#21434: DarkSyde — 04/09  at  08:02 PM
No therizinosaurs?

#21436: — 04/09  at  08:37 PM
I also notice there was no mention of a fire breathing t-rex! Hovind is going to be disappointed.

#21438: — 04/09  at  09:33 PM
They keep the dermestids *in* the museum? I heard that
the National History Museum keeps them in a separate
trailer for fear they'll get out and eat the exhibits.
Hungry buggers.

#21439: — 04/09  at  09:40 PM
You gotta love the kind of place where you'll turn a corner and find a bucket labeled "human brain".

When I still taught anatomy, I had a side job working with MDs doing one-day training courses using various types of cadaverous material. One Saturday morning, it was a plastic surgery workshop, and I had to get 12 heads set up.

I opened the first cooler, and it was occupied by just one object. A vast object. A giant object. I thought "Oh crap, they've sent me cow heads or something."

I looked at the tag to check and it said, "Human Head (Extra Large!)." And so it was.

#21440: Paul Weimer — 04/09  at  10:00 PM
Ah, that photo is of the dinosaur down in the main lobby, right?

I'm pleased you all had a great time. I might have to try and see it one more time before it closes.

#21441: — 04/09  at  10:01 PM
You gotta love the kind of place where you'll turn a corner and find a bucket labeled "human brain".

A few years ago, I got to see the University of Michigan natural history museum's specimen collection. In one room, I found some unclassified, crayfish-like arthropods stuffed into giant mayonnaise jars!

Reduce, reuse, recycle...

Outgroup: The set of organisms not cool enough for the ingroup.

#21442: judgeMC — 04/09  at  10:04 PM
I am so upset that the chinasaurs won't be coming to S.C.

#21447: — 04/10  at  12:04 AM
The Field keeps its dermestid colony in the collections area. So does the Texas Tech Museum. It's a pretty common practice; the risk of a mass escape and consumption of collections is pretty low.

#21448: Linkmeister — 04/10  at  12:13 AM
Mammoth found in Los Angeles. Well, ok, skeletal remains thereof.

#21451: — 04/10  at  02:11 AM
There was a dermestid colony in the biology dept at Tech when I was there. I worked as an assistant for Dr. Robert Packard, and used it all the time. They never went anywhere, because it was warm and cozy, and the food was plentiful. I fed them at least a thousand kangaroo rats, I think.

#21452: — 04/10  at  02:23 AM
The first female breast i ever saw in the flesh was during a presentation by a local pathologist to the biology club I belonged to during my freshman year. He showed us several amputated body parts. This experience doesn´t seem to have affected my sexuality, at least I don`t think so...

#21453: — 04/10  at  04:48 AM
jc, unless you had a different upbringing in the early years than most, it would not be the first female breast you saw in the flesh.

#21456: — 04/10  at  08:23 AM
While we're on that subject, I think there's an infiltrator in the UMM biology club!

PZ, have you interrogated that guy-- second from the right in the first photo-- to find out exactly what KIND of biology he's there to learn?

#21457: PZ Myers — 04/10  at  08:35 AM
Why, no. I had no idea. Shall I collar him after class tomorrow and take him to the Interrogation Room?

#21460: Ron Sullivan — 04/10  at  09:21 AM
Interrogation Room. I like the sound of that.

"Fetch hither... the Comfy Chair!!"

There's something charming about rooms full of buckets so labeled, yes. Some years back, Jos and I visited an A&P lab at a local community college with a friend who was studying marine biology there. There was a seal skeleton, several months old -- by which I mean defleshed and cleaned -- and it was still so oily it sat in a puddle and greased up our hands when we touched it. Impressive.

There were lots of buckets of human bits, too, some with very nice sagittal sections. I find that's an interesting angle from which to see things. The head -- skull, mouth, brain and all -- was well done. Now I think of it, I have forgotten or never learned what tools were used. I suppose freezing it and using a bandsaw wouldn't work.

Joe suddenly had to go out and have a smoke when Barb opened the bucket with the sagittal section of the male naughty bits.* Maybe it was the way the thing was floating.

(*Do those annoying pornspotters troll here too? I'm amazed at what I don't know sometimes. Anyway I'm euphemizing, just in case.)

Sincerely,
Sister Broadsword of Courteous Debate

#21462: Ron Sullivan — 04/10  at  09:25 AM
Ahem.

"Jos" is "Joe" of course.

And, PZ, you might want to beware of long verification words. The one for my last post drifted off the right side of the box, and I had to guess twice (between "te" and "n") to get the right ending for it.

#21470: Burt Humburg — 04/10  at  12:02 PM
Heard this one on The Joke Show.

How do you get a Unitarian to leave town?

Burn a question mark on his lawn.

BCH

#21471: — 04/10  at  12:18 PM
I misread your post initially. I could have sworn you wrote Chiasaurs.

But then I thought how much water they would require...

#21524: — 04/11  at  12:53 AM
Mammoth found in Los Angeles. Well, ok, skeletal remains thereof.

We are definitely mammoth country out here. The Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits has probably dozens of examples, along with hundreds of examples of the wolves that would try to prey on the trapped mammoths and get caught in the tar themselves.

It's possible that there are great dinosaur finds out here, but you have to dig through the layers upon layers of mammoths, sabertoothed tigers, and wolves first.

(Incidentally, despite what you might think from the name, the La Brea Tar Pits are surrounded by a lovely park that's a nice place to have a picnic. Though every so often the wind shifts and you get a faceful of methane.)