CAMILLE SG

*Roly Polies Came From the Sea to Conquer the Earth*

Mansoor Shams on the impact of these one-on-one conversations

Muslim Marine Answers Questions In Effort To Fight Islamophobia

In 2015, Lida Xing was visiting a market in northern Myanmar when a salesman brought out a piece of amber about the size of a pink rubber eraser. Inside, he could see a couple of ancient ants and a fuzzy brown tuft that the salesman said was a plant.

As soon as Xing saw it, he knew it wasn’t a plant. It was the delicate, feathered tail of a tiny dinosaur.

“I have studied paleontology for more than 10 years and have been interested in dinosaurs for more than 30 years. But I never expected we could find a dinosaur in amber. This may be the coolest find in my life,” says Xing, a paleontologist at China University of Geosciences in Beijing. “The feathers on the tail are so dense and regular, this is really wonderful.”

He persuaded the Dexu Institute of Palaeontology to buy the artifact.

After analyzing the delicate tail, Xing and his colleagues in China, the U.K. and Canada now have an idea of what type of dinosaur it is, and of the evolutionary clues it holds. Their research was published Thursday in the journal Current Biology.

They say that 99 million years ago, a baby dinosaur about the size of a sparrow got stuck in tree sap and never made it out. Had the young dinosaur had a more auspicious day, it would have grown up to be a little smaller than an ostrich.

Baby Dinosaur’s 99-Million-Year-Old Tail, Encased In Amber, Surfaces In Myanmar

I was hired by NPR to cover the intersection of demographics and politics. My job required crisscrossing the country to talk to all kinds of voters. I attended rallies and town halls for nearly every candidate on both sides of the aisle, and I met people in their homes, churches and diners.

I am also visibly, identifiably Muslim. I wear a headscarf. So I stand out. And during this campaign, that Muslim identity became the first (and sometimes only) thing people saw, for good or for bad.

Reporter’s Notebook: What It Was Like As A Muslim To Cover The Election

Photo: Ariel Zambelich/NPR

When you struggle with your mental health on a daily basis, it can be hard to take action on the things that matter most to you. The mental barriers anxiety creates often appear insurmountable. But sometimes, when you really need to, you can break those barriers down. This week, with encouragement from some great people on the internet, I pushed against my anxiety and made some calls to members of our government. Here’s a comic about how you can do that, too. (Resources and transcript below.)

Motivational resources: There are a lot! Here are a few I really like:

Emily Ellsworth explains why calling is the most effective way to reach your congressperson.

Sharon Wong posted a great series of tweets that helped me manage my phone anxiety and make some calls.

Kelsey is tweeting pretty much daily with advice and reminders about calling representatives. I found this tweet an especially great reminder that calls aren’t nearly as big a deal as anxiety makes them out to be.

Informational resources: There are a lot of these, as well! These three are good places to start:

Find your representative at house.gov

Find your senators at senate.gov

Use the “We’re His Problem Now” scripts when calling (or write your own!)

Someday, you could be wearing “mushroom leather.”

As it stands, the mushroom is a pretty multi-purpose organism: Aside from its ecological functions, it can be eaten as nourishment, brewed as tea, taken as a naturopathic remedy, and used in dyes. But a San Francisco start-up by the name of MycoWorks has even more plans for mushrooms, starting with a leather-like material made from the fungi.

More specifically, MycoWorks’ key ingredient is mycelium, the microscopic, root-like threads of a mushroom that latch onto and colonize different substrates. As a natural fiber, mycelium is particularly attractive because it can be grown and manipulated into myriad textures and shapes, according to Phil Ross, the chief technical officer at MycoWorks.

“Fungi are very sensitive; they will change their growth in relationship to how they’re being poked and things like that,” Ross says. “You put it in a cup, it would take the shape of a cup.”