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News

328m-Year-Old Vampire Squid Named After President Biden (theguardian.com) 83

A newly discovered fossilized vampire squid has been named after the US president, Joe Biden, a team of paleontologists has announced. From a report: The Syllipsimopodi bideni, which has been described as an "incredibly rare" fossil, was first dug up in Montana and then donated to the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada in 1988. But it sat untouched in a drawer for decades until a scientist pulled it out for a closer look. Speaking to the New York Times, Christopher Whalen, a paleontologist from New York's American Museum of Natural History, said he first noticed the squid's preserved arms and saw small suckers in the rock. "This was sitting in a museum since the 80s and no one realized it was important," said Whalen. "We chanced on that importance because I happened to notice the arm suckers." The Syllipsimopodi bideni drifted across oceans nearly 328m years ago. According to Whalen, it is the oldest known ancestor of vampyropods, a group that includes vampire squids and octopuses.
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328m-Year-Old Vampire Squid Named After President Biden

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  • Ancient vampire squid? Come on. What is this, The Babylon Bee?

    Arm suckers... does it have hair sniffers too?

    • How long was the knife he pulled out in the movie? Never seen it and can't even remember if I've read a clear description of Crocodile Dundee's knife. But websearch yields images and it must be at least a foot (30 centimeters) long. (If a knife is a foot, then what kind of shoe should it wear?)

      Anyway, I expected the discussion to open with some kind of relevance ping. I see the story has been filed under "News", but isn't there a category for "Trivial News" or "Trivial Science" or "Trivial Veiled Political

    • Add to this, the genera is SO easy to mispronounce/spell, deliberately or not.
  • These fossils appear to be contemporary.
  • by Ostracus ( 1354233 ) on Thursday March 10, 2022 @02:13PM (#62344365) Journal

    Interesting way of saying your president sucks.

    • Interesting way of saying your president sucks.

      Damn sure would be funny if Elon was running Dyson right about now.

      He'd run with this.

    • by tomhath ( 637240 )

      Interesting way of saying your president sucks.

      ...and that he's a fossil

  • They should at least be able to get one full monologue out of this announcement.

  • And like that junk drawer in the kitchen just as useful.

    • And like that junk drawer in the kitchen just as useful.

      Just like Biden...

      ...and Kamala.

      • Exactly, and as a rule about every two years or so I dump the contents of my junk drawer into the trash or recycling.

  • It had more to do with the fact that this particular squid was Biden's childhood pet.

    • Come on, man. Let the late night hosts write their own jokes.

      • We all know the late-night hosts won't touch Biden.

        • Um. What planet are you on? He's the president. If late night hosts couldn't pick on the president they'd be out of business.

          • Um. What planet are you on? He's the president. If late night hosts couldn't pick on the president they'd be out of business.

            They can pick on the President; they won't pick on Biden.

            • by narcc ( 412956 )

              What planet are you living on? Biden is under near constant criticism.

              It just looks like nothing to you because the previous guy was openly committing treason.

            • by Ksevio ( 865461 )

              As someone that watches clips on youtube fairly often, they pick on Biden all the time. He doesn't say as much dumb stuff as Trump, but they're not starved for content

          • Um. What planet are you on? He's the president. If late night hosts couldn't pick on the president they'd be out of business.

            Nah, they give Biden a pass.

            They're still riffing on trump.

            • To be completely fair, they do tend to go for the lowest of the low hanging fruit. And Trump gives them a LOT to work with.

            • Um. What planet are you on? He's the president. If late night hosts couldn't pick on the president they'd be out of business.

              Nah, they give Biden a pass.

              They're still riffing on trump.

              Hmm, I wonder why [twitter.com].

              • Um. What planet are you on? He's the president. If late night hosts couldn't pick on the president they'd be out of business.

                Nah, they give Biden a pass.

                They're still riffing on trump.

                Hmm, I wonder why [twitter.com].

                So, I'm wondering...in this case, would the word "literally" be appropriate? As in, "Trump is literally tilting at windmills"?

          • Watch and learn.

  • So, it's 119.72 days old?

    Memo to Slashdot editors: Please re-read the SI Units brochure, thank you.
  • The Right will mock him over this.

    Conversely Trump will be jealous and complain he didn't get a long dead mollusk named after him.

    • Trump already has an animal name. He's a Russian mole.

      • by ebvwfbw ( 864834 )

        Trump already has an animal name. He's a Russian mole.

        You say that even though there have been nothing to show he had anything to do with Russia. Plenty to show Joe Biden has Ukraine and Russian ties.
        So you forgot all of those investigations that found - *NOTHING*?
        They looked at his taxes - found nothing. Looked into anything else they could think of - found nothing. Threatened people and their families with decades in prison if they didn't cough up some dirt on Trump. Nothing found.
        So the NY Atty General looked into his taxes again - Nothing found.

        At this poi

        • + On election night men known to have ties to Putin and Russian oligarchs were with Trump and his kids as they waited for results. There are actual photos of who these men are.

          + Taxes - Yes, they've found "inconsistencies" which is one of the reasons they started the investigation even before he said he was running for office. Also the investigation isn't over with yet because they don't just want Trump in jail they want the kids as well. It took four years to collect evidence on Al Capone. It took longer f

    • Conversely Trump will be jealous and complain he didn't get a long dead mollusk named after him.

      At least, Trump has his name on this [theguardian.com].

  • "Their decision to name the squid after Biden came as they were “encouraged by his plans to address climate change and to fund scientific research”, Whalen said in an email to the New York Times."

    Or is this simply me not seeing sarcasm again?

    • "Their decision to name the squid after Biden came as they were “encouraged by his plans to address climate change and to fund scientific research”, Whalen said in an email to the New York Times."

      Or is this simply me not seeing sarcasm again?

      Said person may have been sincere but naive. But there's always going to be a Brandon Boy(TM) or two in every group, and they were probably sitting there like Beavis and Butthead saying "Yeah! Yeah! Do it! heh heh".

  • 384 meters in a year!

  • Now let's make sure that *all* of our politicians get some type of undead beast named for them.

    Truth in advertising, you know . . .

  • An ancient tentacled blood-sucker. Wonder if it has Alzheimer's as well...

  • Vampire Squid ... Biden ... ???

  • A fossil vampire, huh? Well, that certainly describes slow, senile Joe. Let's Go Brandon!

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