Ardi

Scientists have announced the discovery of the oldest human ancestor skeleton ever found...predating Lucy by one million years. She is a 110 pound female nicknamed Ardi (taken from her species name Ardipithecus ramidus) found in Ethiopia.

According to National Geographic News:

"The fossil puts to rest the notion, popular since Darwin's time, that a chimpanzee-like missing link—resembling something between humans and today's apes—would eventually be found at the root of the human family tree. Indeed, the new evidence suggests that the study of chimpanzee anatomy and behavior—long used to infer the nature of the earliest human ancestors—is largely irrelevant to understanding our beginnings.

Ardi instead shows an unexpected mix of advanced characteristics and of primitive traits seen in much older apes that were unlike chimps or gorillas. As such, the skeleton offers a window on what the last common ancestor of humans and living apes might have been like."

Zip it!

Garbage Day

Awww, Barbie is so sweet to take out my trash for me!

So I'm not a Photoshop virtuoso (yet) but I still think this is hilarious.

Tord Boontje

Good Lord, I ran into one of the most beautiful web sites ever today. Check out Studio Tord Boontje. Tord is a designer from the Netherlands now living in France. I like what he has to say about his work:

"The challenge and opportunity the Studio has long sought is a delicate marriage of design with emotion that is as broadly accessible as it is enticing. The Studio's work draws from a belief that modernism does not mean minimalism, that contemporary does not forsake tradition, and that technology does not abandon people and senses. The Studio's designs often temper edges with softness, borrow inspiration from nature, and employ a decor of forms and layers to engage and entice an observer's imagination and emotions."

Me. George. Date at Hogwarts. Next spring.

The Harry Potter Theme park is scheduled to open in Orlando next spring. Considering the fact that George and I are venturing to Chicago this weekend for the (relatively dinky) Harry Potter exhibit before it leaves, you can bet your butterbeer that we'll be visiting FL next year with our wizard robes on (and, in case you're wondering, YES, I do own one).

Check it out!

(500) days of summer

Has anyone seen this movie? WONDERFUL. Please go see it immediately. Among other things, it stars the utterly fabulous indie queen, Zooey Deschanel:

By the way, I heart her sister, Emily, too, as the star of the hit TV series, Bones:

Yummy wedding cake

My husband, George, took what I thought was a particularly good picture of the wedding cake from an event we attended in Pittsburgh at the Pittsburgh Aquarium about a month ago.