Two weird fossils

February 24, 2011 • 6:56 am

Hot off the press are two new papers about fossil creatures, an insect and a “lobopod” that may be closely related to the ancestor of modern arthropods (insects, spiders, crustaceans, millipedes, etc.)

In the newest issue of Nature, Liu et al. (reference below) describe a fossil lobopod from the Chengjiang formation: a Chinese formation containing an amazing array of fossils from the early Cambrian (ca. 525-520 million years ago).  Chengjiang has yielded many bizarre creatures—like the later Burgess Shale, it preserved many delicate animals—but this is one of the most striking. It’s a new lobopod, Diania cactiformis (note the species name: it really does look like a cactus):


The quality of preservation is amazing.  What are lobopods?  They are an early group of anomalous animals that bear a certain resemblance to the living onycophorans (“velvet worms”), once thought to be a “missing link” between annelid worms and arthropods.  Lobopods have often been seen as a stem group of modern arthopods: a stem group is an extinct group that is more closely related to the common ancestor of a diverse modern group than to the ancestor of any other group, but is not itself  part of the first group.

Liu et al. confirm through phylogenetic analysis that Diania cactiformis is closely related to the ancestor of modern arthropods, but not descended from that common ancestor.  It has arthopod-like “sclerotinized” limbs (sclerotin is a protein found in the hard arthropod cuticle), and arthopod-like jointed limbs. Here’s a reconstruction:

Liu et al.’s analysis also shows that the fossil and other lobopods are “paraphyletic”: that is, some members of the “lobopod” group are more closely related to other non-lobopod taxa than they are to other lobopods.  That makes the Lobopodia a false grouping, since it does not include all the descendants of one common ancestor.  The authors conclude:

Irrespective of its exact position, Diania, with its stout and spiny limbs attached to a slender, vermiform body, remains a highly unusual creature. It is hard to envisage it as the progenitor of any modern arthropod group, yet it may derive from a grade of lobopodian that acquired a key evolutionary innovation—and the name-giving character for Arthropoda—whereby sclerotized, jointed appendages began to fully develop.

The second beast is a fossil cricket Schizodactylus groeningae, whose description was published by Sam Heads and Léa Leuzingers in a fairly obscure journal, ZooKeys (reference below, access free).  The description was based on two specimens from the remarkable Crato Formation of Brazil, dating back about 112 million years.  The formation is amazing because it preserved many delicate creatures, especially insects. You can see the veins of their wings, and sometimes even their colors!  Here are a couple of non-crickets from Crato.

First, an Ephemeropteran (mayfly).  Remember, this insect lived more than a hundred million years ago:

A grasshopper-like insect placed in the family Eincanidae:

Here’s the fossil cricket described by Heads and Leuzinger. It was formerly named Brauckmannia groeningae:

Notice the coiled wings and the “lateral processes” on the feet.  These are similar to those of living “splay-footed crickets” that are placed in the genus Schizodactylus.   And that’s the excuse for posting the fossil, for I didn’t know of these crickets, and they’re weird.  Crickets in the family Schizodactylidae live largely in the sand dunes of Asia and Africa.  Their splayed feet act, in fact, like snowshoes, helping them make their way over unstable sand.  Here’s a modern one, Schizodactylus inexpectatus (photo copyright by Jan Sevcik):

The authors conclude that the fossil cricket shares so many features with the modern ones in this genus, including coiled wings and those “sandshoes,” that it should be placed in the genus Schizodactylus as well; and they renamed the fossil beast Schizodactylus groeningae.  When a species is renamed (“synonymized”) in this way, that means that the earlier genus name, Brauckmannia, can never be used again.

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Heads, S. W. and L. Leuzinger. 2011.  On the placement of the Cretaceous orthopteran Brauckmannia groeningae from Brazil, with notes on the relationships of Schizodactylidae (Orthoptera, Ensifera). ZooKeys 77:17-30.

Liu, J., M. Steiner, J. A. Dunlop, H. Keupp, D. Shu, Q. Ou, J. Han, Z. Zhang, and X. Zhang.  2011.  An armoured Cambrian lobopodian from China with arthopod-like appendiges.  Nature 470:526-530.

The greatest pop voices of our time. Day 5, also-rans: Johnny Hartman

February 24, 2011 • 5:56 am

In the history of jazz, there have been two great combinations of solo saxophone players and vocalists.  One, of course, was Billie Holiday and Lester Young (perhaps some day we’ll have Jazz Vocalist Week and Saxophone Week).  Holiday was, without doubt, the greatest jazz vocalist of all time, and Lester’s delicate playing spun a skein of notes around her like yarn around a kitten.

The other duo is not so well known—as a duo.  One member was the legendary John Coltrane; all jazz enthusiasts know him, and I hope one day to put up some of his songs.  The other was the vocalist I’m featuring today: Johnny Hartman (1923-1983).  Hartman was not nearly as well known as he should have been, perhaps because his output was small.  But his voice was beautiful, mellow and smoky—like a combination of Bing Crosby and Nat King Cole.  And although Hartman is considered a jazz singer, I’ll put him under “pop” because he sang mostly ballads—and because I don’t want to leave him out.

The collaboration with Coltrane is limited to a single album, Johnny Hartman and John Coltrane (1963).  But it is, I think, the greatest stand-alone album of jazz vocals ever produced.  Billie Holiday is still the best singer, but in individual songs rather than album collections.   Many jazz buffs will beef, saying that the Hartman/Coltrane songs are romantic ballads, but remember how many jazz greats (including Charlie Parker) recorded ballads.

The album has six songs, each of them a classic.  All but one were recorded in a single take. The setup is the same for each: there are long solos by Coltrane, and then vocals by Hartman with Coltrane in the background.  The result is mesmerizing.  I’ll put up four of them and link to the other two.  There are no live performances because this was a studio album.  The “studio musicians” were great jazz musicians as well: McCoy Tyner on piano, Elvin Jones on drums, and Jimmy Garrison on bass.  For the following four, click on the line that says “Watch on YouTube“:

My favorite: “My One and Only Love”

“They Say It’s Wonderful” (written by Irving Berlin for the musical Annie Get Your Gun!)

“Lush Life” (the Billy Strayhorn classic):

“Dedicated to You”

and . .

“Autumn Serenade”

“You Are Too Beautiful”

You can buy all the songs for six bucks on iTunes, or for 12 bucks on Amazon.  Here are the Amazon ratings:

Jesus ‘n’ Mo tackle the Ontological Argument

February 23, 2011 • 6:34 pm

In some corners of the website-osphere, people are implying that the Ontological Argument for the reality of god is an argument of great theological subtlety—that people like Richard Dawkins simply fail to grasp why it’s so powerful a tool for inferring god’s existence from reason alone, without recourse to data.

Bosh. The argument is dumb, perfectly capable of refutation by anyone with more than a few neurons.  The  Jesus and Mo artist shows its intellectual vacuity:

Kitteh contest: Sam (aka Möbius Cat)

February 23, 2011 • 12:37 pm

From Veronika comes the lovely and agile Sam, whom I’ve dubbed Möbius Cat for obvious reasons.  Here’s Veronkia’s entry:

Here is Sam, who is awesome because he is able to rotate his spine through 180 degrees to enjoy maximum coverage from the warmth of the fire.  The photo doesn’t do justice to his ineffable beauty and elegance, especially his fine green eyes, the spread of his unusually (for a ginger cat) black whiskers, and his gorgeous bushy tail.  He is of course an atheist.  More photos are available for his fans out there.

Here’s a head shot of the kitteh:

UPDATE:  Sam now has his own website, with more photos of his flexible frame, and pictures of him as a kitten and as an adult, contemplating a fox.

Atheists: STFU

February 23, 2011 • 9:55 am

Behind the Big Friendly Curtain of Accommodationism is a mean little man, an Archie Bunker who desperately wants to say to atheists, “Stifle yourself!”  The thing is, we rarely get a peek behind that curtain.  But it’s been pulled aside a bit.  Jean Kazez, famous for her tut-tutting about the incivility of atheists, matched only by her heartfelt denials that she wants atheists to shut up, has finally shown her true colors:

In any event–the point is that there’s nothing remotely scandalous about saying that the public square is the wrong place to promote atheism/objective morality incompatibility.  Likewise, I don’t see much point in discussing religion/science incompatibility in the public square.   We can all agree on very plain and simple things–if science, then no creation in 6 days. If science, then no dinosaurs living at the same time as humans.  Lots of limited incompatibilities like that are indisputable.  But the more sweeping assertion that science rules out most of religion is complicated and technical (what is science? what is religion?  what is compatibility?). And there are important issues about the impact of making that assertion.

Yes, we need to stay out of the “public square,” for those regular pplz are too dumb and unsophisticated to understand what all of us smarties are talking about!  But the accommodationists and religious pplz can still talk! They iz okay!

And yeah, the issue is so technical that I wrote articles about it in The New Republic and USA Today. And those dumb pplz all discussed them!

Although I can’t prove it, I think Kazez’s viewpoint is shared by many of our accommodationist friends—but of course they can’t say that stuff because they’ll look like they’re stifling discussion.  Instead they engage in classical displacement activity, kvetching about tone.

Brother Blackford discusses the issue here.

The greatest pop voices of our time. Day 4: Karen Carpenter

February 23, 2011 • 5:55 am

Confessing a love for the Carpenters—Karen in particular—is like confessing a love for Sugar Daddy suckers, or Hello Kitty.   Yet since I was a lad, when I first saw her black bangs and heard the amazing voice that issued from below, what I felt for the Songbird of Downey, California was something akin to love.   Yes, her songs (many written by her brother Richard) were sometimes more than a bit cheesy, but her voice redeemed them all.

And what a voice it was! Rich and mellow, with a thrilling quality in the low range—”the money notes,” Richard called them—her sound has never been equaled in pop music.

Carpenter’s story is sad (there’s not much I don’t know about her).  She started off as a drummer in high school, and sang and drummed in her brother’s band, which included a tuba (see her drumming here).  Her voice was noticed by Herb Alpert, who recorded The Carpenters on A&M records, and she quickly became a star.  That’s the good part.

Carpenter was a romantic, but never found true love (I would have volunteered, for she was only two months younger than I); and she lived through one unhappy marriage. She was also an anorexic (you can see her emaciated state in this video), swallowing laxatives like candy.  Her body couldn’t take it, and in 1983 she died of heart failure. She was only 32.  Her brother now spends his time endlessly remixing and reissuing their songs.

But let’s remember The Voice.  There are many Carpenters songs on YouTube, but most are recordings.  Even her stage performances there are often lip-synched, so I’ve chosen some genuinely live ones.  They all come from a “Live at the BBC” performance in 1971, when she was just 21 (Richard was 25).

A medley of her two most famous songs, “Close to You” (recorded version here) and “We’ve Only Just Begun” (recorded version here; it was originally a commercial for a bank), both showing her off in the low range.  Richard plays piano and sings harmony, and there’s a cute little rap beginning at 3:50):

Superstar (a live concert version from Japan is here, the recording is here):

Rainy Days and Mondays (Australian concert version here: she plays drums while singing! The recorded version is here.)

And my favorite among all Carpenters songs, “For All We Know” (recorded version here). How many weddings used this song!  Every strand of my DNA vibrates when she sings the title line: four money notes for sure.

For more low notes, go here.

Karen’s own favorite Carpenters song was the lovely “I Need to Be in Love.”  You can see it here, and watch a LOLzy Carpenters video that always makes me want to shout, “Take ME!”

Finally, for something more sophisticated and jazzy, listen to her wonderful rendition of the Rogers and Hart song, “Little Girl Blue.”

A little bird told me that we have some Carpenters fans in the audience, so feel free to note and embed your favorite songs (one embedded video per post, please).