The Hopeful Monster Hypothesis

Warning: this is not a trailer review, though Hopeful Monsters does sound like a cinematic masterpiece. Rather, this is a discussion of a form of evolutionary theory: Hopeful Monster (or Discontinuous Variation if you prefer the dry scientific term, and who doesn't) is the hypothesis that suggests evolution proceeds through the same mechanism that basketball athleticism has: organisms who used to be a bit odd and possibly insanely tall now find their niche, excel, and rise to the top.

Prior to basketball, his height simply gave him neck cramps

A Lot of Oreodont Drawings

This summer Meaghan has been working as a Geocorps Paleontologist for the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, working on resolving John Day oreodont taxonomy. It's been a lot of fun, but it also means that oreodonts have been at the forefront of her mind literally all summer... so she's drawn a lot of them. As the summer has progressed, her oreodonts have become a lot more like My Little Ponies, with big feet and ridiculous expressions. Meaghan is now headed off to Kyrgyzstan for a month (to help this lady scientist with her dissertation work), and is too lazy to write blog posts ahead of time so in lieu of other blog material.... here are a bunch of Meaghan's oreodont sketches with her brilliantly witty commentary!

Coy Agrochoerus antiquus is an ass during hide-and-seek

Merychyus elegans just pranked the shit out of someone.