What’s That? (#107)

20 responses to “What’s That? (#107)”

1. 

   gsikich1

   Jul 10, 2013 at 6:22 pm

   Core 10 Steel Sphere?

   Reply
2. 

   origamidon

   Jul 10, 2013 at 8:39 pm

   • translucent, blown-glass light fixture? new moon of ex-planet Pluto?

   Reply
3. 

   The Rocketeer

   Jul 10, 2013 at 9:18 pm

   Is it agatized Indonesian fossilized coral? Oh wait… that was for What’s that #22… never mind…

   Reply
4. 

   Mycophagia

   Jul 10, 2013 at 9:51 pm

   blown glass?

   Reply
5. 

   jurvetson

   Jul 11, 2013 at 1:37 am

   looks like a bloody ball, yes?

   Reply
6. 

   js.brain

   Jul 11, 2013 at 1:44 am

   Yes Sir, bloody ball with fire

   Reply
7. 

   scleroplex

   Jul 11, 2013 at 1:55 am

   art glass paperweight

   Reply
8. 

   TomiTapio

   Jul 11, 2013 at 2:15 am

   Maybe its surface has melted a little from atmospheric re-entry.

   Reply
9. 

   Jef Poskanzer

   Jul 11, 2013 at 3:14 am

   A melon?

   Reply
10. 

    TJF1

    Jul 11, 2013 at 4:45 am

    X-ray of the Sun?

    (Maybe with coloring added…?)

    Reply
11. 

    In Memoriam: jerryfi_99

    Jul 11, 2013 at 5:43 am

    A ball point for a pen?

    Reply
12. 

    pegleg000

    Jul 11, 2013 at 6:05 am

    Hmmm… looks like some initials embedded…. could it be DFJ??? Imagination???

    Reply
13. 

    seatonsnet

    Jul 11, 2013 at 6:26 am

    Something you passed into a collecting jar this morning?

    Reply
14. 

    dendowling

    Jul 11, 2013 at 1:50 pm

    Dinosaur(?) Gembone. The background is photoshopped. Is it actually spherical?

    Reply
15. 

    jurvetson

    Jul 11, 2013 at 6:03 pm

    Bingo dendowling, a new winner! You are exactly right. How did you know (have you seen something like it before?)

    It is quite large. 4" across, and was polished in 1940.

    You can see the trabecular structure of the porous bone and marrow, mineralized over eons, with a peculiar affinity for uranium.

    Some Jurassic Park aspirants have tried to isolate DNA from Dino bones, but the structure is mostly lost.

    Details on this globe: Jurassic, Morrison Formation, Utah. Formerly part of the Zerk Lapidary Collection.

    Reply
16. 

    dendowling

    Jul 11, 2013 at 8:47 pm

    Thanks! Hadn’t seen this before. Just thought it had cool colors and pattern and searched google images. Looked at red stones first – Carnelian, Citrine, Jasper, Jade. But, their marble patterns were either too smooth or too irregular. I also thought the pattern looked like biological tissue – muscle, brain, liver. Then, spongy bone patterns started to look more like your pic. This object looks hard and shiny so, searched petrified bone and found gembones and agatized bone.

    BTW, Flickr has a lot of good pics of dinosaur gembones. [http://www.flickr.com/groups/gembone_lovers/pool/]

    Reply
17. 

    jurvetson

    Jul 12, 2013 at 1:37 am

    visual search at its best. Thanks!

    Reply
18. 

    scleroplex

    Jul 12, 2013 at 2:44 am

    super!!!! 🙂

    Reply
19. 

    sbove

    Jul 21, 2013 at 9:36 pm

    more gembone: http://www.google.com/search?q=dinosaur+gembone&client=safar...

    Reply
20. 

    jurvetson

    Jan 10, 2014 at 6:10 pm

    Just saw this gorgeous 32x microscopy zoom of dino bone in the January 2014 SciAm:

    

    "The red bubbles Douglas Moore documented in the process may look like blood, but they are in fact iron oxides mixed with a crystalline form of silica known as agate—the same stuff that often makes geodes and petrified wood so colorful. Through a chemical process that has mystified geologists for centuries, silica reacted with bone to “agatize” the entire specimen."

    Reply