This Was Rather Humorous.

#fossil #crocodile #yeah baby give me more croc ancestors #that’s my jam

These crocodile ancestors lived a two-legged life

A set of 106-million year old footprints show a crocodile relative appears to have walked on two legs.

Modern day crocodiles are pretty impressive. Some even climb trees. But 106 million years ago, a crocodile ancestor had another trick: It walked on two legs.

That’s what scientists now think, based on fossil footprints in South Korea. They are the first footprint evidence that some ancient ancestors of modern crocodiles walked on two legs. The size and spacing of the tracks suggest the reptile’s length spanned 2 to 3 meters (6 to 12 feet). That would make it about the size of modern crocs.  

Explainer: Understanding geologic time

The ancient tracks appear in the Jinju Formation, a South Korean site full of fossils. Most of its fossils date to the Mesozoic, between 252 and 66 million years ago. The Mesozoic is sometimes called the Age of Dinosaurs, but plenty of other animals lived at that time, too.

Now scientists have found a set of footprints there. It’s tough to identify what species made them, says Martin Lockley. As a paleontologist, he studies ancient organisms. He works at the University of Colorado in Denver. “Short of finding the animal dead in its tracks, there’s always a little bit of uncertainty,” he explains.

Explainer: How a fossil forms

But footprints, like animals, can be classified by type. The scientists couldn’t tell what animal left the beautifully preserved prints. For that, they’d need fossils of its tissues. Instead, they sorted the ancient prints into a “footprint genus.” So while they couldn’t say what animal genus the prints belonged to, they were able to determine that they were in the footprint genus Batrachopus.

All prints in this group were made by crocodylomorphs (Krok-oh-DY-loh-morfs). The name means “crocodile-shaped.” This group includes modern crocodiles, alligators and their ancestors.

The tracks’ most surprising feature is that they only show hind feet. There’s no evidence of “hand” prints at all. That’s strong evidence that this creature was bipedal — walking on only its hind legs, Lockley says. “We have dozens of these things, and not one sign of a front footprint,” he says. “So we’re pretty convinced.”

What Is This Terrifying Giant Sea Creature?

The (neuro)science of getting and staying motivated

There is no question that motivation is one of the hardest and yet important factors in life. It’s the difference between success and failure, goal-setting and aimlessness, well-being and unhappiness. And yet, why is it so hard to get motivated – or even if we do, to keep it up?

That is the question that scientists led by Professor Carmen Sandi at EPFL and Dr Gedi Luksys at the University of Edinburgh have sought to answer. The researchers worked off previous knowledge that told them two things: First, that people differ a lot in their capacity to engage in motivated behavior and that motivational problems like apathy are common in neurodegenerative and psychiatric disorders. Second, to target an area of the brain called the “nucleus accumbens”.

Sitting close to the bottom of brain, the nucleus accumbens has been the subject of a lot of research. The reason is that it was quickly found to be a major player in functions like aversion, reward, reinforcement, and motivation.

To test and quantify motivation, the EPFL team designed what is known as a “monetary incentive force task”. The idea is that participants perform a task with increasing – and measurable – effort and get paid sums of money that correspond to their effort. Basically, do more and get paid more.

In this study, 43 men were scanned to measure–metabolites in the nucleus accumbens in their brains with a sophisticated brain-imaging technique called “proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy”, or 1H-MRS. This can specifically measure the abundance of neurochemicals in the brain, such as neurotransmitters and metabolites. Because of this 1H-MRS is used even in clinical settings to determine neurological disorders.

Subsequently, each participant was asked to squeeze a device that measures force – a dynamometer – to a given level of contraction in order to earn either 0.2, 0.5, or 1 Swiss franc. This procedure was repeated for a number of 120 consecutive trials, which made performance in the task quite demanding.

The idea of the experiment was that the different sums would push participants to decide if they were going to invest energy and perform the task accordingly at each trial. The scientists also ran the experiment under isolation and group conditions to investigate the influence of competition on performance.

Once they had gathered the behavioral data, the researchers processed it through a computational model that estimated the most appropriate parameters that should be measured with regard to utility, effort, and performance functions. This allowed them to interrogate whether particular neurotransmitter levels predicted specific motivational functions.

The analysis revealed that the key to performance – and, by extension, motivation – lies within the ratio of two neurotransmitters in the nucleus accumbens: glutamine and glutamate. Specifically, the ratio of glutamine to glutamate relates to our capacity for maintaining performance over a long period of time – what the researchers term “stamina”.

Another discovery was that competition seems to boost performance even from the beginning of the task. This was especially the case for individuals with low glutamine-to-glutamate ratios in the nucleus accumbens.

“The findings provide novel insights in the field of motivation neuroscience,” says Carmen Sandi. “They show that the balance between glutamine and glutamate can help predict specific, computational components of motivated performance. Our approach and data can also help us develop therapeutic strategies, including nutritional interventions, that address deficits in effort engagement by targeting metabolism.”

If there's one thing that will instantly brighten up your day it is seeing the wildly different approaches each contestant took to eating a watermelon. Including completely obliterating it on the floor.

Taskmaster one task per episode 1.01 eat as much watermelon as possible in one minute (Romesh Ranganathan)

I like the juxtaposition between the message of “the medic is beautiful” and just how ominous he looks in this image. (”You’re Beautiful” plays as he ominously walks towards you, syringe in one hand and snapping his fingers with the other)

Medic from TF2 is beautiful

Requested by @the-man-in-green 

caught her in perfect deviantart oc ref sheet pose

I think what made the Mythbusters special was this: of course they would always ask, and test, “could the circumstances of the myth produce the described result?” but they ALSO always took the extra step to “under what circumstances, no matter how extreme, could the described result be achieved? ” and it was fucking spectacular every time

pnat secret santa 2023

Hi everyone, we're back for another year! Make sure to read through this post for the introduction, application form, and schedule!

What Is Paranatural Secret Santa?

Paranatural Secret Santa is an event that takes place during the holiday season. You get assigned to a person to make a gift for, you create that gift, and you also receive a gift! This secret Santa is themed after the webcomic Paranatural, so if you are a fan of it and create fan content, this is perfect for you!

Gifts can be fanart, fanfic, panel edits, graphics, ect! Whatever you feel like creating.

Application Form

You can apply for the Secret Santa here! (x)

Schedule

November 20th - December 6th: applications open

December 7th - December 10th: applications closed, assignments created and sent out

December 11th - December 24th: working period

December 25th - January 21st: posting/receiving/extension period

Since the event got up and running later than usual this year, we're extending the posting period into late January. Make sure to tag this blog in your post and also use the tag pnatsecretsanta2023 so your gift can be reblogged!

If you have any questions/comments/concerns feel free to contact us! Thanks everyone, and let's have another awesome Secret Santa!

this is fabulous!

Okay but listen

Feraligatr and totobabies

I find it rather charming, to be honest. This is one of those smooth rocks you find in a garden or by a riverbed, the ones that feel good when they're put in the palm of your hand. And its out there all by its lonesome, spinning like when you get into your parent's office chair and just make yourself go as fast as possible (possibly with a friend). Keep on spinning, you funky little dwarf planet you.

And according to NASA, Haumea has rings.

Ok so Haumea, a dwarf planet beyond Pluto, spins so fast it gets elongated like this. This is just what it looks like. Something deeply unsettles me looking at it. Terrifying.