Another Use for Old Blasting Wire

Years ago I was invited to look for fossils at a construction site where they had been doing some blasting. Among the rubble, I would find some tangled wire where the crew had set charges to break up the limestone so the area could be excavated. Sometimes I would pick up this wire as it seemed a shame to let it get buried and not be recycled.

Well, I found a use for the wire the other day when installing an under the counter kitchen radio. The radio reception was not good from the external antenna so I took a section of the copper wire I found and used to extend the existing antenna wire. It definitely improved the station reception afterwards.

You can find the radio on Amazon.com here:
http://www.amazon.com/iLive-iKB333S-Cabinet-Bluetooth-Speakers/dp/B00BCSYZSW?ie=UTF8&keywords=iLive%20iKB333S&qid=1460807575&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1

Helicoprion Shark in Cell Phone Game

My previous post showed an Edestus shark in the Jurassic World cell phone game. I encountered another fossil shark in the game called a Helicoprion. This shark-like creature was one odd fish in that its fossil consists of a spiral of teeth. It was eventually determined the spiral was located in the lower jaw. As the fish grew the smaller teeth were pushed into the center of the lower jaw. Read more at the Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicoprion

Image of Helicoprion bessonovi from J. Walther old book in public domain - source Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicoprion#/media/File:Helicoprion_Bessonovi2.jpg 

The real shark existed from the Permian to Triassic (290-250 million years ago).

Edestus Shark in Video Game

The game developers of Jurassic World cell phone game have modeled an Edestus shark for the game. It showed up as one of the creatures to get past in the tournaments set for this weekend. It is interesting to see how the graphic designer modeled it's teeth in a single row.

The real shark is much older than the Jurassic Period. It dates to the upper Middle Pennsylvanian or Carboniferous Period (approximately 307 million years ago).

See this entry from 2015 about an actual Edestus fossil found in a Kentucky coal mine. http://louisvillefossils.blogspot.com/2015/01/newly-found-edestus-shark-fossil.html