Earth Science Club of Northern Illinois - ESCONI

Warehouse Work Day Moved to January 16th, 2015

The warehouse work day has been moved to January 16th, 2015.  We will be organizing our inventory for our annual show in March.  Contact me (John Good) if you can make it - (630) 303-2352 for reservations or e-mail at [email protected].

Work Day at the Warehouse - Saturday, January 16th, 2016

There will be a work day at the warehouse on Saturday, January 16th, 2016 at 9:00 am, so as to get all the items ready for the annual show. We need your help in identifying and organizing inventory. Contact me (John Good) if you can make it - (630) 303-2352 for reservations or e-mail at [email protected].

 

American Museum of Natural History: Trilobite of the Week

Trigonocercella acuta

from the Ordovician of Millard County, Utah, USA

2 cm

 

myFOSSIL Project Newsletter for December 2015

The myFOSSIL Project has their December 2015 issue up on their website.  It has some interesting stories.  Enjoy!

• Featured Paleontologist: Dena M. Smith
• Amateur Spotlight: Mark McKinzie
• Club Corner: Rochester Academy of Science Fossil Section by Dan Krisher
• Research: Unlocking the Secrets of Fossil Color by Caitlin Colleary
• Paleoart: Corkboard of Curiosities
• R.O.C.K.S. Videos Now Available
• Digital Atlas of Life Update:Free App for iPhone/iPad
• Featured Fossil: Lake Jacksboro Nautiloids by Sean Moran
• Fossil Project Updates
• FOSSIL on Facebook
• FOSSIL Speaker Series: Sandra Carlson Visits FUMMP by Michael Lask
• 2016 Events

Holiday Decorations

Nothing says Happy Holidays like a Brachiosaurus in full holiday regalia!  This one is outside the Field Museum in Chicago, IL.

Dinosaur Egg Candle "Hatches" When You Light It

Mental Floss has an interesting holiday gift idea for the dinosaurophile in your family.  Pyropet has added new dinosaur egg candles that reveal cute baby raptors as the candle melts.  It starts out as a six inch simple round candle.  The product isn't available yet, but is available for pre-order.  Happy Holidays!

Support ESCONI with AmazonSmile!

Support ESCONI

Did you know you can support ESCONI by shopping at Amazon?

ESCONI

Amazon will donate 0.5% of the price of your eligible AmazonSmile purchases to ESCONI whenever you shop on AmazonSmile. AmazonSmile is the same Amazon you already know. Same products, same prices, same service. Support ESCONI by naming us as your charitable organization before shopping at smile.amazon.com.

 Click here to get started: http://smile.amazon.com/ch/36-6108589

The purpose of ESCONI (Earth Science Club of Northern Illinois) is to promote an interest in the earth sciences, among these are geology, paleontology, mineralogy, micromounting, and the lapidary arts.

Thanks!

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Agriculture Linked to DNA Changes in Ancient Europe

A burial site of a neolithic culture found near Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. A rapidly growing supply of DNA from ancient skeletons is changing evolutionary history. CreditLDA Sachsen-Anhalt

Carl Zimmer of the Matter blog at the NY Times has a piece on the agricultural revolution and how our DNA changed due to it.  A recent study, which is the first of its kind, has found that agriculture arrived in Europe 8,500 years ago.  The international team of researchers studied the ancient human DNA from bones and other physical remains, some of the material dated as far back as 45,000 years ago.

“For decades we’ve been trying to figure out what happened in the past,” saidRasmus Nielsen, a geneticist at the University of California, Berkeley, who was not involved in the new study. “And now we have a time machine.”

Before the advent of studies of ancient DNA, scientists had relied mainly on bones and other physical remains to understand European history. The earliest bones of modern humans in Europe date to about 45,000 years ago, researchers have found.

Early Europeans lived as hunter-gatherers for over 35,000 years. About 8,500 years ago, farmers left their first mark in the archaeological record of the continent.

By studying living Europeans, scientists had already found evidence suggesting that their ancestors adapted to agriculture through natural selection. As tools to sequence DNA became more readily available, researchers even discovered some of the molecular underpinnings of these traits."