Monday, January 12, 2015

January 7 -- the rest of the day

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Back and forth through time, as we walk around the museum -- Dimetrodon is one of the creatures from the time when the precursors of mammals began to diverge from reptiles.






This diorama shows two dimetrodons and a very large amphibian.



Near the dimetrodon skeleton is this model of an ankylosaur tail club.  I am happy to show it -- one of my favorite presenters from Dino 101 is very knowledgeable about ankylosaurs and their tail clubs.



Did I mention this was a *big* tail club?



One of the things that puzzled me, in Dino 101, was the idea of a "dental battery."

Little did I know, until January 7, that there was a lovely model of a dental battery (they call it a "supertooth" here....), right in my own home-town museum.  Not only can we get a very good look at this, but it's a "please touch model"!



Each of these leaf-shaped structures is a tooth, and these teeth function en masse, as a solid group.  The chewing surface is the top of this composite structure (which is not visible in these pictures).  The model is about an inch deep, and we can feel the top of it -- the chewing surface, behind the jagged top of the dental battery we see in these pics.  The tops of the leaf-shaped individual teeth are broken and/or ground down during chewing, while more and more leaf-shaped individual teeth continually grow up from the jaw below.

A completely different way to "do" teeth than I had realized ever existed, before I took Dino 101Dino 101, by the way, started a new session last week.  If you loved dinos as a kid (the way I did!) or if you are curious about them now, I urge you to check out the class.  Interesting, well presented, no pressure to do more than "just listen," and ... free.............  Win/win/win...........


And -- hooray for local museums, which allow us to walk in and touch their dental battery models!  !!!



Shortly after I touched the dental battery, my better half called to say his eye appt. was over.  I met him in front of health service, and we walked around behind it to where the car was parked.



Once upon a time, many moons ago, I lived at the top of a 19-story apartment building, looking north at these "smoke stacks."  (Really it's steam coming out, not smoke, and in this image we are looking east.)

Way back when I lived up there, I could estimate the temperature, and be very sure of wind direction, from looking at this steam..........  From looking at this pic, I can tell you it was COLD, and the wind was mostly from the north......



Was I done for the day when we got home?  No.  It was nearly time to suit up and go to yoga (for the first time since before Thanksgiving).  It was COLD.  I drove to yoga for the first time ever.  I've been going to yoga for three years, now, and the 7th was the first time I ever drove to class.  I'm sure it was a good idea to drive.  I'm still coughing more after exposing my lungs to cold air than when I keep them warm............

Walking to the car (just around the corner from the yoga studio) after class -- lights in the darkness.


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