Wes Phillips

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King Tut Meets T Rex

A partially mummified hadrosaur has been discovered in North Dakota. It's probably the most complete dinosaur ever found—it even has intact skin (with stripes) and possibly even soft tissue. But does it have a head? The head's the best part!

His Dark Materials

Sigh, The Golden Compass opens this week and the kooks are out denouncing it as "atheist propaganda." I read—and greatly enjoyed—Pullman's trilogy and I thought it was more an argument with Milton than with God himself.

Master of Lightning

PBS has posted a site dedicated to Nikola Tesla, my candidate for coolest scientist ever. Among other things, it includes a virtual tour o the Niagara Falls electrical generating plant and a fascinating hint that Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) was created out of fear that the USSR had perfected his charged-particle beam weapon (you see, there's this huge controversy over what happened to his papers after his death).

The French They Are a Funny Race

Jon Carroll is always worth reading, but you really don't want to miss a column that has this lede: "This is such a wonderful story. It should serve as an example to us all, and as a shining light to the young. Yes, you can do something positive for society, while still breaking the law and cheesing everybody off! It's win-win."

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