Top Ten (and more!) discoveries since the last time the Cubs won the World Series

As a Chicagoan, you can bet I was quite proud of the Cubs winning the baseball World Series after 108 years. 108 years can be quite significant, especially in the 20^th century’s many, many, events. The 20^th century has seen atrocities, wars, tragedies, and hate, but it’s seen technological and social progress, scientific revolutions, and discoveries about ourselves and our world.

Book Review: Prehistoric Monsters

Dinosaurs and other prehistoric beasts have been a big part of Western Culture, especially the dominant English, French and American cultures, for centuries. This has been acknowledged by scientists, historians, and artistic commentators, but there are relatively few overviews of it. So, it was to my delight that Allen A. Debus finally wrote a book on this obsession and its permutations, the 2010 work Prehistoric Monsters: The Real and Imagined Creatures of the Past That We Love to Fear. 

Pictures At An Exhibition Part 2

Today I’m returning to my Pictures At An Exhibition. In case you haven’t read part 1, here’s the link http://davidsamateurpalaeo.blogspot.com/2015/03/pictures-at-exhibition-part-1.html

We continue the series of murals with one that has been restored to display after a 20-year hiatus. It’s the first one visitors see in Evolving Planet, right between the stromatolites, next to a display on banded iron, and a model of a eukaryotic cell. Those are pretty good hints, by the way, on the setting and content.