TarsTarkas.NET Blog

This one is actually older than the penguin story, but I didn’t get around to uploading it until now.

Giant panda’s pygmy ancestor found

WASHINGTON (AP) — The first skull of the earliest known ancestor of the giant panda has been discovered in China, researchers report.

Discovery of the skull, estimated to be at least 2 million years old, is reported by Russell L. Ciochon in Tuesday’s edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Ciochon, an anthropologist at the University of Iowa, and a team of U.S. and Chinese researchers, made the find in a limestone cave in south China.

The animal, formally known as Ailuropoda microta, or “pygmy giant panda,” would have been about three feet long, compared to the modern giant panda, which averages in excess of five feet (1.52 meters).

Previously this animal had been known only by a few teeth and bones, but a skull had never been found.

Judging by the wear patterns on its teeth it also lived on a diet of bamboo, the main food of the current giant panda, the researchers said.

Other than size, the animal was anatomically similar to today’s giant panda, said Ciochon.

The work was funded by the Chinese National Natural Science Foundation and University of Iowa.

Pygmy on left, modern panda on right

How come we never hear about this panda???:

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Ancient penguins waddled, swam in warm locales

By Will Dunham Mon Jun 25, 8:55 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Penguins were waddling and swimming in warm locales tens of millions of years earlier than previously thought, according to scientists who described on Monday fossils of two previously unknown types found in Peru.

One of the two, named Icadyptes salasi, lived about 36 million years ago, possessed a long, spear-like beak, and stood 5 feet tall.

“This one had a beak you had to reckon with,” North Carolina State University paleontologist Julia Clarke, who led the research, said in a telephone interview.

It was bigger than any penguin alive today and the third-largest penguin known to have lived, Clarke said.

The earliest known fossil of these aquatic flightless birds, found in New Zealand, dates to about 61 million years ago, not long after the extinction of the dinosaurs and many other life forms 65 million years ago.

The largest penguin around today is the Emperor Penguin, which stands almost 4 feet tall.

The second newly discovered species was smaller and slightly older than Icadyptes.

Perudyptes devriesi lived about 42 million years ago and was about the size of today’s King Penguin, about 2-1/2 to 3 feet tall. It is thought to represent an early part of penguin evolutionary history.

Both of these ancient penguins lived on Peru’s southern coast and were found relatively close to one another in a coastal Peruvian desert in 2005. Penguins still live on Peru’s coast.

These remains are among the most complete ever found of extinct penguins and throw into doubt existing notions about the timing and pattern of penguin evolution and expansion.

Many scientists had believed that penguins did not leave cold-weather regions like Antarctica and New Zealand for warmer, more equatorial regions until perhaps 4 million to 8 million years ago, but these two newly discovered species indicate this took place tens of millions of years earlier.

Penguins, denizens of the Southern Hemisphere, populate cold climates such as Antarctica, but also inhabit warmer regions closer to the Equator like the Galapagos Islands.

They are beautifully adapted to life in the ocean, with wings that have evolved into flippers, allowing them to swim gracefully through the water, catching fish, squid and other food.

The research, which also included scientists from Peru and Argentina, was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

This illustration shows two newly discovered extinct penguins, both found in Peru, along with an existing Peruvian penguin. On the right is Icadyptes salasi, which lived about 36 million years ago and stood five feet (1.5 meters) tall. It was bigger than any penguin alive today and the third largest penguin known to have lived. On the left is Perudyptes devriesi, which lived about 42 million years ago, was about 2-1/2 to 3 feet tall (0.76 to 0.91 meters). In the middle is the only penguin inhabiting Peru today, Spheniscus humbolti. The research was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (KristinLamm/Handout/Reuters)

This undated handout photo provided by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) shows two fossils recently discovered in Peru reveal that early penguins responded differently to natural climate change than scientists would have predicted. The smaller of the two, Perudyptes devriesi, was comparable in size to the living king penguin. The larger, Icadyptes salasi, would have been fearsome to encounter at over five feet tall, with a seven-inch beak, and is one of the largest penguins ever described. (AP Photo, PNAS, Daniel Ksepka)

These penguins don’t march, they stomp!

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We got a new review up, Attack of the Beast Creatures

The story of some people who walk a lot, then get attacked by Beast Creatures (dolls)

With 2 clips

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It has been a while since I did this, so let’s see where things are:

Badmovies.org has reviewed The Atomic Brain, Daimajin, and Gymkata.

Foywonder got a hold of the Cine Excel movie Gi-Ants, which is as bad as it seems it would be. He also got a copy of The Abominable, but is saving the review for a future Foyeurism.

Bad Cinema Diary has it’s June update

Post Apocalypse has reviews for short film Zordax II and a megareview with interview of Karate Cop and Omega Cop!

YourVideoStoreShelf has interview with Brandon Baker and David Giancola (who directed the last Anna Nicole Smith movie, and was also involved in the film Timechasers.

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Frilled Shark
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Chondrichthyes
Subclass: Elasmobranchii
Order: Hexanchiformes
Family: Chlamydoselachidae
Chlamydoselachus anguineus


The frilled shark, Chlamydoselachus anguineus, is a primitive shark species found in the deep water. The sharks are usually found at depths of between 50 m and 1,500 m. They typically eat squid, other sharks, and deepwater bony fish
YouTube of the Jan 27 2007 sighting of an individual:

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The review for the week is the Ed Wood written classic about a Venus Flytrap Man, The Revenge of Dr. X!

Complete with two movie clips. Read the review here.

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Eli Roth got upset that Hostel II did bad, so put this in his myspace blog.

Hey Everyone,

I’m in Paris, doing press for the French release of Hostel Part II, and tonight I’m off to Rome for the last leg of the press tour. After that I’m going to take a long overdue break, since I’ve gone from one film to the next without stopping, just to recharge my brain a bit.

I want to thank all of you for your kind e-mails and incredible support for the film. However, piracy has become worse than ever now, and a stolen workprint (with uninished music, no sound effects, and no VFX) leaked out on line before the release, and is really hurting us, especially internationally. Piracy will be the death of the film industry, as it killed the music industry, and while it makes a smaller dent in huge movies like Spider Man 3, it really hurts films like mine, which have far less of an advertising and production budget. Not only that, critics have actually been REVIEWING the film based off the pirated copy, which is inexcusable. Some of these critics I have actually known for a few years, and while I wouldn’t dignify them by mentioning them by name, I know who they are, as do the studios, and other filmmakers, and they will no longer have any access to any of my films.

What I’m saying is, this is your last chance to see one of my films for a while. If you haven’t seen it, go now, because after next weekend the film will be gone from theaters. There are too many other summer movies coming in, so basically we get two weeks in cinemas, and then the film will live on DVD. I am not directing CELL any time soon, and I most likely will take the rest of the year to write my other projects. Which means I wouldn’t shoot until the spring, and you wouldn’t see a film directed by me in the cinemas until at least next fall. If everyone on my friends list went to see the film this weekend and brought a friend, it would make a huge difference. Bring a non-horror fan - try to convert them. It’s the only way these films will live. But right now the R rated horror film is in serious jeopardy. Studios feel the public doesn’t want them any more, and so they are only putting PG-13 films into production. The only way to counter this perception is to get out there and support R rated horror. It’s the only message they’ll hear. People love the movie, and even though it only cost $10 million dollars (as opposed to the other summer tentpoles which cost $300 million), and has already earned its money back, if it’s not a massive money earner then they’ll just continue to make the same PG-13 films everyone complained about a few years ago.

To counter piracy, fans can flood file sharing services with fake Hostel II downloads just so no one can ever actually get the movie, but the only thing that really makes a difference is supporting the movie in the theaters. Also - the theater OWNERS know this as well. If horror movies aren’t bringing in customers, they’re not going to program them. If we are going to send them a message, we have to do it with our wallets, and we have to do it now. I’ve done all I can to make a great film for the fans, as violent and bloody and fun as possible. The rest is up to you guys…

Thanks again for all your support,

Eli

Boo-hoo-hoo, no one saw my crappy torture porn film! Oddly enough, this diatribe on how piracy destroyed his film (instead of it just being crappy) disappeared shortly thereafter. It is actually good for horror if this torture porn crap bombs, as it is nothing but brainless degenerative drivel.

Hey, if someone did put up fake Hostel II torrents, then the downloaders can’t possibly get anything worse than Hostel II.

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Here is some interesting news in the world of plants:

Plants Recognize Siblings

By Andrea Thompson, LiveScience Staff Writer

Plants can recognize when they are potted with their siblings or with strangers, new research shows. When strangers share a pot, they develop a competitive streak, but siblings are more considerate of each other.

“The ability to recognize and favor kin is common in animals, but this is the first time it has been shown in plants,” said Susan Dudley of McMaster University in Canada.

After plants are potted, roots branch out to suck up water and nutrients. But when several plants of the same species are potted together, things get a little nasty: Each plant flexes its muscles, so to speak, by extending its root growth to try and snatch up valuable resources.

Unless, that is, the plants are siblings—each having come from the same mother plant—in which case they become very accommodating, allowing each other ample root space.

Because the interactions between related and unrelated plants only happened when plants were in the same pot, where root space is limited, root interactions are likely what gives plants the cue that their neighbor is related.

Dudley observed this behavior in sea rocket (Cakile edentula), a member of the mustard family that is native to beaches through North America.

The findings, detailed in the June 12 issue of Biology Letters, may not come as a surprise to seasoned gardeners.

“Gardeners have known for a long time that some pairs of species get along better than others, and scientists are starting to catch up with why that happens,” Dudley said. “The more we know about plants, the more complex their interactions seem to be.”

This also has implications in the world of plant monsters, I presume. Audrey II won’t attack Audrey III and all that jazz.

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A new review is up - Hidden 2002

The story of some Thai girls and the people they have sex with. No subtitles and little plot. But something that has probably never been reviewed anywhere. Hopefully the first of several subtitle-less Thai films to show up here, but the rest will be more fantasy themed.

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MGM remaking ‘Dressed to Kill’
Studio pacts with Hyde Park on DVD movies
By DAVE MCNARY, PETER GILSTRAP

MGM is partnering with Ashok Amritraj’s Hyde Park Entertainment to produce direct-to-DVD movies aimed at specific demos.

First project from the alliance will be a remake of the 1980 thriller “Dressed to Kill,” with Rick Alexander signed to write the script.

Hyde Park’s Patrick Aiello initiated the remake project and will head the banner’s new consumer direct division, working closely with MGM’s recently installed home entertainment VP Jason Weiss, who will oversee the production.

The original pic was released by Filmways, which was later acquired by Orion and ultimately by MGM. Brian De Palma wrote and directed, with Angie Dickinson, Dennis Franz, Nancy Allen and Michael Caine starring.

Alexander recently scripted the sci-fi thriller “Subatomic” for the two companies, and is producing a remake of “Conan the Barbarian” for Warner Bros.

MGM is planning to release 12 or more DVD projects per year, primarily based on popular film and TV franchises. Hyde Park recently wrapped “Asylum,” is in post- production on James Wan’s “Death Sentence” for Fox and has a five-year co-financing agreement with Fox, which is also the exclusive distrib for MGM’s consumer-direct projects.

So this unit will make DTV movies that will either be terrible remakes or terrible in-name-only sequels to franchises! It’s like they combined the two most obnoxious Hollywood trends into one simple package of evil. Well, some of their crap will probably end up here eventually, so it is nice to have advanced warning like this.

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