Science Saturday: The Snarky Edition

And he calls them “creepy-crawlies”? Scientists found a gigantic claw, presumed to be part of an eight-foot [astonished italics mine] sea scorpion, in a quarry near Prüm in Germany recently. In today’s Science Daily, Dr. Simon Braddy from the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol, co-author of an article about the find, is quoted as saying, “This is an amazing discovery. We have known for some time that the fossil record yields monster millipedes, super-sized scorpions, colossal cockroaches, and jumbo dragonflies, but we never realised, until now, just how big some of these ancient creepy-crawlies were.”

I really don’t want to know what a “monster millipede” looks like.

University of Bristol (2007, November 21). Giant Fossil Sea Scorpion Bigger Than Man. ScienceDaily. Retrieved November 24, 2007, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071120195710.htm

“I Got More Leg in Me, Man.” I’ll admit I’m an Everest junkie—I’ll watch every documentary there is about it. The addiction started after reading Into Thin Air during a three-day vacation in St. Petersburg, Fl. I also have a high school friend who climbed Everest and found George Mallory‘s body and retrieved his camera, so I’ve got a completely unearned two-degree of separation claim to its peak.

Last year, I watched the hyperbolic Everest: Beyond the Limit reality-docudrama extravaganza with the loyalty of an American Idol fan. The show even had its own Sanjaya: California biker and quasi tin-man (literally) Tim Medvetz (that’s him on the left). Why they decided to let him back on the mountain this season is beyond my comprehension. Everest viewers will recall Medvetz’s obstinate “I got more leg in me, man” plea to leader Russell Brice while slumped on his butt above Camp 4, as a beloved Sherpa tries to knock some sense into him and return to camp before they both die. I can only guess the show’s producers were expecting viewers to be just outraged and appalled enough by Tim’s reprisal role of village idiot to tune in again. Have I stopped watching? *sigh* No.