There rolls the deep where grew the tree. O earth, what changes hast thou seen! There where the long street roars, hath been The stillness of the central sea. The hills are shadows, and they flow From form to form, and nothing stands; They melt like mist, the solid lands, Like clouds they shape themselves and go. But in my spirit will I dwell, And dream my dream, and hold it true;

Aitor Ederra drew my attention to this painting by Frederik Spindler: It’s briefly discussed in a blog-post on changing norms in palaeo-art.

Inspired by Bob Nicholl’s brilliant sketch Failed Ambush , my son Matthew reinterpreted it in this video — also titled Failed Ambush. NOTE: this video is officially endorsed by Dr. Mathew J. Wedel, who testifies as follows: “it’s awesome”.

Are you a lover of sauropod necks? Do you long to demonstrate to your friends and family how much better[1] they are than the necks of other long-necked critters? Are you crazy for the Taylor and Wedel (2013a) paper on why sauropods had long necks; and why giraffes have short necks , but disappointed that it’s not, until now, been obtainable in T-shirt form? If so, it’s your lucky day!

Following on from Matt’s post about the difficulty of photographing big specimens without distortion, I thought I’d have a play with our best Sauroposeidon C8 photo, which I think is this one: (That’s been the basis for classic SV-POW!

“Look at all the things you’ve done for me Opened up my eyes, Taught me how to see, Notice every tree.” So sings Dot in Move On, the climactic number of Stephen Sondheim’s Pulitzer Prize-winning music Sunday in the Park with George, which on the surface is about the post-impressionist painter Georges Seurat, but turns […]

In his post on Vicki’s new book Broken Bones , Matt told us his twelve-step process for producing stippled illustrations like this one of a crushed skull, which became the cover image of the book: As soon as I saw that, I found myself thinking that it would look nice with some shading of the bone.

When we last left my better half, Dr. Vicki Wedel, she was helping to identify a Jane Doe who had been dead for 37 years by counting growth rings in the woman’s teeth. That case nicely illustrated Vicki’s overriding interest: to advance forensic anthropology by developing new methods and refining existing ones.

It’s a strange time of year for me. Teaching and SVP are both behind me, my tenure dossier is in (I’ll find out how that goes next April, probably), and for the first time in a while, I’m not shepherding any pressing manuscripts through the valley of potential rejection. Urgency has dissipated. Flights of fancy are very in right now. Take this post.

I just found out — thanks to a tweet from abertonykus — that this exists: That’s me on top of the Giraffatitan , Matt to the right, and Darren swinging from its wattle. It’s the work of classicalguy on Deviant Art. He provides a poem and some brief commentary along with the original. There also one for the Tetrapod Zoology podcats, and one for Tom Holtz.