Scales, teeth, feathers, hair, rhino horn.

Lynnis' post on the keratin in rhino horn brings to mind a little known but recently established fact that a sequence of evolutionary steps evolved fish scales into teeth (calcified scales that moved into the mouth), scales into feathers (dinos/birds), and feathers into hair (mammals). Of course the keratin in rhino horn is just consolidated hair. The roughly same gene system is known to behind all those evolutionary variants.

GIF from Hell

I am often amazed at the creativity and skill of people who make GIF images.

High on the Hog interim snow depth report

As of 1 PM or so, our weather station in Ranson WV reports 15 inches, the Greenbelt station 11 7/8 inches, and the Southern Md station 12 inches.

More reports later. All stations report snow continuing to fall heavily.

No Sunspots for 9 days

After picking up some sunspot activity after a long lull in spots, the sun has gone spotless again. This is all very unusual behavior. The solar cycle should be in full upswing now, but it isn't. This could very well have a cooling influence on the climate.

Any such change would take a long time, but, for what it is worth, the National Snow and Ice Data Center shows that there is a good bit of ice left in the Arctic. Ice cover has definitely increased 2009 over 2008 and it now appears some of it will last into 2010.