Impress Your Friends with Random Trivia, Vol. 3

Some people know a lot about a little, others know a little about a lot. We need both types of people; without the experts, we wouldn’t gain any new knowledge, and without the know-it-alls, we wouldn’t have anyone to roll our eyes at.

To help you become a know-it-all, the Burke Blog brings you the next installment of our monthly feature:

Know a little about a lot:

• Recently, a new species of dinosaur was described by British scientists. The dinosaur was named Brontomerus, which translates to “thunder thighs” after its enormously powerful thigh muscles (and you thought being called “thunder thighs” was an insult!).

• The earliest evidence of a human presence in North America comes from a site in Paisley, Oregon, where archaeologists identified fossilized human poop that date to 14,100 years ago.

• It’s cherry blossom season! In Japan, a traditional custom known as hanami often involves having an outdoor party to enjoy the beauty of the cherry blossom flowers (this sounds like a good idea – after you impress your friends with random trivia, maybe they will come to an outdoor flower appreciation party that you host).

• Fish that migrate from salt water to spawn in fresh water (like salmon) are known as anadromous. Fish that migrate from fresh water to spawn in salt water (like some eels), are known as catadromous. [Saying "anadromous catadromous" ten times fast will make you dizzy.]

• Eusociality is a social system exhibited by bees, termites and other insects, in which hierarchical colonies are ruled by one queen, who is the only female that breeds, and other members of the colony serve as soldiers or workers. The only mammal species with eusocial behavior is the naked mole rat.

So now you know. And now you can impress people you meet by telling them something cool that they didn’t know. But please, be careful with your approach:

Posted by: Julia Swan

How to Make a Fossil Cast: A 10-step Guide

If you came to Dino Day this past weekend, especially if you came with a kid, you probably saw the Burke’s brand new fossil dig pit.  In the dig pit was a cast of an ichthyosaur fossil from the museum’s paleontology collection.

And you may have wondered: What steps go into creating a cast of a fossil?

Creating a fossil cast is a multi-step process (I’ve reduced it here to 10 steps). Over a few days in January, I followed around fossil preparator Bruce Crowley and his team of volunteers as they worked on creating the mold and pouring the cast of the ichthyosaur.

Step 1: Get the original fossil out of storage and uncrate it.

Step 2: Identify the area around the fossil that is going to be cast; build a barrier and apply a layer of silicone to the fossil -- this will easily come off later (the silicone in this picture is purple).

Step 3: After covering the rest of the exposed fossil with plastic (gotta protect it!), begin to spread on a layer of plaster (in this case, a material known as Hyrdocal). While spreading the plaster, add criss-crossing layers of fiberglass sheeting—this will reinforce the Hyrdrocal and make a nice plaster jacket for the fossil. Be sure to work fast and don’t forget to wear gloves and a mask.

Step 4: Come back the next day and the plaster jacket is complete!

Step 5: Very carefully, remove the plaster jacket from the silicone layer.

Step 6: Remove the silicone layer from the fossil. See, I told you it would come off easily!

Step 7: Back in the lab, place the silicone layer (aka the mold) on top of the plaster jacket (for reinforcement) and build a wall around the silicone. If this step is overlooked, the material used to pour the cast will spill over and onto the floor!

Step 8: Pour the cast into the mold! (Again, using a brand of plaster known as Hydrocal) When done, the cast will look like this:

Step 9: Remove the cast from the mold.

Step 10: Paint the cast…it helps accentuate the different parts of the fossil!

There you have it! It’s a perfect cast of a real ichthyosaur fossil! And the kids at Dino Day loved uncovering it in the dig pit.

Posted by: Julia Swan

Dino Day Limerick Competition!

Let me admit something about myself: I love limericks. I love writing them, I love reading them. And guess what else I love: dinosaurs! And since everyone at the Burke is in full-on excited mode for Dino Day this Saturday, this afternoon I decided to pose a challenge to my fellow Burke Bloggers. “Write me your best Dino Day limerick,” I said.

Then we decided to ramp up the competition and see who could take the best picture with our informal Burke mascot, Tyno Rex.  So readers, tell us: who wrote the best limerick? Who took the best picture? Give us your answers in the poll below.* And please, if you love limericks as much as I do, write one for me and post it in the comments.

Contestant #1: Julia Swan

This Saturday, don’t sit around being a bore,

Come to the Burke to see a real dinosaur!

Whether you fancy your dinos big or small

Our Dino Day event will have it all

From T Rex teeth to a full Stegosaur

Contestant #2: Karin Moughamer (guest blogger!)

This Saturday visit the Burke
Where paleontologists will showcase their work
Take a fossil journey through Antarctica, Patagonia and Wyoming
And learn about the dinosaurs that went roaming
Your kids (and you) are sure to go berserk!

 














Contestant # 3: Andrea Barber

Large teeth, sharp claws and small limbs

Dinosaurs were more than just a whim

So I’ll find my way

To the Burke’s Dino Day

And see dinos that could run, fly and swim!

 



Contestant #4: Samantha Porter 
(with a slight breach of the rules, she submitted her best dino haikus)

Dinosaur fossils
It’s paleo’s biggest day
Fun is not extinct

Sometimes there’s free cake
Fossils, wombats, Dinosaurs
I so love my job

Haikus are my friend
Julia’s talent: limericks
Sam: jealous of that

Who wrote the best limerick?

• Julia
• Karin
• Andrea
• Sam

View Results
Create a Blog Poll

Who took the best picture with Tyno Rex?

• Julia
• Karin
• Andrea
• Sam

View Results
Create a Blog Poll

And of course, don't forget to come to Dino Day this Saturday! 

* Update: as of 3/8, Sam is the clear winner of the photo contest and while she has the most votes for best limerick, she actually wrote haikus, so I'm awarding best limerick to the runner up, Andrea

Posted by: Julia Swan

Impress Your Friends with Random Trivia, Vol. 2

As we’ve previously explored, you can never have too much random knowledge.

  Being a smarty pants can help you out in so many situations, such as making small talk with your seatmate on an airplane, beating another human (or a super computer, as the case may be) at Jeopardy, or winning a natural history-themed trivia night at your local pub. To help you become a know-it-all, the Burke Blog brings you the next installment of our monthly feature:

 Future smarty pants, take note:

• Even though Seattle is home to many publically-display totem poles (Pioneer Square, Pike Place Market, the Burke Museum), totem pole carving is not actually native to Western Washington. Totem poles were originally carved only by northern Northwest Coast people, such as the Haida, Tlingit, and Tsimshian of Southeast Alaska and British Columbia. Read more

• There has never been a discovery of a dinosaur in Washington State. It is possible that dinosaur fossils exist in Washington, as the state includes some rocks of the appropriate age and origin, but to date none of them has yielded a dinosaur fossil.

• Contrary to popular belief, the seeds of a chili pepper have nothing to do with spiciness. The level of spiciness of a pepper is based on the amount of capsaicin (cap-say-uh-sin), a chemical compound, in the pepper. Capsaicin is not found in pepper seeds, but is highly concentrated in the placental tissue that holds the seeds. Read more

• A female lobster is called a hen. A male lobster is called a cock. [feel free to snicker about this. I did]

• When the genus and species of a particular animal are the same, its scientific name is known as a tautonym. Examples of tautonyms are Bison bison (American Bison), Vulpes vulpes (Red fox), and Gulo gulo (Wolverine).

So now you know. And now you can impress people you meet by telling them something cool that they didn’t know. But we beg you, please don’t be totally obnoxious about it:

Posted by: Julia Swan

Impress Your Friends with Random Trivia!

The applications for random knowledge are practically limitless: you can use trivia facts to impress a new date, start a conversation with your dentist, or win a natural history-themed trivia night at your local pub. To help you become a know-it-all, the Burke Blog brings you a new monthly feature:

Here we go:

• There are 148 species of mammals that live in Washington State (click here to see a list of all of them). That’s only 2.7% of the 5,416 recorded mammal species living on the planet.

• The Earth is 4.6 billion years old. According to the fossil record, the first life on Earth appeared 3.8 billion years ago in the form of single-cell organisms.

• There is technically no such thing as a Brontosaurus. The word “Brontosaurus” is an obsolete synonym for Apatosaurus, a large sauropod dinosaur. Don’t believe us? Read more.

• Footprints, burrows, and fossilized excrement are all examples of trace fossils. The study of trace fossils is called ichnology!

• The Arctic Tern has the longest migration of any bird on the planet. Each year, it travels an average of 44,000 miles, flying in an S-shaped pattern from the North Pole to the South Pole and back.

So now you know. And now you can impress people you meet by telling them something cool that they didn’t know about the natural world. Just try not to be obnoxious about it:



Do you know something cool about natural history? Submit your trivia to us and we'll consider using it for the next installment of Impress Your Friends with Random Trivia!

Posted by: Julia Swan

Fossils: The Real Deal?

One of the most commonly asked questions we hear from museum visitors is, “Are those dinosaur bones real?” The answer is yes. And no. Many of the fossils on display at the Burke are real, but some are casts or a mix of real fossils and casts. For example:

Clockwise from top right: Terror Bird (cast), Triceratops skull (real and cast), Stegosaur (cast), Sabertooth Cat (real), Mastodon (cast), Ichthyosaur (real), Xiphactinus (real), Whale (real)

What is a cast?
A cast is an exact copy of a fossil, typically made from polyester resin or plaster. To make a cast, each bone of the original fossil is encased in silicone and then removed, leaving an empty space – a mold. The mold is then filled with liquid casting material that takes the same shape and size as the original. Once the casting material hardens, it can be safely removed from the mold and used in mounted skeletons.

Why use casts? Aren’t real bones cooler?
Yes, real bones are cool, but occasionally cast bones are the only option. For example, sometimes only a partial skeleton was found during excavation, so fill-in bones are necessary in order to display a complete specimen. An example of this is the Allosaurus on display at the museum:

This dinosaur is a mix of real fossil bones from different Allosaurus individuals and some fill-in casts. It can be hard to tell the difference! In this case, the real hind legs and the cast tail bones look very similar.

Another reason why we might display a cast is that the real fossil of a particularly rare specimen is on display at another museum and exhibiting a cast is the only way to make it available for our visitors to see. This Elasmosaur is a cast of the one-of-kind complete specimen found on Vancouver Island. Because the real specimen is currently being studied by scientists in British Columbia, the Burke is only able to display it as a cast.

Next time you visit a natural history museum, see if you can figure out which bones are real and which are casts. Can you tell the difference?

Posted by: Julia Swan