gate tower of the bridge: two white round towers with ornamental roofs flanking a red sandstone arch.

The market square in the old town of Heidelberg, with a gothic church in the middle.

While Silurian stem osteichthyans seize the cover of Nature, it’s a beautiful evening in Heidelberg. My first visit, here to give two lectures. A lovely city!

arcade, but not everyone believed us. Here they are! Seen in an articulated fish for the first time. 🧪

This paper carries a special satisfaction for me. Years ago, Donglei Chen and I discovered small tooth-bearing elements in Silurian vertebrate micro-residues (obtained by dissolving rock in acid) of the stem osteichthyans Andreolepis and Lophosteus. We worked out that they must be the inner dental

Largest Silurian fish illuminates the origin of osteichthyan characters - Nature New findings from articulated head and trunk material of Megamastax amblyodus yield previously unseen morphological details of a Silurian stem osteichthyan.

Megamastax, a mighty chew from the Silurian - paper in @nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Gorgeous photo! The shadow really makes it.

Thrilled to have been a part of this project and the accompanying (but slightly younger and much bigger) Megamastax. The osteichthyan stem group is coming into focus!🧪

Chocolate chip dog

A single toilet bowl with his face on the inside is a bigger up-front investment but can be used again and again. Probably cheaper in the long run.

I would love to see Trump try to pronounce “Cardinal Ximenez”.

And still it won't make him happy. Every day his hatred and fear - the worm that never sleeps - will continue to gnaw at his bowels.

Is that a Druid standing by the stones??

"No one knows
who they were,
or what they were doing;
but their legacy remains,
hewn into the living rock
of Stonehenge!"

Really looks like it, doesn't it? Obviously this doesn't apply to all of them - and we all know who the exceptions are - but from an outside viewpoint their response to the obvious authoritarian far right take-over of the US government has been jaw-droppingly lame.

Yep

You know what I mean, I think; those strange lingering sequences when a shallow sea has inexplicably surrounded Yubaba's bath house. Shoals of small fish swimming over submerged railway tracks.

I'm getting Spirited Away vibes. Like it.

No wonder they're in trouble...

Surely it would be disastrous in the long run for the Democrats to be associated with that kind of doublespeak? If they aren't already, that is. Without detailed knowledge, I'm guessing Maine is a rather White state? But many others are not and the Black vote is a crucial backbone for the party.

A great big tent-pavilion with a swastika above the door? Not sure this is a good direction to go.

I'm not saying that the left shouldn't own guns. Indeed, you are finding yourselves in a situation where that may prove important. But it's part of the whole mythology around the 2A that it will protect the citizens from a potential tyrannical government, and so far that hasn't really worked out.

Black-and-white engraving of five soldiers in a row, all wearing fantastically elaborate costumes and big hats.

And these guys are 16th century German mercenaries of a type known as "Landsknecht"; murderous, probably psychopathic killers-for-hire who terrorized contemporary Europe:

A long-haired nobleman wearing a black jacket and red trousers, festooned with lace and decorative details.

It's funny in context that male European fashion for centuries embraced styles and fashions that look jaw-droppingly camp today. Here's 17th century Spanish nobleman Tiburcio de Redin y Cruzat:

pxcanvasprints.com/featured/tib...

Nah, the gayest of all cavemen: Homo erectus.

No, you are quite right about this: it’s an appalling rag that’s never stopped agitating for white supremacy. Which makes the science coverage even more of an anomaly.

Disturbingly, their science coverage is often quite good. On several occasions their news reports on my discoveries have been among the best. Which makes me feel quite queasy.