Educator's Perspective: HIGH CYCLE HIJINKS

By: Dana Crisson, Educator at McWane Science Center

For those of you who have never experienced the fun of the High Cycle, it is quite a trip, giving riders a birds-eye perspective of the world for a few moments. The High Cycle a high-wire bicycle attached to a cable stretched across McWane’s grand atrium. After you are securely strapped on the bicycle, you pedal backward out of the loading platform until you are suspended 20 feet in mid-air across the lobby. A 210-lb counterweight underneath the bicycle allows you to experience the center of balance first-hand; if you want, you can stop in the middle of the cable and slowly shift your weight from side to side causing the bicycle to rock. The swaying is offset by the counterweight, which will straighten you up, bringing you right back to the center.

This ride brings a little bit of an adrenaline rush to everyone. After manning this ride for awhile, it is fun to try to predict who will enjoy the ride and who won’t. Every day I see surprises.

Riders must be at least 45” tall, and weigh less than 225 lbs. to ride the High Cycle. There is no age limit—all you need is a willingness to hop on and enjoy the adventure. Some of the smallest, youngest children are absolutely determined to ride; I have seen these kids stand on their toes and fluff up their hair in an effort to make themselves “big enough” to meet the height requirement. Once we know you meet all the requirements, we strap you in and the fun begins.

Children usually run up in big groups, many boasting to their friends about how fast they are going to pedal and how far they are going to sway on the cable. Some kids are completely confident, pedaling out and back with swift assurance. Other riders are a little timid at first, pedaling very slowly, but by the time they reach the middle of the wire they relax and enjoy it. Most really enjoy the sensation; as they pedal out, a big smile will creep across their faces; they relax, wave excitedly to their friends, look down at the lobby full of visitors below them, and pose for cell phone pictures.

Some kids have the opposite reaction; they think they will enjoy it but then they suddenly freeze mid-pedal. “Do I have to go any further?” a shy little girl asked me, adding in a very timid voice, “I’m kind of afraid of heights. “Of course not,” I assured her, telling her to pedal back in and bragging on her bravery. Another little boy pedaled out to the middle of the wire and listened dutifully to the instructions on how to make the bike sway; most kids move too jerkily, but he finally mastered the gentle rocking motion. Once he started rocking, he kept it up for several minutes, rocking back and forth as his friends cheered him on—then all of a sudden his face turned pale and he said, “I think I’m going to be sick.” As soon as he pedaled back in, however, his color returned and he boasted to his buddies, “I wasn’t really feeling sick--I was just teasing you.”

“How many people have fallen?” asked a swaggering 10-year-old boy as I strapped him in. “This ride is completely safe. There is no way you can fall,” I told him. “Oh yeah? If you can’t fall, why is there a big net under the ride?” he shot back. “To catch flip-flops, sunglasses, cell phones, and other items that might accidentally fall,” I replied. That is a story in itself. We have long hook to retrieve dropped items from the net. Shoes are pretty easy; cell phones require a wad of duct tape and a very steady hand.

Of course, this ride isn’t just for children and teens; adults love it too. Sometimes it takes a little coaxing, but many times after watching their children ride, the mother or father will ask to ride, too. One of my favorite moments happened when a charming gray-haired grandfather, looking dapper in a sport coat and navy-striped tie, walked up with his three grandchildren and asked if they could ride. The grandchildren peered down at the lobby below and decided they didn’t want to ride, but to their complete surprise he said, “I do!” I strapped him in and he pedaled out as his grandchildren watched, open-mouthed. He stopped in the middle of the wire and shifted his weight, swaying from side to side, with his navy tie swinging to and fro. “Be careful Granddaddy!” piped up his youngest granddaughter. He grinned broadly and said, “You don’t have anything to worry about--this is great!” When he got off the bicycle, I saw his grandchildren look at him in awe, seeing him in entirely new light.

The next time you visit the McWane Science Center, be sure to save time for a ride on the High Cycle. It is guaranteed to be an experience you will never forget.

Contributor Profile:

A Birmingham native, Dana Crisson remembers visiting the McWane building in its original incarnation as the former Loveman’s Department Store. She has a BA in English/Journalism from UAB and has worked as freelance writer for The Birmingham News & Over the Mountain Journal for over 15 years. She is also a former Discovery Guild member and has clocked many volunteer hours at the science center before joining the McWane staff in the Education Department. She is an avid reader, a cat lover, a concert junkie, and a part-time backup singer in a local cover band. She and her husband, Dwight, a CPA, have two daughters, Rachel, 20, and Christina, 17.

Awesome Money-Saving Deals – Just for McWane Science Center Members!

By: Lara Wheeler, Memberships

I know I’m always looking to stretch a buck. Buy-one-get-one night at local eateries, my pet food purchase point card, and just about any dry-cleaning coupon I can get my hands on – these are incredibly meaningful savings to my household budget. So I want to remind you how as a McWane Science Center Member, there is much more value in your membership than just free admission to Adventure Halls. Or even free parking.

Here are a few perks you may want to take advantage of over the next few months…

· With our current Member- Get- A- Member offer, we will give you an additional two free months of membership for each nonmember friend you successfully encourage to join. No limit!

· Our new member benefits include 20% off purchases in the Smart Café and gift shop.

· Another new benefit is that Family and Grandparent members get $2 off all IMAX and simulator tickets (except on Sundays, when IMAX tickets are already discounted to $5!)

· Don’t forget about camp discounts! Members get anywhere from $25 to $50 off each week-long summer camp. Plus, lunch and snacks are included in the camp price.

· And if you do have some happy campers, keep in mind that before and after care (both with supervised activities with McWane Science Center staff) is absolutely FREE to members! That’s a $25 value!

· On Member Day, coming up on July 18, you will be able to get in free to other local attractions, such as the Birmingham Zoo, Vulcan Park, The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, even the Jazz Hall of Fame! Show your McWane Science Center member card!

· Members save too with discounts on fun-for-the-family special activities like Dinner and a Mission, Daddy-Daughter Days, and Camp-Ins!

· Feel like a road trip? Our members get free general museum admission to both the US Space and Rocket Center and Sci-Quest in Huntsville, and the Gulf Coast Exploreum in Mobile plus free or discounted admission to more than 250 other museums in the U.S.

· Last but not least – take advantage of our Free Members-Only Preview Parties! Snacks, awesome activities, and a very special look at our latest exhibit make for a great night for the whole family.

And of course, if there are other benefits you value, let me know about them here! We’re always open to suggestions…thanks for your support that helps us continue to offer these exponential experiences!

All About IMAX – Part 1: The Projector

By: Jeff Smith, IMAX Theater Director

Hi Everyone! I'm Jeff Smith, the IMAX Theater Director here at McWane Science Center. Today we're going to learn some things about the IMAX Projector, and what makes it special.

First off, most of you have probably heard a thing or two about IMAX recently, but did you know its actually been around since 1967? That's right, 40 plus years ago, a trio of Canadians wanted to make a giant movie screen. Up to this point, the only way to get a gigantic picture on a giant screen was to use several smaller projectors, align them perfectly, and point them at different parts of the screen. You can guess just how bad of an idea this is to try and keep all of the projectors running at the same speed, aligned properly, etc.

Once they decided they wanted a single projector solution they decided to use 70mm film running through the projector horizontally in a "rolling loop" motion that had been patented in Australia a few years earlier. The rolling loop is very kind to the film as it advances each frame into position, and its not uncommon for a single copy of an IMAX film to be shown 3000 times without noticeable wear. This is good, since each copy of an IMAX Film can cost up to $25,000!

Over the years, the mechanics of how the IMAX Projector runs have changed very little. The film runs through the projector the same way, but it has better lenses, and is now controlled by a computer instead of relays and switches. Other than those minor changes, everything is very similar to the very first IMAX system. The first IMAX System premiered at Expo '70 in Osaka, Japan, and my projector here in Birmingham, can still show Tiger Child just as that system did all those years ago.

Stay tuned: Next time we'll learn about the IMAX Sound System, and its ties to Birmingham.

NOW SHOWING: Under The Sea & To The Limit

Contributor Profile:
Jeff is an all around techno-geek. He went to college to become a rocket scientist, but is now an IMAX Theater Director. If it plugs in, or has moving parts, he wants to rip it apart and learn more about it! He doesn't read books, but will read anything online or watch it on TV. His wife was his opposite, but now has all the modern necessities, like a cell phone and MacBook, and doesn't understand how she lived without them.

Back to the Cheese…er…the Moon

By Ben Moon, Space and Technology Director

Earth’s Moon is made of cheese. There is a man in the Moon. We never actually landed on the Moon. My name is Ben Moon.

Only the last statement above is true. However, my last name is not why I am interested in the Moon. The Moon is quite interesting all by itself, and NASA agrees. As a matter of fact, NASA agrees so much that manned missions to the Moon are being planned as we speak. This July they’re actually going to test-launch a nearly full size version of the rocket that will take us there.

But why go back to the Moon? We know there is no life there, it’s not exactly “comfortable” with temperatures ranging from -387°F to +253°F, we’ve already sent over 70 spacecraft and 12 men there, and we’ve even brought back 842 pounds of moon rock to earth. Well, the old saying “It’s what’s inside that counts,” rings just as true for the Moon as it does for people.
The Moon is not just a stepping stone on our way to a manned voyage to the planet Mars;, it might just play an important role in helping solve our energy crisis here on Earth.

Under the Moon’s surface are two very important things: water ice and helium-3. Water ice is important not only because astronauts can drink it (after melting and purification of course), but also because we can split the H20 into oxygen for breathing and hydrogen for rocket fuel. Harvesting this valuable resource from beneath the lunar surface is a great alternative to shipping the water to the Moon which would cost $2,000 - $20,000 per kg. Ridiculexpensive. Can you imagine drinking a $10,000 bottle of water? If we ship water to the Moon, that is about how much it would cost. Using the hydrogen from the water as a fuel source also means you can launch from Earth with less fuel on board the spacecraft, which leaves room for more food, experiments, etc.

While the water on the Moon is very valuable, it’s nothing compared to helium-3. Helium-3 is an isotope of helium, which means the helium-3 atom consists of two protons but only one neutron, in contrast to two neutrons in ordinary helium. It’s very rare on Earth, but the Moon is estimated to have around 1 million tons of it trapped in the outer layer of its soil (it was implanted there by solar winds). Why is it so valuable? Well, helium-3 is not radioactive and can be used in nuclear fusion reactors with almost no radioactive waste. In other words, helium-3 could give us nuclear power with almost no radioactive waste! It’s potent energy too. One space shuttle load (25 tons) of helium-3 could power the United States for one year! The Moon contains 10times more energy in the form of helium-3 than all the fossil fuels on earth. It will last lifetimes.

Commercial-sized helium-3 nuclear fusion reactors are most likely 50 years away, but at a projected value of $40,000 per ounce, investors should see the profit-potential of mining helium-3 for our future energy needs. Startup costs, including rockets, mining and constructing fusion plants, would be about $25 billion. America spends 17 times that much during Christmas.

Contributor Profile:
Ben Moon is the Manager of Space and Technology at McWane. He is a total geek and loves space, shiny things, technology, gadgets, video games, sci-fi and zombies. He is married and is about to have his first kid! His favorite movie is The Rocketeer. He wishes he had telekinesis.

WOW: Giant Pacific Octopus!

By: Loretta Joyce, Head Aquarist

Been to McWane Science Center lately? If you have you probably saw our Giant Pacific Octopus. Maybe she was active, or maybe you just saw her sitting in a ball. The first thing you notice when you walk up to the tank is how dark it is compared to the rest of the exhibits. Why is this? Well she is a nocturnal animal, meaning she sleeps during the day is active at night. Keeping the exhibit dark increases the chance of her being active. And you may notice a large No Flash Photography sign. But the tank is dark, how are you supposed to get a good picture? I assure you we are not trying to be difficult, we are merely trying to keep her healthy and happy. When Octopi feel threatened they will shoot out ink toward their predator and make a quick getaway. This works great in the ocean where there is a lot of water. In captivity there is no way for the octopus to escape the ink, and toxins in it can cause illness or death if not immediately cleaned.

Next you may ask why is there a jar, or even Mr. Potato Head, in the tank. We put her food in these objects so she has to work to get them and does not get bored. She will eat squid, clam, small fish, whole Butterfish, crab still in a shell, and many other types of sea life. She has not eaten any of the sea stars or the two Giant Chitins which share a tank with her.

Octopi are known for their intelligence, but that is just a small portion of what makes them so interesting. They have the largest brain of any invertebrates, but more interestingly it is donut shaped and their stomach passes through the middle of it. Think that is impressive? They have three hearts and blue blood. Two of the hearts pump to their gills, while the other one circulates their blood through their body. You probably already know they have eight arms, but did you know there are about 280 suckers on each arm, giving them a total of 2,240 suckers. So three hearts and all those arms probably has you thinking, "Wow these animals are so different from us." Well their mouth, also called a beak, is made out of the same material as a fingernail.

Octopi in general have very short life spans, only living on average 1-2 years. The Giant Pacific Octopus will live slightly longer with a life span of 3-4 years. The female will lay her eggs, which can be up to 200,000 and care for them until they hatch out at the size of a grain of rice. Of all those eggs only 1-2 will survive to adulthood and the female octopus will die shortly after they hatch.

So did you come to McWane and not see the octopus? She was here, but she has the ability to blend into her environment so she can hide from possible predators. She is able to do this with the help of tiny pigments in her cells called chromatophores. By expanding and contracting these pigments she is able to change color and blend into her environment. So if you didn’t see her come back and try again. We feed her on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday so those are the best times to see her in action. Want to learn more cool facts? Just ask one of the many knowledgeable staff members in blue at McWane Science Center.

Octopus tank photography tip: Turn flash OFF, and take lots of photos until you get the shot you are looking for. Delete any unwanted excess photos.

Contributor Profile:
Loretta and Adele's backgrounds are in the life sciences. They both love their jobs as well as all animals. Adele grew up here in Birmingham and is into yoga and gourmet cooking. Loretta grew up in Florida and is about to have her first child in April.

Building a Smart(er) Café

by Bob Levine, Exhibits Project Manager

You asked, and we have delivered.

In countless surveys, one facet of the McWane Science Center experience always seemed to leave visitors wanting more -- our café. With our dedicated and professional food service staff, the McWane café experience should always be a great one, but we lacked the infrastructure to meet that goal -- until now.

Starting this weekend, the Smart Café will open with a bevy of new and healthier food options. Take an informal blog-tour with me and see what’s new…

Our first stop is Hot Off the Grill. Our old griddle and fry-baskets had reached retirement age and were sent upstate to a convalescent home for restaurant equipment. In their stead we’ve added two new pieces of equipment that will make your food tastier and far healthier than before. An automatic broiler replaces the griddle and will allow fats and oils to drip off of grilled items making your burgers and chicken sandwiches leaner without compromising flavor. The deep-fat fryer has been replaced with a hot-air fryer which uses no grease or oil. Saturated fats (the kind you don’t want) are greatly reduced but the fried items are just as tasty and crispy as they’ve always been.

Our next stop is Subway (you may have heard of them). Subway has a variety of sandwich and salad options to choose from, many of which have less than 6 grams of fat. Whether or not you’re in the mood for a sub, you’ll have no choice but to be drawn into the café by the hypnotic smell of baking bread.

If you want more “international” cuisine, come by Pasta & More. This area allows you to be the chef. You can pick and choose the sauce, meats, and veggies as you create your own Italian pasta or Asian noodle dish. There will also be some Mexican food specials, and there will always be a Mac ‘n’ Cheese dish available for our pickier, younger customers. Whatever your preference, there will be something to satisfy you!

Craving a healthy, filling option but don’t feel like chewing? Stop by Smoothie Fusion. With a variety of fruits and other mix-ins, you can create your own tasty, vitamin-filled smoothie from a score of ingredients. Smoothies make a great addition to a sandwich or salad or can serve as a meal in their own right.

And what would McWane’s café be without our ever-popular Pizza Hut? The pizza and breadsticks will still be as hot and tasty as before, but new whole-grain crusts and lower-fat cheese and pepperoni will make them even better for you.

Beyond these exciting new menu options, there will be a ton of nutritional information available to visitors to help our patrons learn about proper dietary habits and exercise. We’re also developing fun programming for guests that want to learn about healthy cooking and healthy living. But more than anything, we know it’s all about the food…and we think you’ll be very happy with the changes we’re making!

Contributor Profile:
Bob Levine is the Exhibit Project Manager at McWane. He is an avid reader, history and film buff, mediocre guitarist, and die-hard Red Sox, Celtics and Patriots fan. He lives with his beautiful wife (due with their first child in April) and their two rambunctious dogs, Abigail and Quincy.

Educator's Perspective: da Vinci

by Dana Crisson

Tim Ritchie, President of the McWane Science Center, calls me a “da Vinci.” That means I am part of a group of educators who have been specially trained to guide visitors through the new Leonardo da Vinci exhibit, “Machines in Motion." But I look at it another way: I help visitors take a peek into the fascinating mind of the most famous Renaissance man in history.

We have 40 of da Vinci’s machines to play with, from a basic rolling mill used to shape metal to an elaborate hydraulic saw. My favorites? One would have to be da Vinci’s robot, an early predecessor of C3P0 from Star Wars. I love to watch families walk by the robot and jump when the 6-foot-tall metal man suddenly bends forward at the waist, politely bowing as if to say, “Nice to meet you.” Stand in front of the robot a moment longer and he will open his breastplate to give you a peek at his gears. According to da Vinci’s drawings, he designed his armored man to also open and close his jaw, wave his arms and move its head. The McWane robot is powered by motion sensors, but da Vinci most likely planned to power his early robot using water and weights.

I also like his olive press, built to address one of Italy’s most important traditions: making olive oil. He used a large horse-powered lever to turn an axel, gear wheel, and worm screw attached to a cylinder downward, which would eventually squeeze the oil from a bag of olives. Focaccia bread, anyone?

Everyone knows da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa, but very few people know that he also invented the first revolving stage. He is credited with designing the ball bearing, and he used it to build a revolving stage for a theater production at the court of Milan. Today ball bearings are found in everything from skateboards to computer hard drives, but 500 years ago one of their original applications was for entertainment. So the next time you buy theater tickets to see Hairspray or Wicked, remember that you have Leonardo to thank for early advances in set decoration.

He missed the mark with his webbed glove invention, however. After studying the way ducks swam in the water, he made a webbed swim fin made of leather—but he designed it for hands, not feet!

There are dozens of other machines in the exhibit, including an elaborate flying contraption called an ornithopter, outfitted with heavy mechanical wings designed to allow man to fly. That one didn’t work, either, but even when his inventions failed, they helped to lay the groundwork for many other discoveries to come.

Even a genius can have a bad day.

Contributor Profile:
A Birmingham native, Dana Crisson remembers visiting the McWane building in its original incarnation as the former Loveman’s Department Store. She has a BA in English/Journalism from UAB and has worked as freelance writer for The Birmingham News & Over the Mountain Journal for over 15 years. She is also a former Discovery Guild member and has clocked many volunteer hours at the science center before joining the McWane staff in the Education Department. She is an avid reader, a cat lover, a concert junkie, and a part-time backup singer in a local cover band. She and her husband, Dwight, a CPA, have two daughters, Rachel, 20, and Christina, 17.

Giant Snake Myths and Other Tall Tails

By James Lamb, Paleontologist

As a paleontologist who works in the Southeastern United States, I have spent a great deal of time in the outdoors, and heard some truly amazing and amusing tales regarding snakes. I once had a park attendant try to convince me to sleep on top of a cement picnic table in a campground in central Alabama so the snakes couldn't "get me." Failing that, if I insisted in sleeping on the ground, he asked if I would please coil a rope in a big circle around me because snakes will not crawl over a rope. Of course, he was also concerned that if the snakes didn't eat me, the armadillos would come bite me in the middle of the night (having, what? not been able to find enough ants to eat?). I didn't loose too much sleep worrying about either the snakes or the armadillos. Other examples of snake myths include tales of the "Death Adder" that has a sting in its tail. This snake is sometimes confused with the Hoop Snake, an animal that can outrun a human by putting its own tail in its mouth and rolling like a wheel. Some variations include that Hoop Snakes once they catch you uncoil and sting you with their stinger, but informed people know these are really two completely different snakes. Then there are Milk Snakes, so called because they milk cows, the Mug-whomp Snake with its ring of fur encircling the neck, and the real life Hognose Snake (which eats toads and is completely non-venomous) that poison people with their breath. I've also been told with great veracity that the brownish foam you see sometimes floating down a stream after a rain (the result of organic compounds leached out of forest leaf litter by the rain) is "snake spit." That's a lot of spit. I don't think I want to know what they're doing to produce that much spit. Eew.

And then of course there are the impossibly large snakes always seen by the friend of a cousin's neighbor's uncle. So the other day when I heard the one about the snake that was longer than a school bus and ate crocodiles, I was understandably skeptical. Except that it's true. No, really.

Scientists have recently reported that bones of a fossil snake found in South America scale to an animal in the 42-45 foot range. Aptly named Titanoboa this animal is not just the largest snake ever discovered, it is the longest land/freshwater animal known since the extinctions 65 million years ago that took out the dinosaurs (the K/T boundary extinctions). Although, as the name suggests, it is most closely related to the modern Boa, as in Boa constrictor, due to the type of deposits it was found in it is thought to be a closer analog to the Anaconda (Eunectes). So, it appears to have lived near/in freshwater, and ate,... crocodiles? I use the term "crocodiles" here in the vernacular sense to include members of the Crocodyliformes - crocodiles, alligators, caimans, etc.

No! What? Well, I suppose a 45-foot long, 1.2 ton snake can eat whatever it wants, but before we explore that possibility let's take a step back for a moment to put this in perspective.
Sixty-five million years ago, the course of life on Earth was irrevocably side-swiped by the hammer blow of a 6 mile diameter asteroid slamming into the planet at something like 55,000 miles/hour (more or less, depending on what set of calculations are used). The energy released by this event was perhaps 1,000 times more than every nuclear weapon on Earth going off simultaneously. The resulting extinctions not only left no terrestrial animal weighing more than 50 pounds, but also hit the top of the food chain - the top predators and top herbivores - hardest. With dinosaurs gone, the newly vacant niches were filled by the survivors, and what specific type of animal ended up in those roles depended on what was available on each continent. Mammals at the time were generally small and not yet specialized into the modern groups we know today, so it took awhile for any of them to evolve into the large top predators niche.

In Europe and North America the large top predator that won out early was a bird, the 7 foot tall Diatryma (Gastornis). North and South America became isolated from one another shortly after the K/T extinctions, before the development of the placental mammal groups that gave rise to the predators we know today, such as wolves, lions, and bears. These groups developed in North America and Asia, but not until much later, when the marsupial or pouched animals like opossums branched into the role did South America get predatory mammals (yes, predatory opossums - a topic perhaps for a different blog). In South America, it appears, a giant snake became the top predator, at least in freshwater environments. With mosasaurs, the T. rexes of the oceans, gone marine snakes evolved to lengths of at least 2o feet and existed in south Alabama alongside early whales, such as Basilosaurus, the State Fossil.

Back to diet. A 45-foot, 1.2 ton snake requires a commensurate sized prey. Verifiable, documented accounts of modern Python and Anaconda indicate that their maximum size is 29.7 and 23 feet respectively. These are maximum-recorded sizes, but in the real world one almost never sees examples that large. Surveys involving a thousand or more snakes in the wild fail to turn up snakes longer than 20 feet, and yet modern Anaconda can still eat animals as large as tapirs. So did Titanoboa eat giant tapirs? Well no, since there weren't any yet. The authors of the Titanoboa paper conclude they ate crocodiles. This sounds crazy, but extant anaconda and python do occasionally eat crocodilians, and crocs also eat them. If you Google search this topic you'll find multiple videos of big snakes eating crocodiles but almost nothing for the reverse, although the only serious study I could locate documented only instances of crocodiles eating snakes. I imagine videos of big snakes eating a caiman are more interesting to most people than the reverse.

South American crocodilians of the time belong to the sebecosuchids, vertically deep skulled, long-legged animals with serrate blade-shaped teeth more like the predatory dinosaurs they partly replaced than those of extant crocs. Sebecosuchids in general may have been more terrestrial and less aquatic in their habitat preference than modern crocodilians, which might explain how they divided up the top predator niche with Titanoboa. It seems difficult to believe that Titanoboa ate only or maybe even preferentially crocs, because there are always fewer predators than herbivores, so finding a meal of top predator becomes more difficult. There are also some large lungfish known from the deposits where Titanoboa was found, and recently hints that there might also be some large herbivorous mammals as well. During the time period when Titanoboa is known to have lived, some large (1400 lbs) mammals had evolved in North America, and recently members of this group have been found in South America. Because of the spottiness of the fossil record we may just have not found any large South American mammals yet. So it may be that the discovery of a truly giant snake means that future fieldwork will turn up a previously unknown history of large mammals that formed part of their prey base. We may find that mammals got large earlier than we thought. We may also find more material of Titanoboa. Details of the skull would help solve the riddle of what it ate and inform about the animal's lifestyle.

And we might also find it had a ring of fur around its neck and a stinger on its tail.

NOTE: For everyone with giant snake stories, please see below. The Wildlife Conservation Society has, since the early 20th century, offered a cash reward (currently worth US$50,000) for live delivery of any snake of 30 feet (9.1 m) or more in length. This prize has never been claimed.

Contributor Profile:
James Lamb is a native Birminghamster with a nearly life-long interest in fossils. He collected his first fossil when he was 5 years old. Friends and family members assure him he has not matured much since then. James is curator of paleontology at McWane Science Center, and would like to one day see the absolute treasure trove of Alabama's fossil heritage revealed to the public. When not at work he wishes he were in the field digging up fossils. At home he enjoys reading, jogging, woodworking, and carving. He has been informed that he is in the habit of telling atrocious puns, but this comes as a surprise to him. James describes himself as a "science nerd".