Via Gizmodo: “… The new process actually involves blasting chunks of kimberlite ore—where diamonds are most often found—a couple of times with X-rays from two different spectrums. This produces two distinct images of the same area that are then analyzed using a special algorithm developed by the EZRT. The newly developed technique is able to accurately spot diamonds buried in a piece of ore as small as just a few millimeters in length….  

Michele Micetich sent this invitation a few days ago: Hello, I am the president of our historical society here in Carbon Hill, IL, just outside Coal City. We often have fossil collectors visit our little museum, the Carbon Hill School Museum, where we have much information on coal, fossils, immigrants, and the geology and geography of our coal field area in Will and Grundy counties. We hold several events throughout the year. A few ESCONI members have visited us for the fossil events. We keep Jack Wittry’s books as well as the older books by Richardson and Langford on hand for…

Via Science News:     It’s not all mammoths and saber-toothed tigers. The first leafcutter bees from the Pleistocene epoch have turned up in the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles. Exquisitely preserved as pupae undergoing their transformation to adulthood, a male and a female are still wrapped in their leafy nest. Micro-CT scans and other clues let researchers identify the bees as Megachile gentilis, a species that still lives today. These bees line burrows with bits of leaves to pamper developing offspring….

Via Atlantic: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/04/how-to-drill-for-oil-in-the-brutal-conditions-of-the-north-sea/360262/ Maersk already has six rigs in the region, according to this company-produced video about “Life as a driller in the North Sea.” The employee featured here, Chris Hallan, has worked on the Innovator for nine years and will move to the Intrepid this spring. http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/04/how-to-drill-for-oil-in-the-brutal-conditions-of-the-north-sea/360262/_http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/04/how-to-drill-for-oil-in-the-brutal-conditions-of-the-north-sea/360262/

Via Wired: Harvestmen (also known as daddy long legs) aren’t spiders, and if you could (or wanted to) lean close enough, you’d be able to see one of the few physical features that distinguish them from their arachnid cousins. It’s in the eyes: Spiders usually have 6 or more, but the harvestman has only one set, tightly clustered on the top of its head, making it look like a cyclops. However, scientists report today in the journal Current Biology that the ancestors of modern harvestmen had an extra pair, called median eyes, located on either side of the front of their heads.  

Via ScienceNews: …  Footprints of a T. rex-type dinosaur chasing an Apatosaurus-like animal have been turned into a 3-D fly-through, giving researchers a way to verify maps of the tracks drawn 70 years ago. The tracks, from the Paluxy River in Texas, are among the most famous dinosaur footprints in the world. But the pathway has been under threat since paleontologists excavated, divided and moved some of the prints to museums, and others have been lost.

There’s a video going around that shows a long line of bison trotting down a road in Wyoming’s Yellowstone National Park. Some people are pointing to this as a sign that the animals are hightailing it out of the park because the Yellowstone volcano is about to blow its top. But in the video above, Yellowstone Park Public Affairs Chief Al Nash explains that the bison and other animals are simply migrating to a lower elevation where they can find food, which they do every year in the dead of winter.  

Via the NewYork Times: … At the Evolution Store, the designers admired a large chunk of polished petrified wood — part of an ancient tree that had fossilized to stone — noting that it would make an appealing (if heavy) stool. As Mr. Buntain said, “It’s a nice object because it’s quiet but has an incredible history.” And its coloring, he added, made it look “almost like bone or horn.” For those in search of something even more primitive-looking, the pair suggested the Delaware Bluestone chair by Max Lamb at Johnson Trading Gallery. “It’s just a raw piece of stone,”…

Fox Media’s new show, COSMOS: A Spacetime Odyssey is getting good reviews. It is on Sundays at 9/8C. Or you can watch it online too. It shares the wonder of the universe and of science.

Via Reuters, written by Will Dunham: Methane-spewing microbe blamed in Earth’s worst mass extinction “One important point is that the natural environment is sensitive to the evolution of microbial life,” said Daniel Rothman, an MIT geophysics professor who led the study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The Charlotte Observer tells us: Cataclysms and catastrophes: If something in nature explodes, collapses or crashes, you can probably read about it in Geology in Motion ( www.geologyinmotion.com), a blog by Susan Kieffer, emerita professor of geology at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. Q. You’ve written a book on the science of natural disasters, and your blog covers such terrifying events as car-swallowing sinkholes and erupting volcanoes. To what degree has science “tamed” disasters by providing data to warn people in advance?…. Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2014/03/23/4778934/disaster-blog-puts-context-on.html#storylink=cpy