SCIENCE

Blog Carnival # 28: Eating Han Solo, Extinction Cakes, Art and Science and More

January 27, 2011

Dinosaur extinction cake

Interpretive Dance: Everything Dinosaur recounts an unusual class project that is curiously reminiscent of many off-off-Broadway productions: “The children…(aged 5-6) put on a dancing display as they interpreted how they thought the dinosaurs met their demise…. at first they pretended to be different types of dinosaurs….As the music grew louder….the ‘dinosaurs’ became scared and started running around in a panic. At the crescendo of the music, the asteroid hit the Earth and all the children fell down and stayed very still, indicating the demise of the Dinosauria.”

And, Speaking of Mass Extinction: The Dinosaur Fossil Blog presents this video (in Danish, above) showcasing a cake that recreates the asteroid impact that is believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs. The paleo-baker also “found room to add an erupting volcano that represents the alternative theory – that the ashes and gasses from a giant eruption was the actual cause of the extinction.”

The Top Ten Dinosaurs That Could Eat Han Solo: I’m glad that’s finally settled.

Yes, But Can They Eat Han Solo? At Bob’s Dinosaur Blog, the Top Ten Dinosaurs By Continent.

Size Matters: At SV-POW!, Matt Wedel presents this excellent tutorial on how to determine the mass of a dinosaur.

Artistic Statement: At Flying Trilobite, Glendon Mellow contemplates why science often inspires visual art, but visual art rarely inspires science: “I criticized the idea underlying a symposium discussing ‘Art as a Way of Knowing.’ I said that art is more a Way of Exploring. It doesn't provide new knowledge, only creates new, imaginative, metaphorical links between areas of knowledge.”