Officially named Siphusauctum gregarium, fossils reveal a tulip-shaped creature with a unique feeder system. (Illustration: Marianne Collins)

A bizarre creature that lived in the ocean more than 500 million years ago has emerged from the famous Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale in the Canadian Rockies.

Officially named Siphusauctum gregarium, fossils reveal a tulip-shaped creature that is about the length of a paperback novel (>20 cm) and with a unique feeder system.

Siphusauctum has a long stem, with a calyx – a bulbous cup-like structure – near the top which encloses an unusual filter feeding system and a gut. The animal is thought to have fed by filtering particles from water actively pumped into its calyx through small holes. The stem ends with a small disc which anchored the animal to the seafloor. Siphusauctum lived in large clusters, as indicated by slabs containing over 65 individual specimens.

Lorna O’Brien, a PhD candidate in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Toronto and her supervisor Jean-Bernard Caron, curator of invertebrate palaeontology at the Royal Ontario Museum, report on the discovery on January 18 in the online science journal PLoS ONE.

“Most interesting is that its feeding system appears to be unique among animals. Recent advances have linked many bizarre Burgess Shale animals as primitive members of many animal groups that are found today but Siphusauctum defies this trend.  We do not know where it fits in relation to other organisms,” said O’Brien.

“Our description is based on more than 1,100 fossil specimens from a new Burgess Shale locality.  The area has been nicknamed the Tulip Beds,” said lead author O’Brien.  Located in Yoho National Park, British Columbia, the Tulip Beds were first discovered in 1983 by the Royal Ontario Museum. They are located high on Mount Stephen, overlooking the town of Field. Like the rest of the Burgess Shale, the Beds represent rock layers with exceptional preservation of mostly soft-bodied organisms. The Burgess Shale, protected under the larger Rocky Mountain Parks UNESCO World Heritage site and managed by Parks Canada, preserves fossil evidence of some of the earliest complex animals that lived in the oceans of our planet nearly 505 million years ago. The discovery of Siphusauctum expands the range of animal diversity that existed during this time period.

The research was partially funded by U of T fellowships to O’Brien and a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Discovery Grant awarded to Caron.

IMAGES: http://uoft.me/25e

Coca-Cola is proudly advertising their $2 million donation to the WWF (World Wildlife Fund) to help polar bears. The claim made me want to dig a little deeper for context. Here’s some more numbers to consider:

Length of time for complete disbursement of the $2m – 5 years

Actual annual donation  – $400,000 (not including as-yet-unknown polar bear campaign contributions from consumers and matching funds from Coke, which will be capped at $1 million)

Economic ‘value‘ of a polar bear, based upon a report commissioned by Environment Canada: $420,000

Manitoba government’s annual cost for polar bear control in Churchill, Manitoba – $125,000 (1994 figure)

Annual Revenues of WWF (2010)  – Operating revenue totaled $224.2 million

Coca Cola’s net revenue 2010 – $35.1 billion

WWF Member contributions (2010) – $46.4 million

Coke’s polar bear campaign donation expressed as a percentage of WWF annual revenue – 0.18%

Member donations – 20%

So, pardon my cynicism, but based upon the many news reports on the plight of the polar bear, my Christmas wish for them is the hope they find friends with deeper pockets and a stronger commitment to their continued health than the world’s number one seller of sugar water.

I hope they were still there when the owners returned.

Why is this a bad lock-up?

Look at what’s actually connected to the lock and the rack.

Only the tire. An intrepid thief with a spare front wheel, or even the brains to find another locked bike with an unlocked front wheel, could be riding away in less than a minute, simply by undoing the axle quick release, sliding the bike fork through the lock, and voila, one unlocked, AWOL bicycle, albeit in need of a front wheel. Here’s an even worse example.

How do I know this? I found out the hard way, trusting a similar locking choice would be sufficient in my underground parking at a previous residence many years ago. Nothing reinforces a lesson like a forlorn front wheel hanging uselessly from a u-lock and the realization that your two-week old Stumpjumper is gone baby gone.

photo courtesy of Mayacycle

Here’s an example of doing it right. The lock secures the frame and front wheel to the rack.

If you’re going somewhere for a while, or leaving your bike somewhere secluded, bring along a good plastic coated wire cable too, run it through your rear wheel and secure the end loops to your u-lock. Yes, I learned this lesson the hard way too. Happy, safe riding everyone!

CK

Disclosure: I am biased about the first group on the list, because I am proud to be a volunteer member of the board. PEDAL helps people learn to ride bikes, fix bikes, and save money. Three great reasons to help the organization. PEDAL also had a hand in the beginning of Maya Pedal and continues to support their important work in Guatemala.

If you want a make a holiday donation in the name of an off-road aficionado, look no further than the North Shore Mountain Bike Association aka the voice for the mountain biking community of the North Shore. The group’s hard work has resulted in a world-famous network of trails that allow for challenge and progression for the thousands of riders who use the trails each year.

No group has done more of late to make cycling in Metro Vancouver possible for a wider range of people than the Vancouver Area Cycling Coalition. Importantly, your donations help fund the ongoing advocacy relationships the VACC has forged with all levels of government. Make biking better for your favourite starving student with a membership to the AMS Bike Co-op at UBC. Just a few dollars opens the door on bike education and other services, including a cargo bike share, advocacy work on behalf of UBC cyclists, and bike lockers.

If you’d like to donate to a program with a focus on developing nations, Kona’s Basic Needs primary initiative is to donate Kona AfricaBikes to organizations and individuals who can directly benefit from the transportation virtues of the bicycle. Kona AfricaBikes will be going to a number of different projects over the coming years. The first under the Kona Basic Needs umbrella occurred in September 2008 with the donation of 120 bikes to a water management project run by WWF Tanzania

Me, my Movember mustache, and my new pals Pepper and Salt

I’m participating in the Movember anti-prostate cancer fundraising campaign currently underway. As you may know, it involves getting clean-shaven on November 1st and letting your ‘stache grow for a month, as a mark of participation in the campaign. I’ve shaved off my goatee and am currently sporting a nascent trucker-style mustache that is hirsute proof that you can take the boy off the Island, but you can’t get the Island out of the boy!

Now I could offer up any number of sound rationales why donating to me (or your favourite Movember participant) is a good idea. But you probably don’t need a logical reason to fund the fight against cancer. Instead, let me offer up (in no particular order) a look at my top ten mustachio-ed men from fact and fiction. If you like what you read, please consider making a donation.

My Hairy Lipped Heroes

10) Salvador Dali – I remember the first time I came across Dali’s Metamorphosis of Narcissus. I thought I had a vivid imagination until I saw how a creative genius could transform one image into another. Dali anecdote: Supposedly his wife would pin a $100 bill inside his jacket when he left the house, because he had a habit of distractedly wandering far from home and would need taxi fare to return. I wouldn’t try to equal his painting or his quirky ‘stache, but I have been known to leave the house with a hundred dollars and come home with an empty wallet and not much recollection of the time between, so we kind of have that in common!

9) Freddie Mercury – Growing up in the ’70s Queen was a constant in the soundtrack of our lives. I vividly remember getting ready for football games in the Kin Park dressing rooms in Cumberland, with We Will Rock You/We are the Champions cranked to 11 and pumping us up for the quasi-gladiatorial contest about to commence, as we strapped on our pads and helmets. Sometimes it worked and we actually won! Mercury also influenced me with the realization that homosexual didn’t equal effeminate, which was quite a revelation for a kid living on Vancouver Island and surrounded by a milieu best described as redneck-lite.

8) Bob Hunter – My first ever ‘A’ as a young student was for an essay I wrote about Greenpeace’s efforts to stop nuclear bomb testing in the Aleutian Islands. Bob was one of the founders of the environmental group and a sterling example of the activist/journalist ethos. I had the immense privilege of meeting and speaking with Mr. Hunter once, when he was a guest on Breakfast Television. Sadly it was near the end of his fight against cancer. Nonetheless, it is a rare gift to be able to meet a personal hero and thank them for the influence they’ve had on your life. Great ‘stache and a great man. Greenpeace anecdote: Worked for them briefly as a door-to-door fundraiser when I first moved to Vancouver. A bad choice for a guy who has always sucked at asking for money. I lasted a week.

7) Jack Layton – Really, Jack needs on introduction or explanation from me. Tireless in his fight for the working majority, sustainable transportation, and a kinder, gentler world, we are poorer without his strong voice in Parliament. Love IS better than anger.

6) Mark Twain – Rightfully famous for Tom and Huck, nonetheless I would rate Innocents Abroad as one of my favorite Twain works. Twain saw the world in all its goofy, hypocritical splendour and set a benchmark in American literature by celebrating the things that were funny, calling out the things that weren’t, and doing so in a voice that’s oft imitated and rarely surpassed. “Substitute  ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very’; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.”

5) Ned Flanders – Ah, stupid, sexy Flanders. I’ve been told one of my ‘tells’ when I’ve had a few (too many) is to start spouting puns and Flan-diddly-ander-isms. I’ve been a huge Simpsons fan from the first time they made an appearance in the Mike and Spike Animation Festival, via the long-cancelled Tracy Ullman show. Ned Flanders is a big reason why. If Rupert Murdoch was more like Flanders and less like Lionel Hutz, his reputation wouldn’t be in tatters. “Hens Love Roosters, Geese Love Ganders, Everyone else loves Ned Flanders!”

4) Kurt Vonnegut – Rightful heir to Twain’s role as the wry conscience of America, Vonnegut’s work has probably influenced my own style of writing as much as any author. If you’ve never gained a taste for his work, maybe because you began by reading his more challenging works such as Breakfast of Champions or Slaughterhouse Five, my recommendation would be to seek out some of his more straightforward stuff. Player Piano is a surprisingly prescient tale of a world run by technocrats unwilling to challenge the tenets of their corporate group-think. Cat’s Cradle ends the world in ice, with a few laughs along the way.  Both are good introductions to his amazing body of work. Vonnegut fun fact: The Grateful Dead’s music publishing arm is named after (spoiler alert) the planet destroying ‘ice-nine’  which plays a pivotal role in Cat’s Cradle.

3) Ernest Hemingway – OK, a slight cheat here, because we tend to remember ‘Papa’ as having a beard, but I’ve linked to a website that shows he was a mustache-only guy at one point. Our world is a much different one from his time and Hemingway’s reputation as a person has suffered for it, but his prose remains a sterling example of a spare, evocative style that eschews frills in favour of simply-stated truths. I recall reading his short story collection The Hills of Kilimanjaro while still in elementary school, too young for the content, but enthralled with its easy-to-comprehend insights into the adult world. “The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.” – A Farewell to Arms.

2) The Stranger – Sam Elliott opens and closes The Big Lebowski in fine fashion, sporting a Texas-sized soup strainer on his upper lip. I’ve found it hard not to pronounce L.A. as Loz Angle-eez ever since having seen the film. Like many a Coen Brothers production, it may not resonate on first viewing, but sure grows on you over time. Or not. But let’s give credit where due. If you’re looking for a film that successfully merges such disparate topics as bowling, nihilism, the Jewish faith, and the importance of a nice carpet to pull a room together, there’s the Dude, and no other. “The Dude abides. I don’t know about you, but I take comfort in that. It’s good knowin’ he’s out there. The Dude. Takin’ ‘er easy for all us sinners.”

1) Alistair Smith – There’s no link to provide here, because Alistair isn’t famous, or fictional, or alive anymore. He was one of my best friends growing up and liver cancer took him far too young, in his early 30s. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t regret having not told him how much I would miss him when he was gone, but I was young and stubborn and didn’t have the life skills to deal with my best friend having the gall to up and die on me when we were just getting started on our lives. I will never forget coming home from work and having my then-wife tell me the news. Weeping uncontrollably by myself in our bedroom, Death kicking me in the gut and leaning over to whisper in my ear, “How do you like me so far?” They opened him up, took a look and gave him six months. Alistair lived for another eighteen and in the end it hurt like hell and there wasn’t anything we could do to take that pain away for him. So it goes, to quote Vonnegut. Anyway, ‘Smitty’ rocked a mustache and was a helluva friend for over twenty years. If there’s a heaven, surely it must be a re-creation of our favorite time and place. For Alistair, that would be atop a mountain summit, with an awesome view all around and a cherry old-school Ford Bronco waiting at the trailhead.

If you were the least bit entertained or moved by my list, I hope you will visit this link http://mobro.co/chriskeam and make a donation. If for any reason it’s impossible for you to make a donation at this time, I think a wonderful substitute action might be to perform a random act of kindness, or take a moment to make a doctor’s appointment for a routine checkup. I plan to have my prostate checked this month, a long overdue move on my part to be sure!

If you’d prefer to make a donation with a cheque or cash, you can send it to:

Chris Keam
807 East 6th Ave, Ste #E115
Vancouver, BC
V5T 1L9
(or as I like to remember it – Victory 5 Times, 1 Loss feels like 9)

and I will make sure it’s included in the donations.

Thanks for reading and good health to you and yours,

Chris K.

What about the card itself? Too much information? LOL.