I’ve been either super busy or on holiday and low on creative energy, so although I have five or so blog posts frozen in my mind, I haven’t progressed them far enough yet. To whet your appetite, they include a review of the bird book AND exhibit “The Unfeathered Bird”, a summary of our recent PeerJ paper on croc lungs (Schachner, Hutchinson and Farmer; see here and also here), a rant on optimality in biomechanics, and a summary of a new and (to us) very exciting dinosaur paper that is very-soon-to-come, and something else that I can’t remember right now but it probably is totally awesome.
But here’s an interlude to keep you stocked on freezer-related imagery. We did an annual inventory and massive cleanup (and clean-out!) of all our freezers, throwing out some 300ish chickens and other odds and ends, and finally loading all cadaveric material I have into a single database, which I’ll share here shortly! It was a long time coming, and took ~6 people about 4 exhausting hours; last year’s attempt was just a holding maneuver by comparison. Here is how it went.
Freezersaurus gut contents being sorted. A cold drizzle was falling. It was not pleasant work.
Large specimens, especially horse legs and the remnants of an ostrich hind end or two, being moved into the walk-in freezer.
Research Fellow Jeff Rankin wrangles some horse legs into their freezer. I like this photo for his knowing smile as he stands amidst horse limbs spread akimbo.
Postdoc Heather Paxton helps sort out elephant foot tendons and “predigits” in their freezer. Nice view of our long line of chest freezers in action, too.
And, as an extra reward if you made it to the end, here’s what I was doing for the past week (check out my Twitter feed for more)– seeing amazing art and architecture and food and stuff in Rome, which is just dripping with wicked anatomical portrayals (e.g. in this image; click to embiggen and oggle the classical physiques).
Rome’s Trevi Fountain
Can.Not.Wait for the biomechanics blog! So glad you had a nice holiday in Rome. It’s one of my most favourite places. I hope you made it to Gabriele Bonci’s for pizza. I didn’t and it’s my sole reason for having to return.
Thanks Carol; we had tons of pizza but not that one. I’ll seek it out next time!
My freezers are different in contents. I have Ozotoceros bezoarticus, Axis deer, domestic mammals and other species.
I’d love to see them sometime, but your FB posts share some great stuff!
Not all, I would like have african big mammals. You have better facilities and more money. Good luck with the new research topics.🙂
Feel free to come dissect our specimens sometime– that would be great fun to join in! I am giving things away, but one reason for putting my freezer specimen database online soon will be to facilitate greater usage of the specimens by others!
Yes, and you too. Maybe in the future.