D3 Nationals

My alma mater is hosting D3 track nationals and I’m watching some of it live over the internets. I like to think that the D3 distance runners are scholar-athletes, but all of the post-race interviews have been very cringe-worthy. My two favorites:

Men’s steeplechase champion: “Like I said, I try to just focus on running my own race. I’m a competitor I like to compete against other guys.”

Women’s 10,000m champion: “Coach said all that matters is that we gave it our all, doesn’t matter what place we end up. The race didn’t go perfectly, but when it was over, coach said ‘A win is a win’.”

Gosh guys, really? You’re making the rest of us look bad.

donna dimetrodon

One of our (many) sabbatical visitors came to talk to me about the K-T impactor. Man if you’re going to bring up experiments we can do with K-T material I’m not going to get anything else done the rest of the day.

Sneezing Monkey

Rhinopithecus Strykeri was discovered in 2010 in the mountains of Myanmar. Due to its snub nose, the monkey sneezes when it rains. Poor little guy.

Tyrant King

I learned that Tyrannosaurus Rex means “Tyrant King”. I think I knew this when I was seven but I’m happy to relearn it. N-factorial reminded me that one must drop the o’saurus and it’s Tyrant Lizard King.

Talia and I went to a Rainbows baseball game on Friday. It was an exciting 2-2 affair, with the conference title on the line, when we had to leave in the top of the 8th inning because we ran out of garlic fries.

 

Our Dinosaur Friends

Look what I found.

At the risk of giving my parents and brother flashbacks: NOOOO MAKE IT STOP!!!!!!

The cosmic ballet…goes on.

solar eclipse

This is my high-tech eclipse photographing setup. It’s Al foil, sunglasses, and two rubber bands.

Killer Fire Rocks of San Onofre

Crazy stuff.

Sea Monster Update May 2012

this thing

Bunny

Bunny has taken to picking up and dropping her bowl LOUDLY and repeatedly if she isn’t fed by 4:30am. (We have downstairs neighbors). Clearly she’s starving to death:

meteorites

There’s been only 100 grams of rocks recovered from the glorious daytime fireball over California and Nevada last week. It turned out to be a rare and awesome CM carbonaceous chondrite! These are rich in organic material and water; meteorites like these have been proposed to be the delivery of water and prebiotic compounds to Earth. These rocks were found near Sutter’s Mill, where the California gold rush started and a short distance from my wife’s parents’ place. They’re selling for a $1000/gram  — very high even for a CM due to the scarcity of material, notoriety of the fireball, and the historically interesting place where it fell. For comparison, gold is currently selling for $50/gram.

Those little white specks are the oldest solid material in the solar system.

Yesterday some classy filmmakers visited my office/lab to film our graduate student looking at meteorite thin sections in the microscope. I had to stand by for technical support, then I made some videos for them. I uploaded them to youtube accompanied by thoughtful music. These are chondrules (and some matrix) of a primitive ordinary chondrite, under cross-polarized light:

 

more here.