Introduction

Welcome to Bioparanoria, the blogsite of Aiden Kinerk. Here I post articles on a myriad of topics, from zoology and history to politics and the arts. I'm a man who's intensely interested in every that is, and this site allows me an outlet to use my passion for writing to explore countless fascinating subjects. So long as it catches my special interest and I deem it worthy of a post, it will eventually become one.

As for the curious title of this blog, it references a term developed by the obscure paleoartist John McLoughlin, evolutionary bioparanornia. It's defined as "an acute, often immobilizing sense of dread generated by fatigue in persons interested in both the current state of world affairs and the evolutionary history of life on Earth." It's not a psychiatric disorder, so much as a state of mind (one that's quite familiar to me) that the world-weary often have, and it ties into some of the issues that will be addressed over the course of this blog's lifetime.

Enjoy yourself here, and I hope you can learn of many things arcane and peculiar that make this tiny section of the universe so unique.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Champ and Sandra: The Story of the 1977 Mansi Photo

Image
 Note that some of this text is adapted from an earlier writing of mine, published elsewhere on the internet. The 70s and 80s were a golden age of cryptozoology, something that is unlikely to be ever replicated again. The notion that these animals of folklore could still be existing in some remote tropical forest or mountain range was actually getting a fair amount of press, not just from the mainstream media but from a few academics as well. The superstars of the art of researching “hidden animals”, Tim Dinsdale, John Green, Bernard Heuvelmans, Grover Krantz, Roy Mackal, and John R. Napier were all active, bitten by that wonderful and childlike belief that monsters do exist not just in our imaginations. “Yes Virginia, there is a Loch Ness Monster and we’ll find him any day now!” Those hopeful days are long gone. The cryptids were all no-shows, so society had no choice other than to stop daydreaming and face the unfantastic reality of it all. But it’s certainly worth it to look back at
Read more

The Moronic Class Politics Of So-Called "Populist" J.D. Vance

Image
As you might've heard, author J.D. Vance is running for Ohio's 2022 Senate seat as a Republican. He has not been doing hot lately, coming in fourth place in primary polling. This is in spite of such glowing endorsements from the likes of Peter "Actually A Vampire" Thiel, Tucker "The Metric System Is Communist" Carlson, and Josh "Storm The Capitol" Hawley. Vance is the kind of man the populist wing of the GOP backs, hoping to attract the working class with his substanceless culture war rhetoric. Little does he know that placing lipstick on an anti-working pig doesn't make it any more attractive, except to voters who still live in houses coated with lead paint. Hillbilly Elegy, the bestselling book that got everybody gawking at Vance for a few months, and lead to a forgettable film directed by Ron Howard, is a befuddling text in how its author suggests we take on class in America. Few issues bring such strong, passionate emotions to the surface a
Read more

An Ornithological Enigma: The Arthur's Pass Moa Photograph

Image
 The archipelagos of Oceania have been an epicenter of the sixth mass extinction, with many unique species unequipped to handle the arrival of mankind. Flightless birds in particular were vulnerable to invasive species, deforestation, and human overhunting. Few of these ecological losses have been more tragic than that of the many moas that once thrived on Aotearoa. There were at least nine species of these large ratites, the largest of which stood at over eleven feet high at its tallest. The moas were long gone by the time of European contact, having been slaughtered by the Māori. Because of their recent demise, along with the unique climate of New Zealand, Moa fossils are rather abundant helping ornithologists best understand these forest behemoths. Some remains have been naturally mummified by dry cold conditions, allowing great detail including skin and flesh to be excellently preserved, such as this eerie head. As with many other recently extinct species, sightings did not t
Read more