A new article from Nature describes the discovery of a 100-million-year-old fossilized reptile egg with a soft, leathery shell that's nearly a foot long. It's the second-largest egg fossil ever discovered (after the egg of the elephant bird, which had a hard shell about five times thicker), and also the first such discovery made on the continent of Antarctica.

As National Geographic summarizes:

The 68-million-year-old egg, called Antarcticoolithus bradyi, is the first fossil egg ever found in Antarctica, only outsized by the eggs of Madagascar’s extinct elephant bird. Antarcticoolithus is also one of the few fossil eggs ever found in marine sediment. “For the first egg remnant from Antarctica to be a nearly complete egg that has finely preserved microstructure is kind of insane,” says Julia Clarke of UT Austin.

[…]

Under a microscope, Antarcticoolithus not only lacked the internal structure of hard eggshells, but also the pores of hard-shelled eggs, suggesting the large egg was soft.

At the time the egg was laid, large marine reptiles called mosasaurs lived in the Antarctic waters where the fossil egg was entombed. The bones of a mosasaur were found less than 700 feet from the site, suggesting the egg may have belonged to these 20-foot-long swimming reptiles.

Here's the real kicker though: the scientists didn't find any bones inside of the egg. And while they think it would have belonged to a mosasaur, or some other 20-plus-foot-long swimming reptiles, that wouldn't gel with their current knowledge of those leviathans. From Nature(emphasis added):

The identity of the animal that laid the egg is unknown, but these preserved morphologies are consistent with the skeletal remains of mosasaurs (large marine lepidosaurs) found nearby.

A South Korean street food treat.

I could watch this 'making of' video on loop forever. Read the rest

Although properly breaking open eggs isn't as hard as they show in the video, people with certain disabilities might find value in The Q's "DIY Simple Egg Opener" (or this one which is already on the market).

This amazing kitchen gadget allows you to open any chicken egg in seconds! No more eggshell in your dish! All you need are plywood, popsicle sticks, 3 springs and small piece of sponge! Don't wait, build your own egg opener and make your morning easier :)

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Since 1946, the Clown Egg Register has collected blown eggshells that clowns hand-paint with their distinctive makeup, in order to claim that particular makeup as belonging to them; by custom, clowns do not copy each others' faces. Read the rest

From The Brick Wall:

"My father cooks breakfast every Saturday and Sunday- it is 104 times a year! He deserved this present."

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This delightfully impractical gadget looks complicated, but can a price be put on the value of serving eggs with star-shaped yolks? Read the rest

The gold standard of egg machine videos is back with some lovely footage of some new devices: Polish egg processor OVO-TECH demonstrates the Egg Splitter Rz3. Read the rest

Since Gordon Ramsay got 25 million views showing how to scramble eggs, there's been a sharp uptick in inane cooking videos. Enter The Onion with the perfect response. Read the rest

There is something irresistibly gross about Lucky Peach food photography. The bizarre lightening and color correction, the styling that fluctuates between offbeat and grotesque. It’s so weird, it’s amazing. Aside from it’s unique visual appeal, Lucky Peach is consistently packed with culinary expertise and damn good journalism. Though the magazine will soon be gone, the brand’s fourth (and presumably final) book, All About Eggs, embodies everything that was great about the publication compiled in a kelly green hard cover.

All About Eggs really is all about eggs. It examines the egg from every angle. There are essays on the evolution of the egg tart in Asia, an egg-fueled murder in a San Francisco diner, and the egg throughout time. There are guides on deciphering egg carton labels, egg varieties, and egg substitutes. The bright yellow yolk at the center of the book houses strangely photographed finished recipes ranging from deep fried Filipino Kwek Kwek to classic, crisp French Meringues. The egg white pages on either side of the recipe section are generously peppered with egg photo illustration—egg art objects, repurposed egg shells and cartons, egg ephemera, and many, many altered photos of eggs (anthropomorphized, animalized, and otherwise reimagined). If you are at all interested in eggs, you need this book!

All About Eggs: Everything We Know About the World's Most Important Food by Rachel Khong, the editors of Lucky Peach Clarkson Potter 2017, 256 pages, 6.8 x 1 x 8.8 inches, Hardcover $16 Buy on Amazon

See sample pages from this book at Wink. Read the rest

These three different egg-breaking and separating machines have slightly different tasks, but they are all equally hypnotic. Read the rest

Dan Cretu created this pretty fancy Homer Simpson fried egg portrait. The broken-yolk-as-smile is a nice touch. Read the rest

No kitchen is complete without a snot nosed egg separator. It's $(removed) on Amazon.

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To visualize the beating heart and vasculature of a chick embryo (72 hours old), ink is injected into its yolk sac artery with a finely drawn glass capillary needle. A window is cut into an egg to expose the embryo and then placed under a stereo microscope (Zeiss Stemi 2000-C; 10x magnification). Video by By Anna Franz, Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, Oxford and MBL, Woods Hole.

The Ovo-Tech Rz-1 breaks eggs like nobody's business. Read the rest

Did you know you can enjoy raw eggs relatively fearlessly in the UK? As an American often found hiding out in England, I was surprised to learn that they don't have egg nog here. Read the rest

"Lower your eggs straight from the fridge into already-boiling water, or place them in a steamer insert in a covered pot steaming at full blast on the stovetop." Read the rest

The answer: Because of a harmless-to-humans viral infection.

The bluish egg above was laid by an araucana, a breed of chicken native to Chile and one of two breeds well known for occasionally popping out a blue egg. Turns out, it's the result of the chicken being infected with a retrovirus — a virus that can insert its own genetic information into the host's DNA. In this case, the virus just happens to turn eggs blue.

Image: Lavender Araucana, a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (2.0) image from julianjb's photostream

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