tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22717380873754809452024-03-05T06:53:04.119-08:00TinysaursTiny skeletons you assemblePOTUS31.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15744424476647208194noreply@blogger.comBlogger269125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2271738087375480945.post-70569300129066969372017-06-26T10:41:00.000-07:002017-06-26T11:17:07.012-07:00Other Peoples' Kits & Instructions<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="https://induku.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/20170528_124740.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="240" src="https://induku.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/20170528_124740.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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From time to time, I build kits from other makers and share my feedback. It's a great experience, and every maker's kits are elevated by the experience of trading information about how they assemble.<br />
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We all approach instructions differently, and solve some of the making problems with differing talents. Instructions are often difficult to make and difficult to follow, so any advancement in this realm is a benefit to everyone. For instance, I include tiny instructions with Tinysaurs, naturally, so I put <a href="https://everythingtiny.com/pages/stegosaurus-3d-instructions">3D instructions</a> online in an effort to clarify some questions I was receiving about assembly.<br />
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Ronald Nelson of <a href="http://www.indukudesign.com/">Induku Design</a> makes amazing wood items. I got his <a href="https://www.etsy.com/listing/520272950/strandbeest-wooden-model-kit-free-global">Strandbeest</a> and his <a href="https://www.etsy.com/listing/254007605/schrodingers-cat-in-a-box-hand-cut-with">Schrödinger's cat in a box</a>. (My wife has asked me to put a spot of glue on the cat so that we can preserve the uncertainty.) His version of the Strandbeest is amazing and elegant. He has a <a href="https://indukudesign.com/2017/06/02/induku-wooden-models-strandbeest/">great write-up</a> of his development process and the original giant creation by Theo Jansen <a href="https://indukudesign.com/2017/06/02/induku-wooden-models-strandbeest/">here</a>.<br />
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The arrangement of gears creates a massive amount of torque from wind or finger power to overcome the imperfections of my assembly. I've attempted to make many all-wood mechanical laser cut things over the years, but have been unsuccessful without smooth machined parts. Ronald's <a href="https://www.etsy.com/listing/520272950/strandbeest-wooden-model-kit-free-global">Strandbeest</a> kit has inspired me to keep trying.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcZjtZbl7zppsYu8X5pNvJkB6wXcT040M-sjEdwSymb-pqFoa50RE7eEPaK-lidLZAvF7lzDMngJXa289aX7SbsXKHpHdtz-f_vx4_ullhbimiLnqRmUGoR7IoVyF9GPaJbSTrz9J7Ndk/s1600/package_LR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="720" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcZjtZbl7zppsYu8X5pNvJkB6wXcT040M-sjEdwSymb-pqFoa50RE7eEPaK-lidLZAvF7lzDMngJXa289aX7SbsXKHpHdtz-f_vx4_ullhbimiLnqRmUGoR7IoVyF9GPaJbSTrz9J7Ndk/s320/package_LR.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Nice packaging. Feels like opening a gift.<br />
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Cut sheets, dowels, and a well-written instruction booklet that's easy to follow.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb6HZDS2uBg9WGKY1ka6qUw2RSKLoSPejY2SV68jH5JXqwJ_eXX38VBTb2Sq2zK4FZhbtEHxYJaGaBzqeRBmMVAIqq0EYKFFj3_S9tjQnNp1Cd9Wz_9EmZVGe3-5VeI2N2kSBy7PW-b7E/s1600/separating+from+sheet_LR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="720" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb6HZDS2uBg9WGKY1ka6qUw2RSKLoSPejY2SV68jH5JXqwJ_eXX38VBTb2Sq2zK4FZhbtEHxYJaGaBzqeRBmMVAIqq0EYKFFj3_S9tjQnNp1Cd9Wz_9EmZVGe3-5VeI2N2kSBy7PW-b7E/s320/separating+from+sheet_LR.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Separating pieces and sanding the sprues.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihMuOtfVS407mn1TImfwvUaDqzHAizzJkbV_5Ph8QsygMZIkRuVVqw_qSdtzmdNH6TIN7QQcSTYChC0IFUQIym9W5OMx7XKmL_GvtOZu3tePwKnFCryy972272s2mwzLoDocmgWsbXSnQ/s1600/tiny+parts_LR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="720" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihMuOtfVS407mn1TImfwvUaDqzHAizzJkbV_5Ph8QsygMZIkRuVVqw_qSdtzmdNH6TIN7QQcSTYChC0IFUQIym9W5OMx7XKmL_GvtOZu3tePwKnFCryy972272s2mwzLoDocmgWsbXSnQ/s320/tiny+parts_LR.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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I put all the small parts into a tray. A pill diary or some small bowls would work too.</div>
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Ready to assemble!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcbStjkUvQY_CvSaGk_VTbjVJNMYEL-hlMZS0L8FevVusz5XnTgFpPvcPw0NYAVVbNH5N8XnBZoQ9Mr7FtJQOn0-u5mhrKNRqc02MUZucCCRdbFJ80Hbibk7_LgAyx8Ti0B2XosXwgdHc/s1600/assembled+gear+train_LR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="720" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcbStjkUvQY_CvSaGk_VTbjVJNMYEL-hlMZS0L8FevVusz5XnTgFpPvcPw0NYAVVbNH5N8XnBZoQ9Mr7FtJQOn0-u5mhrKNRqc02MUZucCCRdbFJ80Hbibk7_LgAyx8Ti0B2XosXwgdHc/s320/assembled+gear+train_LR.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Gear train complete. It's really cool to work the axels at this point.<br />
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Assembling the critter's legs.<br />
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Lots of spare parts in case you drop one under somewhere or break one.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgez7wemXjvzWsZfpeLED77PbTLK9b1hjAMMdwdAtpOZ8oojO_UpgR1GcvZmPaRIZnQiInYvgDWAYLMy38KzBPaUjJahGwe9jRz1VuzBAqeZNpFAQIVsS1zm2RmjBFhpRNvdJFNzcstG_k/s1600/Hair+power_LR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="720" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgez7wemXjvzWsZfpeLED77PbTLK9b1hjAMMdwdAtpOZ8oojO_UpgR1GcvZmPaRIZnQiInYvgDWAYLMy38KzBPaUjJahGwe9jRz1VuzBAqeZNpFAQIVsS1zm2RmjBFhpRNvdJFNzcstG_k/s320/Hair+power_LR.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
(H)air power! Strandbeest likes hair driers.POTUS31.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15744424476647208194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2271738087375480945.post-56275584684802501022015-07-24T19:01:00.004-07:002015-07-24T19:02:09.905-07:00More than double in 24 hours. Thanks!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1356792532/tiny-monsters-tiny-skeletons-you-assemble"><img alt="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1356792532/tiny-monsters-tiny-skeletons-you-assemble" border="0" height="320" src="https://ksr-ugc.imgix.net/assets/004/195/525/b6c4f0a7185d772d3cd71f102ca1c3ba_original.jpg?v=1437620426&w=680&fit=max&auto=format&q=92&s=aff50b2bde6b9f5d69a499046a0833cc" width="175" /></a></div>
<h2>
Thanks for helping us make double our Kickstarter goal!</h2>
We've finished the Medusa prototype and have added the first stretch goal of $5,000. Your help has been wonderful. We still have 26 days to go in the campaign and several stretch goal ideas, so please keep sharing the project!<br />
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<a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1356792532/tiny-monsters-tiny-skeletons-you-assemble"><img alt="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1356792532/tiny-monsters-tiny-skeletons-you-assemble" border="0" height="240" src="https://ksr-ugc.imgix.net/projects/1974534/photo-original.jpg?v=1436910928&w=1024&h=768&fit=crop&auto=format&q=92&s=cdc2d11ebf2008a5488d312674f6e857" width="320" /></a></div>
POTUS31.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15744424476647208194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2271738087375480945.post-77539225654842123612015-07-24T18:53:00.003-07:002015-07-24T18:54:28.030-07:00Shorter limbs than T-rex<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://news.sciencemag.org/sites/default/files/styles/thumb_article_l/public/sn-fossilsnakesEMBED.jpg?itok=0R5BN8Oa" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://news.sciencemag.org/sites/default/files/styles/thumb_article_l/public/sn-fossilsnakesEMBED.jpg?itok=0R5BN8Oa" height="293" width="320" /></a></div>
<h2 class="snews-article__headline">
<span style="font-weight: normal;">Four-legged snake fossil stuns scientists—and ignites controversy</span></h2>
Scientists have described what they say is the first known fossil of a
four-legged snake. The limbs of the 120-or-so-million-year-old,
20-centimeter-long creature are remarkably well preserved and end with
five slender digits that appear to have been functional. Thought to have
come from Brazil, the fossil would be one of the earliest snakes found,
suggesting that the group evolved from terrestrial precursors in
Gondwana, the southern remnant of the supercontinent Pangaea. But
although the creature’s overall body plan—and indeed, many of its
individual anatomical features—is snakelike, some researchers aren’t so
sure that it is a part of the snake family tree.<br />
<br />
The team’s scientific interpretation may be the least controversial aspect of the discovery, which they report online today in <i>Science</i>.
The specimen’s provenance seems to be murkier than the silty waters
that once buried its carcass. Whereas the team’s analyses strongly
suggest the fossil came from northeastern Brazil, details of <i>when</i>
it was unearthed and how it eventually ended up in the German museum
where it now resides remain a mystery. Those details matter to many
researchers and especially to some from Brazil, because it’s been
illegal to export fossils from that nation since 1942.<br />
<br />
Aptly, the new species has been dubbed <i>Tetrapodophis amplectus</i>.
The genus name, in Greek, means “four-footed serpent.” (Previously,
fossils of creatures considered to be protosnakes have only sported one
set of limbs, usually hindlimbs.) The species name <i>amplectus</i>,
which comes from Latin, means “embracing” and refers to the creature’s
flexibility and presumed ability to wrap tightly around its prey. The
front part of the fossil—which appears to be complete and has all bones
in their original, lifelike arrangement—lies in a tight coil, a
demonstration of the animal’s extreme limberness, says Nicholas
Longrich, a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Bath in the
United Kingdom and co-author of the new study. Besides the tiny limbs,
the specimen sports a skull the size of a human fingernail, 160 spinal
vertebrae, and 112 vertebrae in the tail.<br />
<br />
The fossil had resided in a private collection for several decades
before it gained the attention of team member David Martill of the
University of Portsmouth. He stumbled across the specimen during a field
trip with students to Museum Solnhofen in Germany. No notes about when
or where it was collected are available, the researchers say. But
certain characteristics of the limestone that entombed the fossil, as
well as the distinct orange-brown color of the bones themselves,
strongly suggest it came from a particular area of northeastern Brazil,
Longrich says. The sediment that became those rocks accumulated in calm
waters on the floor of a lake or a lagoon sometime between 113 million
and 126 million years ago, he notes.<br />
<br />
Regarding the legality of the fossil’s collection or export from its
presumed home country, Martill says “Who knows how the fossil came from
Brazil”? Furthermore, he notes, to assert that the fossil was collected
illegally a person would need to ascertain when it was unearthed. But
such questions are irrelevant to the fossil’s scientific significance,
Martill maintains. “Personally I don’t care a damn how the fossil came
from Brazil or when,” he says.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/lookup/doi/10.1126/science.aaa9208">Many features of <i>Tetrapodophis</i> point to its snakiness</a>.
Among squamates, the group of reptiles that also includes lizards, only
snakes have more than 150 spinal vertebrae, the researchers note. The
creature’s teeth are pointy and slightly curved. Also, the fossil
includes some scales that stretch across the full width of the belly, a
trait known only in snakes. The dramatically reduced size of the
creature’s limbs, as well as a cylindrical rather than a flattened tail,
suggest that snakes evolved from terrestrial animals that burrowed, not
from marine creatures as some researchers have proposed, Longrich says.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://news.sciencemag.org/paleontology/2015/07/four-legged-snake-fossil-stuns-scientists-and-ignites-controversy">Read more here</a>POTUS31.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15744424476647208194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2271738087375480945.post-90683537215206595722015-07-21T12:10:00.002-07:002015-07-21T12:10:47.988-07:00Kickstarter Launched for Mythical Monsters<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1356792532/tiny-monsters-tiny-skeletons-you-assemble"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_ihUzVMxZndUxorXLi9uBJujOIRsJgKt9aC00aTLJHarJhRTiXfyaHP2cIbkzpi_rKtIylpct2YxBRP5BSHjmCKaiHfEuFkeF7TPcHpN7JepT74Y9Bzo7IR-GA3Ll5JMOaIsO5np-0eE/s320/Tiny_Monsters_Kickstarter.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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We just launched our second <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1356792532/tiny-monsters-tiny-skeletons-you-assemble">Kickstarter</a> campaign to help us bring you more tiny humanoids.</div>
POTUS31.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15744424476647208194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2271738087375480945.post-47299069716266589752015-06-24T13:44:00.001-07:002015-06-24T13:44:42.466-07:00Putting Flesh on Bone<h2 class="node-title">
More dinosaur bones yield traces of blood, soft tissue</h2>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://student.societyforscience.org/sites/student.societyforscience.org/files/main/articles/ay_dinobloodhero_free.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="171" src="https://student.societyforscience.org/sites/student.societyforscience.org/files/main/articles/ay_dinobloodhero_free.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Scientists studying dinosaur evolution are finding many more bones to pick.<br />
Researchers
from London have found hints of blood and fibrous tissue in a
hodgepodge of 75-million-year-old dinosaur bones. These fossils had been
poorly preserved. That now suggests residues of soft tissues may be
more common in dino bones than scientists had thought. Details appeared
June 9 in <em>Nature Communications</em>.<br />
<br />
Scientists are excited
at the idea that soft tissues might still exist in most dinosaur bones.
It would give them the ability to study these long-extinct animals at
the cellular level. And such studies could reveal when dinosaurs
switched from being cold-blooded to warm-blooded creatures.<br />
<br />
Matthew Collins is an expert in the study of ancient proteins at the
University of York in England. (Proteins form the basis of living cells,
muscle and tissues. They also do the work inside of cells.) Until now,
scientists had thought that traces of soft tissue from dinosaurs
remained only in really well-preserved fossils. “It’s exciting to think
that we may have more soft tissue in dinosaur bones kicking around,”
says Collins, who was not involved in the new study.<br />
<br />
Susannah
Maidment is a paleontologist at Imperial College London in England. She
was part of a team that has just found residues of soft tissue in
slivers of eight dinosaur bones. These included a toe claw from a <em>theropod</em>.
There also was a rib from a duckbilled dinosaur. All had been found
about a century ago, mostly in Alberta, Canada. Since then, the bones
had been stashed in drawers at the Natural History Museum in London.<br />
<br />
The team used a <em>scanning electron microscope</em>
to study the bones. This special microscope can highlight features that
are just a few billionths of a meter across. The dinosaur bone images
revealed what appeared to be red blood cells. A second type of powerful
microscope probed the structure of some bone features. These images
showed bands similar to patterns formed by collagen in animal bones
today. Collagen is a fibrous protein. It is found not only in bones, but
also in cartilage, tendons and other connective tissues.<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="https://student.societyforscience.org/article/more-dinosaur-bones-yield-traces-blood-soft-tissue">More on this story here</a>POTUS31.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15744424476647208194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2271738087375480945.post-47607808185515189352015-06-23T13:30:00.001-07:002015-06-23T13:31:36.206-07:00Embryos Hatched After 200 Million Years<h2>
Dinosaur Eggs Ready To Hatch Secrets 200 Million Years Later</h2>
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<a href="https://62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/files/85717/width668/image-20150619-3386-xm4xfd.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="129" src="https://62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/files/85717/width668/image-20150619-3386-xm4xfd.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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In the late winter of 1976, the world famous fossil collector <a href="http://www.southafrica.net/za/en/articles/entry/article-southafrica.net-james-kitching-fossil-hunter-of-the-karoo">James Kitching</a> was doing a survey near South Africa’s border with Lesotho. <br />
<br />
To his surprise he found a tiny clutch of six fossilized eggs along the side of the road at a place known as Rooidraai.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">
It
took five years for skilled palentologists to remove enough rock matrix
from the eggs so that they could be preliminarily identified as the
first dinosaur embryos from <a href="http://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/handle/10539/16288">South Africa</a> and the oldest dinosaur embryos in the world.<br />
<br />
Research
on dinosaurs has truly blossomed in the 40 years since Kitching’s
extraordinary find and a great deal more is now known about the baby
dinosaurs in the eggs. But the exceptional secrets they hold are only
now being fully uncovered because of developments in technology. This
month the eggs were flown to Grenoble, a city at the foot of the French
Alps, where they are being examined under a powerful CT scan at the <a href="http://www.esrf.eu/about">European Synchrotron Radiation Facility</a>.<br />
The
secrets of the embryonic dinosaurs whose parents roamed South Africa
200 million years ago are in the process of being hatched.<br />
<br />
These
high-resolution, 3D x-ray imaging methods are burgeoning in
palaeontology. With advances in modern imaging methods we are now able
to digitally remove rock matrix while making 3D models of the bones
inside.<br />
<div style="background-color: white; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">
<h3>
CT scans come to the rescue</h3>
The solution to all of these
problems lies in CT scanning the specimen. The x-ray resolution needed
to study the embryos is so high (six microns, or .006 mm) that only a
few facilities in the world are capable of performing the study.<br />
<br />
In late 2014, a team of us put together a winning proposal to scan the eggs at the <a href="http://www.esrf.eu/">European Synchrotron Radiation Facility</a>
in Grenoble. At the facility, a huge ring of electrons (almost a
kilometre in circumference) traveling at .99% of the speed of light
continuously generates beams of high-energy X-rays. These beams can be
harnessed with great precision to peer through rocks and image the
fossils inside.<br />
<div style="background-color: white; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">
</div>
</div>
</div>
<a href="http://www.science20.com/the_conversation/dinosaur_eggs_ready_to_hatch_secrets_200_million_years_later-156275">Full story here</a>POTUS31.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15744424476647208194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2271738087375480945.post-28542102509949738542015-06-18T08:24:00.001-07:002015-06-18T08:24:44.064-07:00Better than cat videos<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/oE4J2WFzPeI/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/oE4J2WFzPeI?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
<br />POTUS31.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15744424476647208194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2271738087375480945.post-9119841264322232342015-06-17T11:14:00.000-07:002015-06-17T11:14:31.768-07:00Top 10 International Dinosaur Museums<h2 class="pg-headline">
10 of the world's best dinosaur museums </h2>
<h2 class="pg-headline">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/150615103242-dino-museums-2015--canada-exlarge-169.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/150615103242-dino-museums-2015--canada-exlarge-169.jpg" height="179" width="320" /></a></div>
</h2>
<h3>
1. <a href="http://www.naturkundemuseum-berlin.de/en/">Museum für Naturkunde</a> (Berlin)</h3>
<h3>
2. <a href="http://www.fieldmuseum.org/">Field Museum</a> (Chicago)</h3>
<h3>
3. <a href="https://www.naturalsciences.be/">Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Science</a> (Brussels)</h3>
<h3>
4. <a href="http://nationaldinosaurmuseum.com.au/">National Dinosaur Museum</a> (Canberra, Australia)</h3>
<h3>
5. <a href="http://www.tyrrellmuseum.com/index.htm">Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology</a> (Alberta, Canada)</h3>
<h3>
6. <a href="http://www.wyodino.org/">Wyoming Dinosaur Center</a> (Wyoming)</h3>
<h3>
7. <a href="http://www.zdm.cn/en/index.html">Zigong Dinosaur Museum</a> (Zigong, China)</h3>
<h3>
8. <a href="http://www.iziko.org.za/">Iziko Museum</a> (Cape Town, South Africa)</h3>
<h3>
9. <a href="http://www.jurassicland.com.tr/">Jurassic Land</a> (Istanbul)</h3>
<h3>
10. <a href="http://www.fernbankmuseum.org/">Fernbank Museum of Natural History</a> (Atlanta)</h3>
<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/16/travel/world-best-dino-museums/">Museum Details here</a>POTUS31.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15744424476647208194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2271738087375480945.post-34995613552883614832015-06-11T09:11:00.000-07:002015-06-11T09:11:05.509-07:00Woolly Camel?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.theamericanregister.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/CamelSkelLyd2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.theamericanregister.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/CamelSkelLyd2.png" height="199" width="320" /></a></div>
Miners in north-western <a class=" u-underline" data-component="auto-linked-tag" data-link-name="auto-linked-tag" href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/canada">Canada</a> have discovered ice age camel bones whose DNA is forcing scientists to redraw the family tree of the now-extinct species.<br />
<br />
Grant Zazula, a paleontologist with the Yukon’s department of tourism
and culture, said three fossils recovered from a gold mine in the
Klondike in 2008 are the first western camel bones found in the
territory or Alaska in decades.<br />
<br />
Scientists had believed western camels that once lived in North
America were related to llamas and alpacas common to South America, but
they now have genetic proof that the animals are more closely tied to
the camels inhabiting Asia and Arabia.<br />
<br />
“For us, the gold is the <a class=" u-underline" data-component="in-body-link" data-link-name="in body link" href="http://www.theguardian.com/science/fossils">fossils</a> because it’s this incredible resource for understanding extinct and ancient animals of the ice age,” Zazula said.<br />
<br />
Zazula said scientists can now begin to understand why the camels went extinct 13,000 years ago, at the end of the ice age.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jun/10/ice-age-camel-bones-canada-dna">Link to article</a>POTUS31.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15744424476647208194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2271738087375480945.post-3026896461863375972015-06-04T11:49:00.001-07:002015-06-04T11:49:32.211-07:00Meet Hellboy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/765a6272dd9cac88bf615d5d4c4493a3329faa46/c=2-0-1279-960&r=x404&c=534x401/local/-/media/2015/06/03/USATODAY/USATODAY/635689663823945012-hellboy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/765a6272dd9cac88bf615d5d4c4493a3329faa46/c=2-0-1279-960&r=x404&c=534x401/local/-/media/2015/06/03/USATODAY/USATODAY/635689663823945012-hellboy.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<h2 class="asset-headline" itemprop="headline">
Behold the latest dinosaur discovery: Hellboy!</h2>
<div class="asset-headline" itemprop="headline">
The latest new dinosaur – a beast with a corona of bone atop its
enormous face – has an august scientific title based on Greek and Latin
roots. But researchers call it something else: Hellboy.</div>
<div class="asset-headline" itemprop="headline">
<br /></div>
The
animal earned its impolite nickname thanks to the "devilishly hard"
labor of extracting its skull from a bed of ultra-hard rock just above a
river, says Darren Tanke of Canada's Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology, who worked on the excavation and coined the dinosaur's moniker.<br />
<br />
Stubs
resembling devil's horns above the dinosaur's eyes also helped inspire
the nickname, which the animal shares with a two-horned comic-book
superhero.<br />
<br />
No run-of-the-mill devil, the Hellboy dinosaur was more
of a demon king. Besides its satanic horns, it boasted a crown-like
ring of bony plates across its forehead, inspiring the first part of its
scientific name, <em>Regaliceratops</em>, which means "royal horned-face."<br />
<br />
Hellboy
came to light thanks to amateur fossil hunter Peter Hews, who in 2005
saw a patch of dark stone on a riverbank in Alberta. Someone else
would've passed it by. Hews, a consultant geologist, thought it might be
bone and sent Tanke a photo. It was a good call. The second part of
Hellboy's scientific name is <em>peterhewsi</em>, after the man who spotted it.<br />
<br />
"I've done the easy part. I just found it," Hews says modestly.<br />
<br />
Whether
finding it was easy or not, the next part was a lot harder. Researchers
needed an electric jackhammer to chisel the fossil out its resting
place and a helicopter to lift the 1,300-pound stone block to a truck.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/06/04/dinosaur-hellboy-bones-beast/28447873/">Full Article </a>POTUS31.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15744424476647208194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2271738087375480945.post-49217973584635142552015-06-03T07:51:00.003-07:002015-06-03T07:51:42.944-07:00This aught to ruffle a few feathers<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i.guim.co.uk/static/w-620/h--/q-95/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2015/6/2/1433266313725/b3ca4300-b0ec-497e-a3b8-dfc25a7bf8a0-620x372.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i.guim.co.uk/static/w-620/h--/q-95/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2015/6/2/1433266313725/b3ca4300-b0ec-497e-a3b8-dfc25a7bf8a0-620x372.jpeg" height="192" width="320" /></a></div>
<h2 class="content__headline js-score" itemprop="headline">
</h2>
<h2 class="content__headline js-score" itemprop="headline">
Most dinosaurs had scales, not feathers, fossil analysis concludes </h2>
<div class="content__headline js-score" itemprop="headline">
Researchers have called time on a growing suspicion that many dinosaurs were not the dry, scaly animals of popular conception, but fluffy, feathered beasts instead.<br /><br />Remains unearthed in recent years have revealed feathers or proto-feathers on a range of dinosaurs, leading some paleontologists to wonder if all of the animals evolved from a feathered ancestor and sported some kind of plumage themselves.<br /><br />But while many meat-eating theropods, such as velociraptors and relatives of tyrannosaurs, were clearly clad in feathers, a fresh analysis of prehistoric remains suggests that most dinosaurs were scaly beasts after all.<br /><br />Nicolás Campione, a dinosaur researcher at Uppsala University in Sweden, worked with scientists at the Natural History Museum in London and the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto to survey some of the best-preserved dinosaur fossils from museums around the world.<br /><br />The scientists collected information on around 75 species that are known from the fossil remains of their soft tissues to have had either scales or feathers. From these, they created a dinosaur family tree and used a statistical model to work out the odds of species having feathers at different points in dinosaur history.<br /><br />“What we found from this analysis is that the first dinosaur was probably not feathered,” said Campione. “Feathers clearly evolved in the dinosaur lineage, but right now, the data do not point to a feathered ancestor for them all.”<br /><br />The first dinosaurs evolved from reptiles more than 230 million years ago. Feathers are thought to have arisen more than once in dinosaur lineages, and while they live on and give flight to modern birds, feathers first emerged for other reasons: for warmth or to provide colourful plumage displays.<br /><br />Last year, scientists announced the discovery in Siberia of Kulindadromeus, a small, 150 million-year-old, plant-eating dinosaur that had both scales and feathers. The finding of such an ancient plumage prompted the group to speculate that a fuzzy coating of feathers may have been the rule for dinosaurs rather than the exception. Some artists have run with the idea and drawn up depictions of giant feathered brontosaurs. </div>
<div class="content__headline js-score" itemprop="headline">
<br /></div>
<div class="content__headline js-score" itemprop="headline">
<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jun/03/most-dinosaurs-had-scales-not-feathers-fossil-analysis-concludes">Read the full article here</a></div>
POTUS31.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15744424476647208194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2271738087375480945.post-84140076432888205072015-05-23T10:55:00.000-07:002015-05-23T10:55:17.687-07:00Shedding pet dinosaurs<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/05/05/science/05QNA/05QNA-blog427.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/05/05/science/05QNA/05QNA-blog427.jpg" height="320" width="304" /></a></div>
<h2 class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="42" data-total-count="42" id="story-continues-1" itemprop="articleBody">
<strong>Q. Did dinosaurs peel or shed their skins?</strong></h2>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="140" data-total-count="182" id="story-continues-2" itemprop="articleBody">
<span style="font-size: large;"><strong>A.</strong></span> Presumably, said Mark A. Norell, chairman of the division of paleontology at the <a class="meta-org" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/a/american_museum_of_natural_history/index.html?inline=nyt-org" title="More articles about American Museum of Natural History">American Museum of Natural History</a>. But not all at once.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="140" data-total-count="182" id="story-continues-2" itemprop="articleBody">
<br /></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="246" data-total-count="428" id="story-continues-3" itemprop="articleBody">
“Since
we can’t directly observe extinct animals, we need to look at close
relatives,” Dr. Norell said. “Birds are living dinosaurs, crocodilians
their closest relatives. Both shed skin in patches and strips, not
entire skins like snakes.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="246" data-total-count="428" id="story-continues-3" itemprop="articleBody">
<br /></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="303" data-total-count="731" id="story-continues-4" itemprop="articleBody">
“Because
crocodiles and birds share a common ancestor, we predict this
skin-shedding style was present in that ancestor,” he continued.
“Nonbird dinosaurs descend from this same ancestor. Without other
information, we predict that even giant dinosaurs exfoliated their dead
dry skin in patches.”</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="303" data-total-count="731" id="story-continues-4" itemprop="articleBody">
<br /></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="333" data-total-count="1064" id="story-continues-5" itemprop="articleBody">
Everything
that has skin sheds it, Dr. Norell emphasized, but there is a
tremendous diversity in how skin sheds. In humans, for example, rubbing
the dry skin of an arm across something black leaves a white scuff of
dead skin cells, he said. And in birds, skin dries and sloughs off as
small patches, like peeling after a bad sunburn.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="333" data-total-count="1064" id="story-continues-5" itemprop="articleBody">
<br /></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="356" data-total-count="1420" itemprop="articleBody">
Reptile
shedding usually conjures visions of whole snakeskins, shed as a
continuous piece, “looking like the ghost of a living serpent,” Dr.
Norell said. But this is an anomaly; most animals do it differently.
Typical reptiles — lizards, crocodiles and turtles — shed dry, irregular
skin patches, and that is probably how dinosaurs did it, he said.</div>
<br />
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/05/science/a-skin-deep-dinosaur-issue.html"> Link to </a><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/05/science/a-skin-deep-dinosaur-issue.html">NYTimes Question</a>POTUS31.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15744424476647208194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2271738087375480945.post-863513740728914102015-05-22T05:53:00.000-07:002015-05-22T05:53:03.414-07:00Field Station: Dinosaurs making way for a highschool<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://imgick.nj.com/home/njo-media/width960/img/jersey-journal/photo/2013/04/-281ee7b2c36fbfde.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://imgick.nj.com/home/njo-media/width960/img/jersey-journal/photo/2013/04/-281ee7b2c36fbfde.JPG" height="320" width="213" /></a></div>
<h2>
'Field Station: Dinosaurs' park in Secaucus opening for final season</h2>
Outdoor prehistoric theme park "Field Station: Dinosaurs" will open tomorrow for its final season in Secaucus.<br />
<br />
Park hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at 1 Dinosaur Way, Secaucus. The
land of which the park sits will become the site of a new high school.<br />
<br />
Originally opened in 2012, Field Station: Dinosaur was named Best Local Theme Park by Time Out New York that same year.<br />
<br />
The themed family attraction has several different areas where
participants can take part in games and workshops to receive stamps on
their "passport," which they receive when they enter the park.<br />
<br />
Featuring more than thirty life size moving dinosaurs, the various
areas of the park include the base camp, the fire pit, amphitheater, the
quarry, the lookout, and the plateau.<br />
<h2>
</h2>
POTUS31.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15744424476647208194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2271738087375480945.post-11746471158318886352015-05-17T15:27:00.001-07:002015-05-17T15:27:33.458-07:00Check your dinosaurs here<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/kFd5f75CN38/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kFd5f75CN38?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
Your Dinosaurs Are Wrong #14!POTUS31.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15744424476647208194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2271738087375480945.post-30846062451160273882015-05-13T06:32:00.000-07:002015-05-13T06:32:11.899-07:00FrankenChicken<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2015/05/12/three-skulls_wide-cbc93868efd61caf8312699ffb12f87aeb234107-s800-c85.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2015/05/12/three-skulls_wide-cbc93868efd61caf8312699ffb12f87aeb234107-s800-c85.jpg" height="179" width="320" /></a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<h2>
How Bird Beaks Got Their Start As Dinosaur Snouts</h2>
Scientists say they have reversed a bit of bird evolution in the lab and re-created a dinosaurlike snout in developing chickens.<br />
<br />
"In this work, we can clearly see a comeback of the characteristics which we see in some of the first birds," says <a href="http://www.oeb.harvard.edu/faculty/abzhanov/">Arhat Abzhanov</a>, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard University.<br />
<br />
The ancestors of birds are a group of dinosaurs that includes the
famous velociraptor, Abzhanov says. This group of meat-eaters had long
snouts, small brains and eyes, and lots of teeth. Somehow they
transformed into birds, which have none of those things.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://people.earth.yale.edu/profile/bhart-anjan-bhullar/about">Bhart-Anjan Bhullar</a>,
another member of the research team at Yale University, says the goal
is to understand exactly how birds became birds. "What's the deep
history of birdiness?" wonders Bhullar. "How did the different parts of
their body plan form?"<br />
<br />
In particular, he and his colleagues are
interested in birds' distinctive beak, which Bhullar calls "this insane
sort of snout that they have."<br />
<br />
To hunt for clues about the
origin of the beak, the researchers have been studying various kinds of
animal embryos, from birds like emus and chickens to nonbird reptiles
like alligators, which are birds' closest living relatives.<br />
<br />
<br />
Their
work led them to two specific genes. These genes are active in the
middle of the face-forming region of bird embryos, but not in the middle
of that region in the embryos of other animals.</div>
<div>
The team did an experiment to see what would happen if they blocked the
effect of that localized gene activity in chicken embryos.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Bhullar says he remembers the night he put the altered, developing
chicks under a microscope, and saw that they had unusual, broad snouts.<br />
<br />
"That was a pretty remarkable moment," he recalls. "That's a moment that will stay with me, I think."<br />
<br /></div>
<a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/05/12/406256185/how-bird-beaks-got-their-start-as-dinosaur-snouts">Link to full article</a><br />POTUS31.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15744424476647208194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2271738087375480945.post-86904293490873760772015-05-12T09:21:00.001-07:002015-05-12T09:21:43.134-07:00Kids Bring Box of Poop to American Museum of Natural History<h2>
Bed Bugs & Fossilized Dinosaur Poop Surface At AMNH's Identification Day</h2>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://galleries.gothamistllc.com/asset/554f9980afcf1d07ae18f7f6/mobile/IMG_5409.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://galleries.gothamistllc.com/asset/554f9980afcf1d07ae18f7f6/mobile/IMG_5409.jpg" height="320" width="213" /></a></div>
Once a year, kids with bubble-wrapped bones and sandwich bags full of
nubby rocks crowd around precision-lit folding tables in the American
Museum of Natural History's Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Hall.<br />
<br />
"We put this day on the calendar," said Caitlin Trasande, whose sons
Camilo, 6, and Ramiro, 5, had just learned that the rocks they collected
at Lake Taghkanic last summer contain 450-million-year-old marine
fossils. "We were waiting and waiting for this day to come." Camilo,
especially, couldn't believe it. "This was a flat snail that lived!" he
shrieked, jumping up and down. "A brachiopod is a filter-feeding animal
that usually lives in shells! You can see the imprint of the snail
itself!"<br />
<br />
Nearby, Entomologist Lou Sorkin held a sealed pill bottle of living <a href="http://gothamist.com/2014/10/14/guide_bugs_nyc_bedbugs.php">bed bugs</a>
up to the light. A tiny camera projected the bugs onto a flat-screen
television behind him. Sorkin studies bed bug infestations within New
York apartment buildings, and he'll proudly show you the raw, red patch
of skin on back of his hand where he lets them feed. Yesterday, he
helped a nervous New Yorker identify a picture of a biting bug from her
apartment. It was a mite.<br />
<br />
On Identification Day, museum-staff Anthropologists, Paleontologists,
Zoologists, and Ornithologists invite New Yorkers to bring in puzzling
shells, artifacts, rocks, and occasionally insects and feathers.
Equipped with magnifying glasses and comparison specimens from the
museum collection, they start by asking for context—where did this bone
come from? Did you find it on Rockaway Beach, or did you buy it on eBay?
Paleontologist Carl Mehling admits that, "More than fifty percent of
the time it's pure imagination. Someone will come in and say, 'This
looks like a dinosaur skull!' But it's just a rock. When I hear
something fantastic like that, I'm already concocting my gentle
letdown."<br />
<br />
That was the case for Joey Rosado and his son Javier, who like to
visit Coney Island the day after a big storm, to collect bones and rocks
that get spit out onto the sand. Javier handed over two sharp bones
that he hoped came from a dinosaur. But Mehling quickly identified them
as "left-over barbecue," citing the clean-cut edges that could only come
from a bone saw.<br />
<br />
There are exceptions, though. A few years ago, a woman showed Mehling
a skull that she had found on the beach in Virginia. "Immediately I
could see that it was part of a walrus skull. I knew that it couldn't be
modern, because walruses today are strictly arctic. The skull is
probably tens of millions of years old." And yesterday, even Mehling was
surprised when a shoebox full of fossilized dinosaur poop landed on his
table. Bridget, who lives in Manhattan, found the poop on a
construction site when she was traveling in Berkshire, England.<br />
<br />
Poop is one of Mehling's specialities, and it's notoriously hard to
identify. "It's really, really hard to know what kind of animal
fossilized poop came from, because, unlike a body part, poop doesn't
have to look a certain way," he explained. "And when a creature poops,
it's not obligated to hang out and die right next to it."<br />
<br />
<a href="http://gothamist.com/2015/05/11/bed_bugs_dino_poop.php#photo-14">Full story and lots more pictures here </a>POTUS31.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15744424476647208194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2271738087375480945.post-67745359180252175912015-04-27T19:03:00.003-07:002015-04-27T19:03:55.318-07:00Hundred year old eggs -- times a million.<h2 class="hed">
Home of the Dinosaurs</h2>
<div class="social social-with-popup sharing-buttons" id="header_social">
<a class="facebook" data-share="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?s=100&p[title]=The+Chinese+Keep+Finding+Dinosaur+Eggs+Under+Construction+Projects+%28Video%29&p[summary]=Another+batch+of+fossilized+dinosaur+eggs+were+found+in+China,+43+in+total,+in+a+region+known+for+its+prehistoric+bounty.+An+abundance+of+red+sandstone+rock+formations+there+helped+preserve+hundreds+of+eggs,+11+fossilized+skeletons,+and+nearly+200+footprint+fossils.&p[ref]=sl_live&p[images][0]=http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/articles/video/video/2015/04/dinosaur_eggs_found_in_china_video/tnc150422_dinoegg_1280.jpg/_jcr_content/renditions/cq5dam.web.1280.1280.jpeg&p[url]=http://www.slate.com/articles/video/video/2015/04/dinosaur_eggs_found_in_china_video.html?wpsrc=sh_all_dt_fb_top" href="http://www.slate.com/articles/video/video/2015/04/dinosaur_eggs_found_in_china_video.html#">
<span class="icon"></span><span class="count"></span></a>The Chinese keep finding dinosaur eggs under construction projects.</div>
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Another batch of fossilized dinosaur eggs were found in China, 43 in
total, in a region known for its prehistoric bounty. An abundance of red
sandstone rock formations there helped preserve hundreds of eggs, 11
fossilized skeletons, and nearly 200 footprint fossils.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/video/video/2015/04/dinosaur_eggs_found_in_china_video.html">Full story here</a><br />
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POTUS31.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15744424476647208194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2271738087375480945.post-43880590233144638182015-04-21T19:54:00.000-07:002015-04-21T19:54:50.703-07:00Every inch of Loch Ness being indexed by Google<h2>
The search for the Loch Ness monster has moved online, thanks to Google</h2>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://img.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp-content/uploads/sites/36/2015/04/unnamed.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="134" src="https://img.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp-content/uploads/sites/36/2015/04/unnamed.gif" width="320" /></a></div>
The legend of the Loch Ness monster has captured people's imaginations for more than 1,000 years and shows no signs of waning.<br />
<br />
There
are more Google searches for the alleged creature today than there are
for famous British institutions such as Buckingham Palace and the Peak
District, <a href="http://google-latlong.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/myth-or-monster-explore-loch-ness-with.html">the company revealed</a>.<br />
<br />
In response to the demand, Google is rewarding the cryptozoologists
in all of us by making it possible to search for "Nessie" using Google
Street View.<br />
<br />
Google's announcement coincided with the 81st
anniversary of the "Surgeons Photograph," an iconic image that appeared
to show the ancient-looking reptile bobbing in the water, but was later
revealed to be an elaborate hoax. Since then, <a href="http://www.vox.com/2015/4/21/8459353/loch-ness-monster">many scientists have pointed out the sheer improbability -- if not impossibility -- of Nessie's existence</a>. But that hasn't stopped the world from looking, and now Google is diving in.<br />
<br />
With
the help of Adrian Shine, who heads the Loch Ness and Morar Project, a
team from Google mounted a 360-degree camera on a boat and captured
images of the lake every 2.5 seconds, <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/04/google-joins-the-search-for-the-loch-ness-monster/390906/?utm_source=SFTwitter">according to the Atlantic</a>. The team also took underwater photos in the murky 800-foot lake, allowing monster hunters to scour above the water and below.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/04/21/the-search-for-the-loch-ness-monster-has-moved-online-thanks-to-google/">More here</a>POTUS31.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15744424476647208194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2271738087375480945.post-63957749043556862372015-04-19T09:00:00.000-07:002015-04-19T09:00:06.708-07:00Some sap has a story to tell<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--KW70V4s4--/c_fit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_636/18lq2u1c25q5ejpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--KW70V4s4--/c_fit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_636/18lq2u1c25q5ejpg.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></div>
<h2 class="headline hover-highlight entry-title">
Dinosaur Feathers Discovered in Canadian Amber</h2>
<div class="first-text" data-textannotation-id="7b1aa280d83cfb2b7f29e5fd081473a3">
Today a group of paleontologists announced the results of an extensive
study of several well-preserved dinosaur feathers encased in amber.
Their work, which included samples from many stages in the evolution of
feathers, bolstered the findings of other scientists who've suggested
that dinosaurs (winged and otherwise) had multicolored and transparent
feathers of the sort you might see on birds today. The researchers also
presented evidence, based on the feathers' pigmentation and structures,
that today's bird feathers could have evolved from dinosaur feathers.</div>
<div data-textannotation-id="a5d18b218f0d4a5ba828660853566d85">
We've got a gallery of these intriguing feathers preserved in amber.</div>
<div data-textannotation-id="91a932b08af09f6f32175d391983783b">
In a profile of lead researcher Ryan McKellar, <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" target="_blank"><em>The Atlantic</em>'s Hans Villarica writes</a>:</div>
<blockquote data-textannotation-id="c374414b0fda0b8f2397fc421bcb7a70">
<div data-textannotation-id="7cfb78b233d7657194023530025244d3">
<i>These
specimens represent distinct stages of feather evolution, from
early-stage, single filament protofeathers to much more complex
structures associated with modern diving birds... They can't
determine which feathers belonged to birds or dinosaurs yet, but they
did observe filament structures that are similar to those seen in other
non-avian dinosaur fossils.</i></div>
<i>
</i></blockquote>
<div data-textannotation-id="21aa5c04870b187d7f9f48bd0ccae01e">
Villarica also did io9 readers a favor and asked McKellar whether this discovery could lead to a <em>Jurassic Park</em> scenario. McKellar said:</div>
<blockquote data-textannotation-id="d53e1468f7e2fbe1813677aadce01685">
<div data-textannotation-id="618b9c52d98daba70709ac9f459fcebd">
<i>Put simply,
no. The specimens that we examined are extremely small and would not be
expected to contain any DNA material. To put this into context, the
only genetic material that has been recovered from amber is from lumps
of mummified insect muscle tissue in much younger Dominican amber that
are approximately 17 million years old and well after the age of
dinosaurs.</i></div>
</blockquote>
<div data-textannotation-id="7c059ff33bc227f62a5c757b796b200c">
So much for our dreams of dino domination.</div>
<div data-textannotation-id="7c059ff33bc227f62a5c757b796b200c">
<br /></div>
<div class="headline hover-highlight entry-title">
<a href="http://io9.com/5840854/dinosaur-feathers-discovered-in-canadian-amber"><span style="font-weight: normal;">See more beautiful amber with feathers here</span></a></div>
POTUS31.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15744424476647208194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2271738087375480945.post-89232367357944686542015-04-09T13:00:00.000-07:002015-04-09T13:00:00.349-07:005 Year Old Paleontologist Digs Dinos, Literally<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp-content/uploads/sites/36/2015/04/Dinosaur.jpg&w=1484" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="227" src="https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp-content/uploads/sites/36/2015/04/Dinosaur.jpg&w=1484" width="320" /></a></div>
<h2>
This 5-year-old who found a rare dinosaur fossil in Texas is living his best life</h2>
On Wednesday, I realized I was not a cool 5-year-old. I suppose I always knew this.<br />
<br />
Sure,
I did cool things. I mean, I climbed trees and jumped in puddles and
was generally pretty into Cardinals baseball and also sno cones. And
that all sounds well and good.<br />
<br />
But then I read <a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/news/community-news/tarrant-county/headlines/20150407-5-year-old-boy-makes-rare-dinosaur-find-in-mansfield.ece" target="_blank">this story</a>
about 5-year-old Wylie Brys, who — with his dad — discovered a dinosaur
fossil, which is being excavated this month in Mansfield, Tex.<br />
<br />
And now I'm forced to admit that my 5-year-old self was <em>definitely</em> not that rad. Not even close. Wylie Brys is straight crushing childhood. <br />
<br />
Wylie goes poking around for fossils fairly regularly with his
father, Tim Brys, who works at the Dallas Zoo. This particular find
happened on land behind a suburban shopping center, not far from a
grocery store.<br />
<br />
On this trip, Wylie walked up ahead of his dad,
Tim Brys told The Post in a telephone interview. When he came back,
Wylie had a chunk of bone with him. Tim Brys asked his son to show him
where he found it.<br />
<br />
"My dad told me it was a turtle," Wylie <a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/news/community-news/tarrant-county/headlines/20150407-5-year-old-boy-makes-rare-dinosaur-find-in-mansfield.ece" target="_blank">told the Dallas Morning News</a>. "But now he's telling me it's a dinosaur."<br />
<br />
Said his father of the find: "It was a pretty good size and I knew I had something interesting."<br />
Southern Methodist University scientists believe the fossil may be about 100 million years old.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/04/09/this-5-year-old-who-found-a-rare-dinosaur-fossil-in-texas-is-living-his-best-life/">Read more story here</a>POTUS31.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15744424476647208194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2271738087375480945.post-42168402748171287032015-04-09T09:41:00.001-07:002015-04-09T09:41:25.818-07:00He's back!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://media.hamptonroads.com/cache/files/images/1803551.jpg#_ga=1.240616195.1486350934.1428597408" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://media.hamptonroads.com/cache/files/images/1803551.jpg#_ga=1.240616195.1486350934.1428597408" height="171" width="320" /></a></div>
<h2 class="title">
A Century Later, Beloved Brontosaurus May Reclaim Its Name</h2>
Brontosaurus is back, baby!<br />
<br />
Generations of schoolchildren have learned that a massive, long-necked dinosaur called <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" target="_hplink">Brontosaurus</a> once roamed Earth. But in fact, scientists dropped that name more than a century ago -- referring to it as <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" target="_hplink"> Apatosaurus</a> instead.<br />
<br />
Now,
after a thorough analysis of dozens of long-necked specimens, a team of
British and Portuguese paleontologists says it's time to revive the old
name.<br />
<br />
"It's the classic example of <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" target="_hplink">how science works</a>,"
study co-author Dr. Octavio Mateus, a paleontology professor at
Universidade Nova de Lisboa in Portugal, said in a written statement.
"Especially when hypotheses are based on fragmentary fossils, it is
possible for new finds to overthrow years of research."<br />
<br />
<strong>The backstory.</strong> Starting in the 1870s, rival paleontologists <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" target="_hplink">Othniel C. Marsh</a> and <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" target="_hplink">Edward D. Cope</a> were scouring the American West, competing to find new dinosaurs in what became known as the "<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" target="_hplink">Bone Wars</a>."<br />
<br />
During
Marsh's digs, his team found two incomplete skeletons of massive,
long-necked sauropods. Based on one of the skeletons, Marsh announced
the discovery of a new dinosaur called Apatosaurus ajax, the "deceptive
lizard" in 1877. Then, two years later, he described the second skeleton
as belonging to another new species called Brontosaurus excelsus, the
"noble thunder lizard."<br />
<br />
But after <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" target="_hplink">paleontologists collected a specimen with features similar</a>
to both Brontosaurus and Apatosaurus, they said the two dinosaurs were
too similar to belong to separate genera. And so in 1903, Brontosaurus
was re-classified as Apatosaurus excelsus.<br />
<br />
<strong>A second look.</strong> For the new analysis, the researchers spent five years examining the <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" target="_hplink">scans and fossils of 81 sauropod specimens</a>.
Then they conducted statistical analyses to discover how much the
dinosaurs differed, based on 477 specific features, Scientific American
reported. <br />
<br />
"Our research would not have been possible at this
level of detail 15 or more years ago," Dr. Emanuel Tschopp, a
paleontologist who led the research while completing his PhD at the
Universidade Nova de Lisboa, said in the statement.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/07/brontosaurus-back-dinosaur-reinstated_n_7017724.html">Read more here</a>POTUS31.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15744424476647208194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2271738087375480945.post-6491980524188887672015-04-02T12:38:00.001-07:002015-04-02T12:38:39.669-07:00O Romeosaur, Romeosaur! Wherefore art thou Romeosaur?<br />
<h2 class="content-title">
Dinosaur 'Romeo and Juliet' Found Buried Together</h2>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://static.ddmcdn.com/gif/blogs/dnews-files-2015-03-Romeo-and-Juliet-dinosaurs-150331-jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://static.ddmcdn.com/gif/blogs/dnews-files-2015-03-Romeo-and-Juliet-dinosaurs-150331-jpg.jpg" height="210" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
A dinosaur couple that appears to have died together after wooing
each other has been identified in remains unearthed at the Gobi Desert
in Mongolia.<br />
<br />
The dino couple, named Romeo and Juliet since they are
reminiscent of Shakespeare's famous doomed lovers, were entombed
together for over 75 million years, according to a new study in the
journal Scientific Reports.<br />
<br />
Key to the research was figuring out the sex of the dinosaurs.<br />
<br />
"Determining a dinosaur's gender is really hard," lead author
Scott Persons said in a press release. "Because soft anatomy seldom
fossilizes, a dinosaur fossil usually provides no direct evidence of
whether it was a male or a female."<br />
<br />
Persons, a paleontologist at the University of Alberta, and his
team compared the remains of the bird-like dinosaurs, which were
oviraptors (avian-resembling two-legged predators), with the anatomy of
modern birds.<br />
<br />
The researchers found evidence that the dinosaurs sported long
feathers on the ends of their tails. The feathers were not suitable for
flight, so they must have served some other purpose.<br />
<br />
"Our theory," explained Persons, "was that these large
feather-fans were used for the same purpose as the feather fans of many
modern ground birds, like turkeys, peacocks, and prairie chickens: they
were used to enhance courtship displays. My analysis of the tail
skeletons supported this theory, because the skeletons showed
adaptations for both high tail flexibility and enlarged tail musculature
— both traits that would have helped an oviraptor to flaunt its tail
fan in a mating dance."<br />
<h2 class="content-title">
</h2>
POTUS31.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15744424476647208194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2271738087375480945.post-3726855029831108682015-04-01T11:23:00.000-07:002015-04-01T11:23:00.925-07:00April stupids.New York needs a little levity, but come on...<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/images/localworld/ugc-images/276370/Article/images/26270233/9772886-large.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/images/localworld/ugc-images/276370/Article/images/26270233/9772886-large.jpg" height="215" width="320" /></a></div>
SADLY, no dinosaur bones have been discovered by JCB workers at Rocester.<br />
The story in today's Sentinel relating the 'find' of a 166 million-year-old creature on the site of a new golf <a class="itxtnewhook itxthookactive" href="http://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/April-fool-Dinosaur-discovery-joke/story-26270233-detail/story.html#" id="itxthook0" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: transparent; background-image: none; border: 0px none transparent; display: inline; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><span class="itxtrst itxtrstspan itxtnowrap" id="itxthook0p"><span class="itxtrst itxtrstspan itxtnowrap itxtnewhookspan" id="itxthook0w" style="background-color: transparent; border-color: transparent transparent rgb(0, 204, 0); border-style: none none solid; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; color: #009900; font-size: 100%; font-weight: normal; padding: 0px 0px 1px ! important; text-decoration: underline ! important;">course</span><img class="itxtrst itxtrstimg itxthookicon" id="itxthook0icon" src="http://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/icon1.png" style="margin: 0px ! important; padding: 0px 0px 0px 4px ! important; vertical-align: baseline ! important;" /></span></a>, was concocted for April Fools Day.<br />
<br />
It follows a fine tradition of similar articles which have appeared in this newspaper over the years on April 1.<br />
<br />
Yesterday's Sentinel also carried a story about students at Keele <a class="itxtnewhook itxthookactive" href="http://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/April-fool-Dinosaur-discovery-joke/story-26270233-detail/story.html#" id="itxthook1" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: transparent; background-image: none; border: 0px none transparent; display: inline; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><span class="itxtrst itxtrstspan itxtnowrap" id="itxthook1p"><span class="itxtrst itxtrstspan itxtnowrap itxtnewhookspan" id="itxthook1w" style="background-color: transparent; border-color: transparent transparent rgb(0, 204, 0); border-style: none none solid; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; color: #009900; font-size: 100%; font-weight: normal; padding: 0px 0px 1px ! important; text-decoration: underline ! important;">University</span><img class="itxtrst itxtrstimg itxthookicon" id="itxthook1icon" src="http://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/icon1.png" style="margin-bottom: 0px!important; margin-left: 0px!important; margin-right: 0px!important; margin-top: 0px!important; padding-bottom: 0px!important; padding-left: 4px!important; padding-right: 0px!important; padding-top: 0px!important; vertical-align: baseline!important;" /></span></a> attempting to levitate a clock tower on campus – and was accompanied by a video on our website.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/April-fool-Dinosaur-discovery-joke/story-26270233-detail/story.html">Full story here</a>POTUS31.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15744424476647208194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2271738087375480945.post-44598555101140054632015-03-27T09:17:00.001-07:002015-03-27T09:17:54.090-07:00Our future AI overlords<h2 class="headline">
Computerized CogniToy dinosaur is the latest smart toy for kids</h2>
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<a href="http://cdn.abclocal.go.com/content/wabc/images/cms/automation/vod/573072_630x354.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://cdn.abclocal.go.com/content/wabc/images/cms/automation/vod/573072_630x354.jpg" height="179" width="320" /></a></div>
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MIDTOWN, N.Y. -- </div>
It may look like a mini robot dinosaur, but there is a new generation of smart toy from which your child can learn.<br /><br />Wirelessly
connected to the internet, the toy initiates and engages in real
conversations with your childm powered by IBM's computer wizard "Watson"
for cognitive computing. <br /><br />The so-called smart toy, or CogniToy,
is personalized to your child, and there are parental controls to
monitor your child's progress.<br /><br />"A 5-year-old can ask 100
questions a day," co-founder JP Benini said. "What if this thing never
gets tired of answering 'why?' That's what the idea started with."<br /><br />The company, Elemental Path in Midtown, put out a promotional video on Kickstarter to raise capital for the line of CongniToys.<br /><br />"It
not just has the ability to answer questions, but play educational
games, tell stories, and even light conversational dialogue," Benini
said.<br /><br />Working with a prototype that could be offered in three
colors, Benini and Sean O'Shea, two of the four co-founders, decided to
make the smart toy utilizing 3-D printer technology.<br /><br />"There are not many things that are universally appealing than a dinosaur," Benini said.<br /><br />Design changes evolved from there into the current toy.<br /><br />"When
kids drag around that one toy that they love, they give it the name,"
Benini said. "They name their imaginary friends. Why not name their
virtual dino friend?" <br /><br />The toy, company officials stress, is designed for engaging play experiences and to grow with each child.<br /><br />"We're not trying to replace parents, teachers, or tutors," Benini said. "We're just trying to give a supplemental source."<br />
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<a href="http://6abc.com/technology/computerized-cognitoy-dinosaur-is-smart-toy-that-grows-with-your-kids/574549/">Link to article</a><br />
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POTUS31.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15744424476647208194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2271738087375480945.post-30455759905443090122015-03-25T07:23:00.002-07:002015-03-25T07:23:19.927-07:00Bones and Tensegrity<br />
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<a href="http://www.intensiondesigns.com/images/fig_6_Stellated_Tetrahedron.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.intensiondesigns.com/images/fig_6_Stellated_Tetrahedron.jpg" height="212" width="320" /></a></div>
Tensegrity is a 60's term coined by Buckminster Fuller that inspired Kenneth Snelson to make monumental artworks with cable and tubing, but the principles are building blocks for more than just pop sculpture. When applied to bones, some interesting origins of tendons and locomotion can be inferred. This is especially interesting to me when looking at naked bones of dinosaurs. Which bone is connected to which other bone? What did they look like with tendons holding muscle to bone? How did they get around? How did their skin stretch?<br />
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<a href="http://www.intensiondesigns.com/geometry_of_anatomy.html">Check out some cool bone tensegrity models here</a> and <a href="http://www.magicalrobot.org/BeingHuman/2010/04/introduction-to-biotensegrity">here</a>.POTUS31.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15744424476647208194noreply@blogger.com0