Here's an interactive timeline that has it all: animated critters go strolling across the screen, there is a graph of oxygen concentration, and you can watch the continents slip and slide around the globe as you drag an arrow around the timeline. You'll want a big monitor to display this on—it gets cluttered at times.
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I don't often point people to online game-like interactive thingies, but this one has my endorsement. Give yourself a few minutes to watch the process. It can be gruesome:
Personas is a component of the Metropath(ologies) exhibit, recently on display at the MIT Museum by the Sociable Media Group…
In light of our recent snail eradication project:
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To answer this question, let us consider the snail as seen by the chemist:
The snail is an animal whose sliding-along-…
Rumor has it that Apple is developing what is probably the worst idea ever. Now, I quickly add that when Apple yanked 3.5 inch floppies1 from all of their computer designs, I thought that was the worst idea ever, and it turned out to be the best idea ever. But this one, I don't know ... a mouse…
Take a look at this movie (you'll need a video player like QuickTime or Windows Media Player installed in your browser to see it). You'll see four different outdoor scenes flash by, one at a time. The scene itself will only be displayed for a fraction of a second, followed immediately by a…
I've always wanted one of these.
Ooooh! This is so nicely done!
Someone hasn't heard of logrithmic scales... (yeah, I'm a cynic - but it's Monday)
Very nice. However, I notice that it uses labels such as "Age of Mammals." I'd thought that such labels had fallen out of fashion these days as being overly simplistic and potentially (or actually) misleading.
It doesn't work for me. Annoying. I will see if I can get it to work when I'm at work tomorrow.
Nice idea, but the microscopic text is unreadable.
Like I said -- you need a BIG monitor for it to look good.
The link given produces only a black page with a small gray bar and no options for clicking, scrolling, etc, using any of three browsers (Firefox, Opera, Safari) on my Mac. :-P
I got the same thing Pierce did. I got a little bit of activity by right-clicking and repeatedly pressing "Forward," but then I only got the animated critters and the map, without the text, arrow, or oxygen concentrations.
Only one quibble: it claims the "first fossils" appear at the beginning of the Cambrian. What are we supposed to call the pre-Cambrian impressions in rock left by soft-bodied organisms? There are filaments of blue-green algae preserved in rock from 3.5 billion years ago.
Safari is cool here (latest OSX on PB17").
If you like this you will love John Kyrk's other bio-animations.
http://www.johnkyrk.com/
I've heard from others that have had trouble with this particular flash video that updating to the latest version manually at Macromedia's site may help.
That being said, it didn't help me. I still just see the same black screen that Pierce describes (Ubuntu/Firefox)
I've heard from others that have had trouble with this particular flash video that updating to the latest version manually at Macromedia's site may help.
That being said, it didn't help me. I still just see the same black screen that Pierce describes (Ubuntu/Firefox)
Your problem may be that the latest version of Flash (8) is later than the latest version of Flash for Linux (7) - and in general Flash 7 will open Flash 8 files but may not render them correctly. I don't know that this site is such an offender, but I wouldn't be surprised.
There's a little red arrow slider on the left side of the screen. You can drag it with the mouse. It's easy to miss if you don't have a BIG monitor; that's probably the trouble most of you are having.
It claims mitochondria developed from chloroplasts. Ugh.
It also goes by the false prokaryote/eukaryote division, rather than deal with the early origins of the three domains.
I think the atmospheric oxygen concentration graph may be out of date as well. A couple of months ago I read in Science News that said that it had been as high as 30 something percent during the Permian? (I think) anyway when there were big-ass dragonflies.
Wow. It educates and gives children ADD at the same time.
I downloaded an activex and it works. Beautiful work. Great job.