Free Medusa's Gaze and Vampire's Bite: The Science of Monsters by Matt Kaplan

introduction of human stem cells into animals that lead to the creation of “chimeric” embryos.
    Chimera, still very much alive, still generating fear, and most certainly coming soon to a cinema near you (probably in the form of a vengeful monkey with a human brain).
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    16  And in some regions by snakes too!
    17  The result of triplets that end up connected to one another in the womb.
    18  Honestly, instead of featuring as a monster in Greek mythology, it would have made more sense for such a creature to have played the lead role in one of Sophocles’ or Euripides’ tragedies.
    19  Predator/prey interaction fossils are very occasionally discovered, and they are fascinating. A fossil of a Protoceratops struggling for its life against an attacking Velociraptor was found in Mongolia. The predator has its claws wrapped around the prey and the prey was clearly doing everything it could to throw off its assailant, but the battle ended with both dinosaurs dead, as either a sudden sandstorm quickly buried them or a sand dune collapsed on them as they struggled. It is one of the most impressive fossils ever discovered, mostly because such interactions are exceedingly uncommon in the fossil record. (FYI—You can buy a re-creation of this for $9,500 (plus shipping!). www.bhigr.com/store/product.php?productid=464 .)
    20  The University of California, Berkeley, has a very large collection of these sorts of fossils excavated from tar pits in Southern California but is unable to store them with the rest of their fossils in the university’s paleontology museum because of the stench and the dangerous nature of the petroleum fumes. The university now keeps them in the bell tower at the center of the campus where they can “de-gas” in peace.
    21  According to Hesiod’s Theogony, the Sphinx, Chimera, and Cerberus were siblings. One has to wonder if their sibling status was invented to explain them all being found in a similar location or in a similar fossilized state.
    22  Heroes don’t usually say things like “Each time I dip a living creature in the bath of burning pain, I say, ‘This time I will burn out all the animal; this time I will make a rational creature of my own!’”
    23  Remember, humans and chimpanzees are actually more closely related to one another than mice and rats.
    24  And fiery protests that will make all the battles fought over stem-cell research look like a picnic in the park.
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    It Came from the Earth—Minotaur, Medusa
    “Snakes. Why’d it have to be snakes?”
    —Indiana Jones, Raiders of the Lost Ark
    While walking along the sun-baked hills of the Greek islands and staring out over the sparkling blue water, it is hard to think of anything other than paradise. There are no dark forests, no tar pits, and no fierce beasts, just the gentle sea breeze. It is hardly the sort of place where one would expect to find a monster, yet on the island of Crete, one of the earliest and fiercest of monsters came into existence, and not on the surface of the island but in the subterranean world below it.
    Half bull and half man, the Minotaur lived deep in an underground labyrinth and captivated the ancient Greeks who frequently portrayed it in their art. Some drew it with the head of a man and the body of a bull, making it look kind of like a Centaur. Others presented it as a man with a bull’s head. Many artistic depictions of the beast show it attacking and eating people.
    The myth, as described by Apollodorus, tells of a man named Minos on the island of Crete who sought to become king: “Minos aspired to the throne, but was rebuffed. He claimed, however, that he had received the sovereignty from the gods and to prove it he said that whatever he prayed for would come about. So while sacrificing to Poseidon, he prayed for a bull 25 to appear from the depths of the sea, and promised to sacrifice it upon its appearance. And Poseidon did send up to him a splendid [white] bull.”
    Yet Minos proved