I Wish I Could Find This One Article Written In I Believe The 90s That Went Under The Radar On Abortion.

I wish i could find this one article written in I believe the 90’s that went under the radar on abortion. The author said that the “life” arguments are basically useless on either side and what actually matters is that humans shouldn’t have a right to use other human bodies as a resource without consent no matter how alive or sentient they are, even if they’re on the brink of death you have the right to deny them access to you. It probably was too radical for pro-choice activists back in those days but like…that’s the most robust arguement lol so we need 2 being that back and dead the pontifications and splitting hairs about “life” in my honest onion

Google Has Quietly Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

Google is the latest tech company to drop the longstanding wall between anonymous online ad tracking and user’s names.

Guys, this is really important. Until now, Google collected your data, but did not attach your name to it. Now, they can, and will. This new thing they’re doing will allow them to collect your data across searches, your email, Youtube, Maps, Google+, and all their affiliates, and build a complete profile of YOU.

If that doesn’t bother you, maybe this will: they own and can sell all that data, including anything you create and send (artists and writers, take note).

There is a way you can opt out of this ridiculousness. It’s described in the link, but if you’re still not sure about it, please ask me and I’ll guide you through how to turn all this off.

This is my wake-up call. I’ll be locking down my devices and scaling back what I put through the big Google machine, which means you may see less of me across social media. I’m going to keep researching this, but it may mean in order to keep the rights to my creative work, I’ll have to keep it out of Google’s hands. And that may take some doing.

new favorite conspiracy theory is that the lottery only exists to capture time travelers

Wednesday 16/6/21 - Cool Dinosaur Feather Facts

Microraptor, @Microrapterr on twitter

Hey Dino-Nerds. Rather than organise a structured information piece every time I wanna talk about Dinosaurs, I thought I could cover this topic more often if I just did a fun information dump every now and then. Today I will focus in on dinosaurs feathers, how and what we know about them, and just some cool factoids you may have not known.

How we know about feathers

A lot of sceptics will rag on modern dinosaur reconstructions with the preface of "all we have are their bones, so we have no way of knowing what they looked like in life." Well the thing about fossilation is that it's a game of chance on how well the remains are preserved. While it is true some species are known only from single bones, other species won the lottery and we have even soft tissues fossilised in what palaeontologists refer to as "dinosaur mummies".

Top: Borealopelta "Mummy", which preserved true skin and armour shape, as well as stomach contents of its last meal Bottom: Edmontosaurus "Mummy", which preserved forelimb "hoofs" and skin over the animal's face and back

Feathers actually preserve better than most soft tissue, and the first dinosaur understood to definitely have them had traces of feathers surrounding their bones (Archaeopteryx).

Left: the first discovered fossilised feather, Top Right: Archaeopteryx skeleton with the shape and impressions of feathers surrounding arms and tail, Bottom Right: the parts of the wing this primary feather likely came from.

Even when feathers aren't preserved, many dinosaurs with advanced wing-like arm feathers (called primaries and secondaries) had marks on their arm bones called Quill Knobs that would have served as an anchor point for these larger feathers in a living creature. The presence of Quill Knobs confirms feathers in species even when there are no specimens with visible feather preservation.

Quill Knobs in modern birds vs Dakotaraptor, a dromeosaur "raptor" dinosaur

It wasn't just the Bird Dinos!

I've previously said that feathering was a trait probably ancestral to all dinosaur groups. But when I say feathers, I don't mean the fully structured fan shape of modern bird feathers. Many scientists refer to them as protofeathers, or quills, because they would've been simple soft spines jutting from the animal's skin.

Psittacosaurus, Emily Stepp

Simple quills have been found preserved in many dinosaur groups, not just the meat eaters close to birds (therapods). The basal ceratopsian (horn faced) dinosaurs Psittacosaurus and Protoceratops have fossils of a brush of quills on their lower back.

Lord of the Spear

Ubirajara, Gabriel Ugueto

This tidbit is specifically about a recent dinosaur discovery. Ubirajara (Tupi for Lord of the Spear) was described in 2020 and was found to have what authors described as "spikes" on their shoulders, and a mane of feathers on its neck, back, and arms. There was no practical defensive use for these large quills and its feather mane, and most scientists agree that Ubirajara wouldve used them exclusively for display; a Cretaceous Peacock! This has excited many palaeontologists on how extravagant other feathered dinosaurs could get in their displays.

Dinosaurs Not Green Confirmed

In the best preserved feathers, we can observe the microscopic details of the actual structure of the integument. Scientists determined through comparison with feathers of living birds, they could determine pigmentation of some ancient feathers by the shape and size of the molecules making them up.

There are dinosaur species... WHERE WE KNOW THE ACTUAL COLOURS THEY WOULD'VE HAD IN LIFE. ISN'T THAT JUST THE COOLEST?!?!?

Microraptor was an oddball flying dromeosaur with wings on its legs too. And we now know they had feathers of iridescent black, like a raven.

Microraptor, Emily Willoughby

Anchiornis was a small paravian dinosaur that we know had black and white feathers on most of its body, and a red crest on its head.

Anchiornis, (my own art)

Sinosauropteryx was a small agile dinosaur with very primitive feathers. It had a very long tail that was striped white and orange like a red panda.

Sinosauropteryx, Gabriel Ugueto

Thanks for Reading

Anyway that's my dinosaur post for the week. Thanks for reading. If you wanna read more of what I have to say about dinosaurs, here's links to my past discussions on the topic:

Your Dinosaurs Are Wrong; A Brief Guide

Your Pterosaurs Are Wrong

Your Dinosaurs Are Not Dinosaurs

Edit: One last fun fact, @Microrapterr highlighted to me that some Microraptor remains display signs of sequential moulting, an adaptation necessary for a species that flies a lot. Pretty interesting stuff, read more here: Microraptor Moulting

masterpost for all my red lotus backstory comics