Tuesday 23 June 2015

our need for monsters




Our deep need for monsters that lurk in the dark
Sea monsters are the stuff of legend - lurking not just in the depths of the oceans, but also the darker corners of our minds. What is it that draws us to these creatures, asks Mary Colwell. "Sometimes human places create inhuman monsters," wrote Stephen King in his novel The Shining. Many academics agree. "They don't really exist, but they play a huge role in our mindscapes, in our dreams, stories, nightmares, myths and so on," says Matthias Classen, assistant professor of literature and media at Aarhus University in Denmark, who studies monsters in literature. "Monsters say something about human psychology, not the world." They lurk in the deepest recesses, they prowl through our ancestral minds appearing in the half-light, under the bed - or at the bottom of the sea. One Norse legend talks of the Kraken, a deep sea creature that was the curse of fishermen. If sailors found a place with many fish, most likely it was the monster that was driving them to the surface. If it saw the ship it would pluck the hapless sailors from the boat and drag them to a watery grave
Read rest see pics here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-33226376

 Do we have a need for monsters? I think we all like to be scared and are intrigued and excited by the thought of them.Certainly makes life more interesting .


Friday 12 June 2015

new book

I have a new book on kindle: The Weird  Helmet. Is there a Scottish bigfoot  roaming the Galloway Hills and leaving body parts for walkers to find? Is there really a plant that can eat humans? Another adventure for Laura Loomis and friends and the Knights of the Talisman.

 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Weird-Helmet-weird-Book-ebook/dp/B00ZIIIGU0/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1434141964&sr=8-4&keywords=tabitca+cope

Friday 5 June 2015

new giant marine fossil finds



Scientists Discover 7-Foot ‘Lobster’ Fossils
New Haven, Conn. (CBS CONNECTICUT) — Paleontologists discovered human-sized “lobsters” that lived on earth 480 million years ago, with the 7-foot sea monsters being some of the largest animals alive during that time period.
The newly-discovered marine monster, named Aegirocassis benmoulae, was discovered by Moroccan fossil hunter Mohamed Ben Moula, Sci-News reports. The finding reveals animals that were unique to any other arthropods at the time.“This would have been one of the largest animals alive at the time,” said Dr. Allison Daley of Oxford University, co-author of the paper published in the journal Nature. “These animals are filling an ecological role that hadn’t previously been filled by any other animal.”
This comes as researchers discovered giant shark fossils the size of two-story buildings just outside Fort Worth, Texas. The massive predators prowled shallow sea water 100 million years ago, according to study co-author Joseph Frederickson of the University of Oklahoma.
The ancient sea monster, Leptostyrax macrorhiza, may push back scientists’ estimations of when such gigantic sharks evolved, LiveScience reports.