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Ancient Krakens Making Self-Portraits?
First time accepted submitter Sanoj writes "Strange patterns of ichthyosaur bones have been found on an ancient deep-water seabed. One paleontologist has put forward the theory that these could have been the work of giant cephalopods who were eating the swimming dinosaurs and then arranging the vertebrae to resemble their own tentacles. Sound far-fetched? Apparently, the modern octopus also does this."
The researchers are totally off base here. These aren't self-portraits; they're writing. When transliterated into the Roman alphabet, they read "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn"
> Apparently, the modern octopus also does this."
What, eat ichthyosaurs? No wonder you don't see too many of them around anymore.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Is anyone else disturbed a little by the paleontologist in this article actually calling this thing a "Kraken"? Look I know that may be the cute nickname they use in the office, but it seems a little tawdry for a supposedly serious researcher to use the name of a mythological creature in a public context. Makes me think this guy is a PR-whore looking to promote his work with sensationalism. What's next, someone finding a new type of dinosaur and calling it a "Dragon"?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
A normal-sized octopus arranged these vertebrae into a giant tentacle pattern just to freak out everyone
This is why Science is so $#@%ing awesome. As Samuel Clemens put it best, “There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such trifling investment of fact.” This will be a very tough hypothesis to sell, but the researcher says his evidence is ready to take on all skeptics.
There are incredible stories waiting to be revealed in the fossil record and stories we have already uncovered. There's the footprints of Austrolopithecus, which were preserved in volcanic ash, large and small, male and female, close together as if they were huddling--perhaps the male had his arm around his mate, and the female's footprints lopsided as if she were carrying an infant. Imagine what it was like for them, walking fearfully across a landscape raining ash from a distant volcano... This story is drawn in this famous diorama.
Or the Taung child, whose skull bares the scars of an eagle attack. The child was carried away by a bird of prey. A story both fantastic and tragic at once.
Or the stories of Homo erectus , who was the velociraptor of our human ancestors. She was a total badass, which is why I love this statue of her at the Smithsonian Hall of Human Origins carrying a rotting caribou carcass across the Serengeti.
Science has thousands of these stories that we have already discovered, and an infinite supply of them in store for us if we keep exploring. Knowing this, I simply don't understand how people can be so impressed with a book covering a few hundred years of human history and consider it sacred. The sacred is all around us, written in the natural world waiting for us to read it.
i ~ Celebrating Science, Cyberspace, Speculation
There's an article on Wired on why this kraken "science" is complete bullshit and an indication of the sad state of scientific "reporting".
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/10/the-giant-prehistoric-squid-that-ate-common-sense/
Goddammit, who went and released the Kraken?
Who? Who who who? ...
who went and released the Kraken?
Who? Who who who?
The term you are looking for is 'midden.' Do a search for octopus midden and you will see what he is referring to. I don't think it counts as art though, unless you think a pile of stuff is art....
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Pretty much nothing is factually true in that 'research' other than that octopi live in the ocean. For example, modern octopi do NOT arrange bones into 'art' gardens as Mark McManmin asserts. Arstechica sums it up best with the article 'The giant, prehistoric squid that ate common sense' at http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/10/the-giant-prehistoric-squid-that-ate-common-sense.ars The best quote from Ars is "We have a serious problem with science journalism. A big one, in fact, and today that problem takes the form of a giant, prehistoric squid with tentacles so formidable that it has sucked the brains right out of staff writers’ heads."