I Missed That One

Today's Sun:

Tyrannosaurus Pecks: King of dinosaurs became the chicken

Complete with horrendous "March of Progress"-esque PhotoShop transformation between Tyrannosaurus rex and a domestic chicken, although even before you get into the whole Tyrannosaurus-didn't-actually-morph-into-a-chicken thing it looks bad - "evolution" is supposed to be left-to-right but the animals are facing the wrong way.

Don't read the comments though. Unless you've been told by your doctor that your blood pressure is dangerously low and that your only hope is exposing yourself to the lobotomised.

The Science website has the abstract up now, so I'll include the citation. Full text access only to subscribers though (of which I am not one, grrr). I know the battles have raged about whether journal articles should be freely available or not. But surely it could only be a good thing if the journals made available the PDF of whatever paper they're really pushing? Even just on the day of the press release, so that the journalists and bloggers could get a look at the primary source? Some journals seem to do that and then restrict access a week after the article has come out. It couldn't do any harm, and it might actually improve scientific literacy.

Organ, C.L., M.H. Schweitzer, W. Zheng, L.M. Freimark, L.C. Cantley & J.M. Asara. 2008. Molecular Phylogenetics of Mastodon and Tyrannosaurus rex. Science 320 p499. doi: 10.1126/science.1154284.

Tech Tags: Tyrannosaurus rex journal article collagen The Sun

I Suppose It's Good To Know...

Just in on the Dinosaur Mailing List (courtesy of Tom Holtz): T. rex confirmed as great granddaddy of all birds. So what can be gleaned from the article (as of writing the reference is not on the Science website yet, but the DOI is 10.1126/science.1154284 if you feel like periodically checking) is that the authors built a molecular phylogeny using collagen. And I presume they did so because they found some in a Tyrannosaurus rex bone.

At best, it confirms what we already knew (I particularly like the comments from Mark Norell and Tom Holtz) - Tyrannosaurus rex is related to modern birds. I'm sure a lot of palaeontologists would like to tell Alan Feduccia where to stick it, but until we all see the tree we just don't know where exactly "Granddaddy" is placed relative to Aves. The technique has also thrown up at least one glaring error, concluding that anolid lizards are more closely related to mammals than to alligators.

Maybe we'll get a discussion going on this when the paper is out (I'd settle for an abstract!!), but I can't help but think that it's nice and all, but it's a bit like leaning a stick against a brick wall and claiming that now the wall won't fall down. Still, I predict the newspapers tomorrow will have headlines referring to "Tweetiesaurus", or enormous chicken drumsticks. Tabloids aren't very imaginative. They'll probably make some pithy comment about how we wouldn't have the problems with increased poultry prices if dinosaurs still existed too.

Tech Tags: Tyrannosaurus rex collagen birds molecular phylogeny

Linnaeus' Legacy Now Up

The sixth edition of Linnaeus' Legacy is now up at From Archaea to Zeaxanthol.

I'm going to be hosting the next one on 5 May. Please let me have your submissions by Saturday 3 May (as I'm being a dentist's muse all that weekend...), either by leaving a comment here or by using the many and varied methods in my contact page.

Tech Tags: Linnaeus' Legacy blog carnival taxonomy blogmin

Oooh Yes Please!

The Royal Institution are planning a Science Blogging Conference in London in August or September of this year. I really want to go, not least because I had to bail last week on Ed's invitation. I honestly was planning to go, but work and stuff... You know? It coincided with a work do, which was exhausting and a bit too generous on the champagne, and it would not have been a good plan for your Ethical Palaeontologist to roll in already tired and emotional.

I faithfully promise to at least start off this conference sober though. Unless it's on 30 August, in which case there's no way I can even attend. My presence is required elsewhere.

Thanks to Propter Doc for mentioning this. Hope there'll be loads more UK science bloggers there too.

Tech Tags: Royal Institution of Great Britain Science Blogging Conference

Aetogate: It's Still Going On

Although it's been quiet in the blogosphere (did like Janet's post though), Aetogate continues to be the subject of much discussion on the Vert Paleo and Dinosaur mailing lists. The SVP Ethics Committee is considering the case. Thorough investigations (in contrast to the farce that was the DCA's attempt) take time, and patience is needed. But that doesn't mean we can't talk about it, nor does it mean that we shouldn't talk about it.

Regardless of whether Spencer Lucas is innocent or guilty of any charges against him, the New Mexico Department for Cultural Affairs has made a mockery of any kind of investigation policy it has. Apart from the large number of palaeontologists calling foul (some louder than others), it has embarrassed the New Mexico Academy of Science. So it's not just us.

However, as Mickey Rowe said, SVP has no power over the museum or the state. Whatever decision it comes to, while there is an outside chance the DCA may finally sit up and take notice, they don't have to pay any attention and could quite happily flip the bird at the Ethics Committee. So regardless of the investigation by SVP, pressure still needs to be applied to the New Mexico government. Mickey has drafted a sample letter for people to send to Governor Bill Richardson.

I don't know how much notice Governor Richardson will take of international letters. Possibly more than he'll take of New Mexican letters. I have to say, this coupled with the absolutely shit time Paul and I had in Lost Causes Las Cruces, has not endeared the Land Of Enchantment to me. But it's worth a try, right?

This is uncharted territory for the Ethics Committee. But at some point in an institution's life everything is new and untested. This is the first public case I am aware of in palaeontology. It has been alluded to that there were earlier cases, whether investigated or not, of alleged plagiarism. I think it is certainly much easier to pick up on such breaches now the entire world is connected via the internet. Twenty years ago, there would not have been a British palaeontologist condensing and organising all the material for the American students' case. The Polish students may not have read the paper on their specimens until some time after its publication. Look back to the February 1994 archive of the DML and see that there were only a handful of e-mails per day. Compare that to the February 2004 archive.

What I do hope is that the Ethics Committee recognise that this may not be the last time such a situation arises, and that their role can encompass much more than the sale of fossils issues the committee was formed to deal with. Regardless of the eventual outcome. And I really do mean that.

Tech Tags: Aetogate Department for Cultural Affairs Stuart Ashman Governor Bill Richardson Society of Vertebrate Paleontology New Mexico

Shameless Husband Promotion

Have I ever told you all what an excellent writer and all round good guy my husband is? He's a far better blogger than I am, but he suffers from being a little fish in a big pond. His personal blog is fairly political/angry-young-man, and there are so many around, but if you haven't already you should have a click through to On With My Life... and have a read of some of his current affairs stuff. Some of my favourites of the past few months (which I think you'll like) are about the collapse of the Larsen B iceshelf, Aetogate, his culinary skills and the Chagos Islanders.

But his big talent is his ability to write stories that chill me to my bone, courtesy of his writing blog Clamouring To Become Visible. He tells me his ideas for a plot when they come to him. I tell him he's a sick fuck. He goes away and writes the stories. When I read them (usually for the first time on his blog), even though I know the plot, I get tingles. Sometimes he adds in a twist, and I vow never to see the movie version in the cinema for fear of disgracing myself.

Most recently, he made me afraid to sleep with the lights out by writing Tube Nightmare. Gave me the creeps. He's working on a full-length novel, and occasionally he gives us the tiniest glimpse at what he's writing. The Gospel of Raguel is such a peek. Read both of them, comment on his blog (he really likes it if you just drop by to say hi), and subscribe. It costs you nothing to add the link to your feed aggregator, and a new piece of fiction will show up in your inbox once a week.

And that's not all - the man does multimedia! Clamouring To Become Audible (you see what he did there with the title?) gets updated about once a week, usually on a Sunday night. See - that's almost as often as Scott Sigler updates his podcasts! And to draw out the comparison, if you enjoy Scott's fucked up writing/podcasting, you will enjoy my husband's - hell, even the great Scott Sigler likes Paul's writing style. You can subscribe through iTunes!

So why am I shamelessly plugging him? Well, he's the Hubster and I love him to bits, think he's fab, I'm an even bigger fan than the one in the picture with him, and I'd love to see him enjoy a large and responsive audience. Since I have a large and responsive audience, I figured you're a good source. You're also self-confessed geeks - we're all geeks. You know a lot about climate change, so some of his "envirocalypse" stories might appeal. And he depends on scientists to tell him when he's talking bollocks. Better a couple of you say "That's not how volcanism would work" or something like that now in his blog, than have less helpful members of our profession writing to the publishers to complain later.

You're mainly atheists, and those of you who are religious are mainly Catholic - in fact a lot of you atheists are cultural Catholics. So his "Long Watch" material will definitely strike a chord. If any of you wrestle with the theology and dogma, I guarantee you'll like Paul's take on things. And the deal-clincher - it is loosely based within the Lovecraftian Universe.

So go on - say hi to him and read his stuff. It's his birthday in three and a half weeks!

Tech Tags: Paul Anderson Paul Anthony Anderson writer fiction blog podcast Scott Sigler

Sticking Up For Gordon Brown

This is the one and only time I am ever going to do this - defend the Prime Minister. The Express has a front-page character assassination of Gordon Brown, blaming him for our food and fuel woes, as does the Daily Mail:

    

Now, the first comment I always like to make is "thank goodness I'm a young married woman with no kids, because I'm evidently immune from all these food increases as it's only families that will suffer"... But I digress. Now, food prices is something I know one helluva lot about. In fact, I'll go out on a limb here and say I reckon I know more about global wheat prices than any one of my regular readers. Have a look at the LIFFE wheat chart (freely available from HGCA):

Two years ago, wheat was trading at about £70 per tonne. This time last year it was breaking £100 per tonne. This graph doesn't even show the catastrofuck that happened to the market in March, when someone trading on the Minneapolis Futures freaked out and managed to cause a spike that temporarily doubled the price, but we're looking at over £180 per tonne in February.

Wheat prices have a knock-on effect for most foods. Most obviously the flour and bread prices, but less obviously meat (especially poultry). Why is chicken so expensive? It's almost nothing to do with H5N1 outbreaks - try the doubling of the cost of feeding them. Wheat-based and animal-based ingredients have risen in cost accordingly. Mr Daily Mail Editor and Mr Express Editor, you may want to consider that food prices have increased because global food is more expensive, rather than having old Gordo strung out for this. When global wheat prices have doubled in the last year and quadrupled in the past two years, 2.5% inflation (from the Consumer Price Index) as opposed to 2% inflation is neither here nor there.

In fact, given that the wheat prices have doubled, don't you think the British industies have done quite well to limit the price increase of a French baquette to 33%? Durum wheat has had something of a crisis - there were riots in Italy a few months ago. We seriously can't blame Gordon Brown for that! Wheat prices (and in fact the price of a loaf of bread) remained almost static for some 20 years beforehand. We have had an absolute bargain out of wheat and bread for as long as most of us can remember and we never knew it.

Why are wheat prices increasing? Australia had an awful harvest last year. Last thing I heard it was looking pretty bad for this year. World harvests were down about 30 million tonnes last year. The food shortages are even mentioned in the Mail's article! All these data are freely available from the USDA, if you want to check. We had a bad harvest in the UK too - crops were ruined following from the summer floods. Is our Prime Minister now so powerful he can control the weather?

Cutting inflation and interest rates here is not going to make an atom of difference. This is a global problem. It's down to overcrowding, unpredictable weather (droughts in Australia and the south-eastern USA) and the odd nervous stock-broker. We can't even rely on our own food production, and really that's not Brown's fault. Not this time.

Tech Tags: wheat prices global economy Gordon Brown Consumer Price Index climate change harvests

Life Is Sweeter In Sweetwater

Big oil to big wind: Texas veteran sets up $10bn clean energy project - seen in today's Guardian. I recognised the landscape in the photo instantly. Found the article slightly confusing in that McCamey (where the photograph was taken) and Sweetwater (also mentioned in the article) are nowhere near the panhandle, but the way it was all worded implied that they are. Maybe I'm suffering from Mondayitis. Anyway, Sweetwater is one of the genuinely loveliest towns I have ever visited in the USA.

The town has a (disproportionately flashy website), but I have to admit, it persuaded us to stop off there overnight on our way west last October. The fact that the Sweetwater Mustangs were playing at home that night and I'd be able to see my first live American football game was an added bonus.

We arrived at about 4pm, blazing into town in a ridiculously powerful car with Cowboy Troy on the CD player. The predominant thing you notice about Sweetwater is the wind turbines. For about two hours we'd been driving along the interstate ogling these huge wind farms, and the moment we got out of the car we understood why. It's windy there. South of the town is a big ridge running east-west, and we drove up there in the early evening sun. The wind is the noisiest thing there. I could hardly hear the turbines, save for a gentle whoosh-whoosh-whoosh when the roaring south-westerly gave up a bit (not sure why people complain that the turbines are loud). In fairness, they were probably a good 100m up, each blade about 30m long.

It has revitalised the town. Paul and I (after getting interviewed for the local radio football halftime show) chatted to the local sports reporter, and he couldn't emphasise enough what a good thing the wind farms have been. Jobs for locals, migration to the area, new homes built. The restaurants are buzzing. The Oak Street Cafe was full the morning we went for breakfast there. I'd say about half the people there worked for the wind farm.

T Boone Pickens, the subject of the article, has hit on the right way of marketing an increase in windfarms (his plans are to extend wind farms northwards across the Great Plains, and to put solar farms in a corridor between Texas and California). Doing one's bit for the environment is not enough of an incentive, but say that it's patriotic and one's duty as an American to support American businesses, and that seems to be doing the trick. Dubya finally cottoned onto that a few months ago when he suddenly started talking about biofuels. Freedom Fuel anyone?

Tech Tags: Sweetwater Texas wind farm wind turbine T Boone Pickens renewable energy

May I Present...

My new gardening blog, called "We're Going To Need A Bigger Pot". It allows me to geek out about my garden, and put up photos of seedlings without boring you all and disrupting the flow of this blog.

If you want to carry on following the progress of the garden (I have plans to squander my salary on some pretty impressive stuff this year), please subscribe or add it to your favourites.

Normal palaeontological/scientific literacy/vitriolic ranting will be resumed on here shortly.

Tech Tags: blogmin gardening Mesozoic Garden

Palaeontologists Are Bad Drivers

The wonderful MoneySavingExpert website has some excellent resources, and today my weekly e-mail mentioned their new "Cheap car insurance job picker". Secretaries, typists, office assistants, administrative professionals, personal assistants all do about the same sort of job, right? But car insurance companies have decided, for whatever reason, that if you have one job title you need to pay more for your car insurance.

So I thought it'd be fun to compare scientists. I typed in "Geologist", and selected in arbitrary £100 for car insurance. I only know one woman who managed to pay that little for her car insurance, and she drove a Yugo and told her insurers she lived with her parents in Cornwall, rather than in London, but 100 is a good comparison value.

Botanist	99.50
Anthropologist	100.00
Archaeologist	100.00
Geologist	100.00
Physicist	100.00
Ecologist	100.00
Biologist	100.00
Meteorologist	100.50
Biochemist	101.10
Microbiologist	101.10
Zoologist	101.10
Palaeobotanist	102.10
Astronomer	102.10
Palaeontologist	102.10
Scientist	102.50
Chemist	102.90

I ignored job titles with more than one word, and jobs that I don't consider to be scientific (e.g. "Astrologer" - WTF?!). So if you're a botanist you can get away with paying £99.50 for every £100 your geologist/biologist/ecologist friends are on their car insurance, but if you shove a "palaeo-" in front of it, suddenly you're higher risk.

I presume there is some kind of logic behind it, that out of the dataset of all the insurance claims made, there have been slightly more claims made by palaebotanists/palaeontologists than botanists. Shows that if you would otherwise put down that you were a scientist on your car insurance, you should probably clarify it to get a better deal.

Unless you're a chemist. In which case it sucks to be you, and you might want to say you're a lab technician instead, because they can get away with only paying £98.60.

Tech Tags: MoneySavingExpert car insurance job title blatant discrimination against palaeontologists

The Scottish Fossil Code

I can't believe I never blogged about this at the consultation stage (I'm sure I intended to). However, the Scottish Fossil Code has been published, and copies can be downloaded from here (PDF, 58 pages long). According to Scottish Natural Heritage, the Nature Conservation (Scotland) Act 2004 contained provision for this Code to be written.

There is no press release on the SNH website, but the BBC News has a summary of the main points of the Code (which I'll further summarise here for you busy, busy people):

• Seek permission.
• Access responsibly.
• Collect responsibly.
• Seek advice.
• Label and look after.
• Donate.

Provided there are short spiffy summaries for the general public, made available at popular fossil-hunting sites, I think this will be of some help in protecting valuable specimens. I've lost track of the number of times I've seen sites "bioturbated" beyond recognition (and the cliffs on the south coast of the UK just outside the scope of the SSSI are the worst), and when I was younger I was as guilty as the rest. If this is marketed as an educational programme, it'll do better. I see it as a parallel of the Countryside Code (which was the Country Code when I were a lass...). People still leave gates open, but probably not as often as they would have done without guidance.

More people use the roads than hunt for fossils, and I bet only driving instructors and newly-qualified drivers can find their way round the 152-page Highway Code. I'd like to see the equivalent English, Welsh and Northern Irish agencies adapt the Fossil Code too. It's not going to stop really determined commercial hunters, the likes of which SVP despises, but if it's marketed right, amateurs, holidaymakers and families will take notice.

Of course, the whole 58 pages can easily be condensed into just four little words. Say them with me folks - Don't. Be. A. Dick.

Tech Tags: Scottish Fossil Code Scottish Natural Heritage fossils don't be a dick Sites of Special Scientific Interest

Feeding My Gondwanan Gymnosperm Fetish

Very exciting news in the world of palaeobotany at the moment (with thanks to Tom Holtz for letting us know on Vert Paleo and the DML). Seed fern fossils have been found in strata from the Eocene period, some 52-51 million years ago. This is 50 million years after they were thought to have become extinct in the Cenomanian (in the mid-late Cretaceous).

Now, this is the botanical equivalent of finding a non-avian dinosaur on an island somewhere (the island being, in this case, Tasmania). Seed ferns, or less colloquially pteridospermatophytes (try saying that three times fast after a few margaritas) are weird. They seem to look superficially like the very much extant tree ferns (Dicksonia and Cyathea for example). From what little I know about these odd plants, they're not overly easy to distinguish from regular ferns leaf-wise, but according to the paper (McLoughlin et al. 2008):

The pinnules differ from fern foliage in having robust cuticle with sunken stomates

And they oblige with a beautiful SEM image of a stomate, showing very well preserved guard cells. See, this is the most convincing thing about it for me. Pollen, spores and seeds are pretty sturdy. Anyone in doubt about this should know that a good way of obtaining pollen from a rock is to dissolve the lot in hydrofluoric acid. HF kills bones, but leaves pollen unharmed. So, had any of the mobile reproductive structures been found, I'd have wondered whether there had been any reworking of the sediment (eroding of the original rock and redeposition elsewhere). But the authors have found leaf macrofossils, 3-4cm long, attributed to a new species of Komlopteris, K. cenozoicus. I expect someone will correct me, but I'm pretty sure it's difficult to rework leaf fossils and retain the level of detail seen in the specimens.

I find this incredibly exciting. It's the same mindset behind me growing my Mesozoic garden and getting very attached to my other Lazarus taxa (Wollemia nobilis and Metasequoia glyptostroboides). I like the idea of high latitudes being a haven from the K-P_g extinction event. One day (if it hasn't been done already) I'd love to see a world map showing the distribution of Lazarus taxa. I wonder if the chance of finding one (especially of the photosynthesising variety) increases the further away from the Chicxulub crater, or whether 65 million years is enough time for most to spread away from their haven.

Wouldn't it be nice, though, if people got as excited about plant discoveries as animal discoveries? If this was a dinosaur, or a cynodont, or a trilobite, or an ammonite, an appearance in the Cenozoic would be worthy of the front page of Nature or Science. Seven years ago I thought plants were boring too, and now I'm trying desperately to remember all my Part II palaeobotany.

McLoughlin, S., R.J. Carpenter, G.J. Jordan & R.S. Hill. 2008. Seed ferns survived the end-Cretaceous mass extinction in Tasmania. American Journal of Botany 95: 465-471. Available here.

Tech Tags: Komlopteris cenozoicus seed ferns Pteridospermophyta extinction Lazarus taxa Cenozoic palaeobotanical awesomeness

Peak District Geology

Coming up over the next six weeks or so, I'll be taking High Peak Radio listeners through the geology of the Peak District, and I promised my readers a brief geological tour of the area (and it's a chance for me to show off some more holiday snaps). There are three types of rock in the Peak District (well, actually there are a lot more, but add in volcanics and coal measures and things get complicated). And in fact the Peak District is divided into the White Peak (limestone) and the Dark Peak (gritstone) on the basis of these rocks.

The younger gritstone surrounds the limestone (deposited about 350 million years ago during the Carboniferous period) on three sides, effectively bound by a number of "edges" - Black Edge, Burbage Edge, Stanage Edge and Froggatt Edge (I'm sure I've forgotten one or two). Stanage Edge is where Keira Knightley, as Lizzie Bennet, stands pouting during her visit to Derbyshire in "Pride And Prejudice", and climbers love it. The gritstone forms a horseshoe shape, because there's an anticlinal fold (it looks like a ∩ rather than a ∪), oriented north-south, pushing up the rocks and exposing the limestone through erosion.

Most Americans, I suspect, are used to very impressive reef formations, like El Capitan (left). Our reefs (for example, Thorpe Cloud, right) must seem very tiny. But they mean a lot to us!!

So the limestone was all deposited in a shallow lagoonal environment, and is jam-packed full of fossils (stopping to look at said fossils is rarely approved of by the ethical husband, who is by this point on any given hike dreaming of pie and pints). Usual Carboniferous stuff, crinoids (sea lilies), brachiopods (shelled organisms), corals etc. And because limestone is really good at dissolving in water, especially slightly acidic water, deep valleys and caves form like nobody's business.

Winnats Pass, above, (which we finally ascended on Easter Saturday after two failed attempts) is a collapsed cave system-turned steep-sided-drive-of-death. But a pretty good example of White Peak geology and flora - grass and ferns go ape for limestone and limey soils.

On top of the limestone is shale - turbidites, or underwater landslides. Ironically, the best place to see these layers is at an overground landslide site:

This is also a good example of how easily shale just crumbles away - the road at Mam Tor finally had to be closed after years of trying to keep it together. The shale underlies the lush fertile valleys of the Hope Valley (in which Castleton and Edale nestle), and makes for excellent farmland. And transitioning into delta sequences (a massive river flowed south from Scotland into the shallow sea) on top is the gritstone, or millstone grit. When the shale erodes, the gritstone can crumble away in huge chunks, leaving vertical cliff faces. Climbers love them because they don't get slippery (I believe the only rock harder to fall off is gabbro).

They also form the High Peak proper (the name's not just a coincidence), lofty plateaus with a decent coating of peat bog and acid-loving heather. To complicate matters further, outside the Park there are coal measures (once the delta had advanced south so far that High Peak was considered to be "land"), and within the limestone there are layers of basalt, known as "toadstone".

So with any luck that's given you a brief overview. I've gone into things in less detail than I will on the show (every other Sunday morning between 12am and 7am), and probably glossed over major geological instances, and no doubt the more talented clastic sedimentologists will be freaking out at my massacre of their subject. But I like to see how geology affects landscapes, and there's nothing quite like saying "Well, the hills here look like they do because this rock has these properties so it erodes like this".

Now what you all need to do is get out into those hills and see the geology close-up!

Tech Tags: High Peak High Peak Radio geology Peak District limestone shale gritstone Carboniferous

This Is Not An April Fool

I really have managed to get correspondence published in Nature Geoscience! Check out The illusion of gender parity. Woot! I know it's not peer-reviewed, but it has a DOI (doi:10.1038/ngeo153), damnit!

Read Kim Hannula's correspondence on Expectations and gender imbalance too - her writing is far better than mine. Kim also blogs at All Of My Faults Are Stress Related".

I'm actually excited to be able to update my CV and my other website tonight!

Tech Tags: Nature Geoscience gender parity publications DOI shameless self-promotion

An Important Announcement

Some of you may be wondering why I've been so quiet recently. I've pleaded work stresses, being on holiday, suffering burnout etc. But the truth is, Paul and I have been in a state of total excitement and bewilderment. And now the "danger period" is up, I'm delighted to be able to announce that we're expecting!

We're a little bit scared, as you can imagine, and maybe we'd have been better off waiting for a bit, especially as I'm trying to hold down a full-time job and a part-time PhD. I've broken the news to my workmates and to be honest, they could have been more positive, but I think they're just concerned for us. And neither set of parents are really ready to be grandparents - they consider themselves far too young for the job! It's so much responsibility, and it all came as a total surprise (you'd think we'd be better at this sort of thing).

But I can't wait to welcome little baby Anderson into the world. Baby (we don't know yet if it's a boy or a girl) is all warm, snug and protected, and we're just starting to think about how we're going to accommodate another living thing in our tiny flat. We've already set up a baby gift list, so do please click through if you're feeling generous - we're of course very grateful for any help you can give, as we're totally broke.

Umm. I'm rambling now. Must be the excitement. Or whatever the little guy or gal is doing... Maybe it'd be best if I just post the ultrasound, yes? I'm sure you're dying to see our offspring:

Tech Tags: ultrasound baby expecting Zamia check the date