Scientists have found, in the Arctic, the 375-million-year-old fossil of the missing link between ocean-dwelling fishes and terrestrial creatures. The creature, Tiktaalik, has a specialized bone configuration in its front fins that signals the development of a wrist joint. Mostly, scientists are happy because the existence of this animal had been predicted, and they had been searching for it in specific regions known to have fossils from the correct time period. Also conforming to prediction: a cottage industry of freaky Tiktaalik-inspired art. Seems every time there's a noteworthy scientific discovery, someone makes a t-shirt (Remember "Ask me about the avian flu?") or paints a weird picture, or writes a song. Kinda sweet to see so much creativity out there, but I'm not about to start singing the "Devonian Blues." —Martha Harbison

A few months AGO, when researchers analyzed the genome of the devastating 1918 influenza, they found it to be a direct descendant of a common bird-flu strain, with just a few disparate amino acids here and there. The finding cast a chilling new light on the most lethal modern bird flu, known as H5N1, which has already killed at least 70 people in Asia but isn't transmissible between humans-yet.