so about this whole planet thing

For all American grad students who get tuition waivers.

This is extremely important for you to be aware of. Please spread the word.

UCLA’s hummingbird whisperer

There’s a hummingbird haven at UCLA. It’s lovingly run by the “hummingbird whisperer”— assistant researcher Melanie Barboni. 

If she doesn’t feed them in a timely manner, the miffed hummingbirds will fly into her office to “yell at me. … They are so demanding, but they know I will give them everything,” she explained with a smile.

Spessartine - Navegadora claim, Conselheiro Pena, Doce valley, Minas Gerais, Brazil

The Salto group

This spectacular formation is part of the Salto group of rocks in northern Argentina, dating from the Cretaceous and early Tertiary. It shows the angular unconformity (a period of non deposition of sediment) between the Pirgua and Balbuena de Tres Cruces members. The Hill of Seven Colours we covered recently at http://tinyurl.com/mq8xpmp is also within this group. The sediments were deposited in a graben, which is a block of rock that has collapsed down between two normal faults during crustal extension, in this case, during the rifting apart of the supercontinent Gondwana during the Mezozoic.