Paleontologists Give the Best Presents

Last year, Meaghan made epic personalized nerd mugs and fake tattoos for her lab mates. It was a great Christmas - she got to not be poor AND be smug, which is a difficult combination to come by. Naturally this year, she wanted to outdo her previous year's efforts and come up with something crafty and sciencey that could solidify her position as the Martha Stewart of Science. Fortunately for Meaghan, there exists such a thing as "Non-Toxic Food-Grade Silicone Paste."

This is a little different from the typical casting supplies that paleontologists work with, in that it is meant for eating and is incredibly easy to use. Select or make the item you would like to mold, mix equal qualities of blue and white, and smoosh the mixture all over the item for about an hour. Boom. Silicon molds. 

Initially Meaghan had grand plans of using the new 3D printer at University of Oregon to print out mini replicas, but they have some daft rule about "academic intentions" and she couldn't figure out how to bullshit her way through it. Instead Meaghan made small sculpey clay replicas of an oreodont skull, and a flat medallion of a Dunkleosteus head, and a flat giant ground sloth. She also grabbed a bear skull that was just lying around (long story).

Paleosol Cupcakes, Part 2 of 2

We hope you're ready, world.

You're probably not, though, because this blog post contains scientific sketches of cupcakes and there ain't nobody prepped to handle that shit. Let's delve deep into the world of paleopedology baked goods, a sentence that by all rights should never have entered this universe but is somehow here anyway.

CUPCAKE #1: MOLLISOL

Mollisols are grassland soils. Because grass forms a thick blanket of vegetation on the ground, it creates a lot of organic material (chocolate cake and white cake mixed together). Mollisols often have calcareous nodules ("pearl" sprinkles) and gypsum layers (silver sprinkles), but also have crumb peds which are basically small lumps of dirt inside the overall dirt. Here we have a well-drained mollisol - the small Bt horizon  wasn't constantly soaked with water, so instead of turning green it oxidized (rusted) into a reddish layer, or in this case, red velvet cake.

This one comes with a super epic cooking video, in which Meaghan pronounces 'calcareous' the Canadian way (aka... incorrectly).

Disappointingly, Meaghan's camera battery died soon after that video was filmed. The rest of these cupcakes shall have to stand without explicit, Star-Wars-style cooking directions.

CUPCAKE #2: HISTOSOL

Paleosol Cupcakes, Part 1 of 2

For those of you not in the know, some people study dirt. While this is fortunately not an affliction either member of the Vengeance Team suffers from, it is an actual thing, and sometimes it is actually a very interesting thing. Of the poor souls who study dirt, paleopedologists are probably the best off because at least their dirt is really really damned old: they study paleosols, literally "ancient soils."  Paleosols record evidence of past climate, organisms and ecosystems, which grants them an automatic +10 interest points over modern soils.

Paleosols tend to have poorly articulated layers (soil horizons) only visible to very experienced dirt-interpreters. In this way, they are much like most of Meaghan's experiments in baking ("Is this a layer cake that has suffered some sort of faulting? Did you mean to leave large unconsolidated lumps in this cake for some reason?"). As such, Meaghan felt that baking paleosol study tools was the perfect way to celebrate the completion of her first year of graduate school. That's right: when Meaghan thinks of celebrations, she doesn't think about drinking, she thinks about nerd-baking... and that's why she's in graduate school.

Schools out - it's time for SCIENCE! And baking!

PaleoArt Jello Shots Edition

In addition to being scientists, world travelers, philanthropists in very limited senses, and generally awesome, Meaghan and Amy are also paleoartists. Here are some recent works of brilliance, cast in alcoholic jello.

Diving Cladoselache

Indarctos oregonensis in tar pit

Stegosaurus demonstrating low buoyancy typical of pneumaticity-lacking ornithischians

Chondrichthyes in lava

The GRAND CANYON of jello shots. No literally, this is the grand canyon carved out of 6 layers of booze-ridden jello stratigraphy, overlaid by a final, nearly-toxic river of vodka and blueberry jello. You're welcome, everyone. You're welcome.