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Our Fascination With Tyrannosaurus Rex

Monday, October 28, 2019

Stand To by Herschel-Hoffmeyer

At the American Museum of Natural History in New York City stands a goliath: The most accurate reconstruction of Tyrannosaurus rex ever made.

And according to Mark Norell, head paleontologist at the museum, the exhibit is notable for some new ideas, such as the feathers. Newsflash: the king of the dinosaurs probably did look like it was wearing a bad toupee.

"And the eyes – one of the things that people don't understand is just how good these eyes were," Norell said. "Not only did these guys see in color, they see in more colors than we do."

A Tyrannosaurus Rex exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.   CBS NEWS

Looking at a juvenile T. rex model, Norell said, "So, it's hard to believe that this thing would grow up to be 40 feet long and weigh tons and tons and tons."

"It looks sort of like a road runner bird," said correspondent Martha Teichner.

"Well, they are very closely related to birds."

Cute, until they hit their growth spurt. "They grew really, really quickly between about the ages of six years old and 18 years old," Norell said. "Around six pounds a day during that time period."

And consider their teeth. "Just the overall bite force is around 8,000 pounds, which is tremendous, but the force on the tip of any single tooth is nearly half a million pounds," he said.

Yikes! Are you scared yet?

What do paleontologists call a pack of T. rexes? A terror of tyrannosaurs. The deadliest land predator ever to live is having a moment. Not only did the American Museum of Natural History launch its huge new exhibition this spring; the National Museum of Natural History, in Washington, D.C., has reopened its fossil hall around what it's billed as "the nation's T. rex." It's also the subject of commemorative stamps issued in August.

In fact, T. rex is America's dinosaur.  Every one of the 60 or so specimens found so far has come from the Western United States or from Canada. Most of them have nicknames: There's Sue in Chicago; Scotty in Saskatchewan; Bucky in Indianapolis, among others.

"Barnum Brown is probably the world's greatest dinosaur hunter," said Norell. "He was quite a character as well. He used to dress sometimes in a tie and a beaver skin coat in the field. He was a notorious womanizer.  He worked as an intelligence officer under the guise of being a paleontologist."

Named after P.T. Barnum, in 1902 Brown found the first fossil skeleton recognized as a T. rex, in Montana. In 1908 he found another, even better one. 

Tyrannosaurus Rex caused a sensation. Since the American Museum of Natural History put one of Brown's discoveries on display in 1915, dynomania has only increased.

Nearly 300 million Americans bought tickets to the five "Jurassic Park" movies. For fans who can't wait 'til the next one comes out in 2021, there's the Jurassic World Live Tour, coming to a city near you with life-size dino puppets and animatronics that operate like incredibly complicated giant radio-controlled cars.

A dinosaur tooth, which had been hidden in the rock strata of Montana for millions of years.  CBS NEWS

The show, like the films, plays on every kid's fantasy of meeting a dinosaur face-to-face (or at least digging one up).

What could be cooler than that? So, Teichner headed off to the Badlands of Montana – T. rex country – with a team from the University of Kansas led by paleontologist David Burnham.

Sixty-five to seventy million years ago, this was subtropical forestland, bordering a giant inland ocean. Burnham said, "What we're standing on is the last place dinosaurs can be found on this planet. They went extinct because a space rock crashed into the Earth."

Teichner asked, "How do you even know where to look?"

"What one has to do is learn how to read the rocks," Burnham replied. "You have that tan color sitting right on top of that gray mudstone there, and that interface for some reason tends to have more dinosaurs than any other interface."

One of Burnham's students found a T. rex here in 2017, a juvenile maybe 11 years old. The team named it Laurel. It is now in Burnham's lab at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, 15-20% complete.

That find, he said, was "incredibly huge. I mean, you don't find a juvenile T. rex every day."

KU student Jordan Van Sickler found Laurel's upper jaw in the summer of 2018.

It's incredibly hard work, scraping away, hour after hour, in what's called "the bone zone."  It's tedious with a capital T … until somebody finds something.  Less than an hour after "Sunday Morning" arrived on our first day, KU student Loren Gurche started turning up teeth. Then, volunteer Wes Benson found a tooth. "That particular tooth is literally the best find of my life," he said. "It hasn't seen the sunlight for, you know, 65, 66 million years until just now."

Each discovery is recorded in David Burnham's field book.

Volunteer Sara Naval, who got her "Jurassic Park" T-shirt in high school, has been dreaming dinosaur dreams ever since. "It's like looking for gold or treasure, but this was a breathing, humongous predator that was alive," she said.

Which is why, on her second day at the site, it was so exciting when Teichner found a T. rex tooth herself.Turns out the tooth belonged to another T. rex even younger than Laurel. 

Tally after four days of digging: 13 T. rex teeth and a bone. Not bad.

So, what else in in that hill, that's been keeping T. rex's secrets for 66 million years? 

Source: www.cbsnews.com/

15 Million-Year-Old Fsil Discovered in California After Fierce Earthquakes

Sunday, October 27, 2019

A crack from a July earthquake in Ridgecrest, Calif., which broke off a block containing a fossil. (Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP Photo)

Scientists in California have uncovered an oldie but goodie.

After back-to-back early earthquakes in Ridgecrest, Calif., a dislodged, 600-pound stone containing a fossilized torso was discovered.

Researchers believe the fossil is 15 million years ago. A July 4 earthquake, registering a 6.4 on the Richter scale, and a second stronger one the following day caused the break of a 4-foot-long block, which caused it to roll down onto a road, reported the Ventura County Star on Saturday.

Russell Shapiro, a California State-Chico paleontology professor, supposes the relic might be a small whale from when the Pacific Ocean covered coastal southern California.

But because the creature is missing its head, he can’t be certain. He theorizes it could also be that of a sea hippo.

“I really want to go back and look for (the head),” Shapiro joked.

A utility crew called an environmental consulting firm after spotting the block in mid-July. It sent a photo of the strange find to the business, for which Shapiro works.

6.4-magnitude earthquake, aftershocks rattle Southern California

He’s confident the rock dates back the Miocene epoch, which lasted between 23 million years and 5.3 million years ago.

“We think this particular one is probably about 15 million years old,” asserted Shapiro, who added he’s thrilled by the amount of material besides bone found in the block.

Rare vertebrae fossils are protected by federal laws and can not be destroyed, claimed Shaprio

Source: www.nydailynews.com/

Colorado Fossils Show How Mammals Rebounded After the Dinosaur Age Ended

Friday, October 25, 2019

An overhead view of fossil skulls and jaw pieces found at the study site in Colorado.  Image credits: HHMI Tangled Bank Studios

Corral Bluffs location contains fossils from a critical time in the evolution of mammals.

Scientists now have the best picture yet of how life on land recovered in the first million years after the age of dinosaurs, with the help of a surprising trove of thousands of fossils unearthed in Colorado, a new study finds.

Roughly 66 million years ago, the reign of the dinosaurs ended with the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event. "We were hit by this massive piece of metal moving 150,000 mph that blew this hole in the ground 120 miles across," said project co-leader Ian Miller, a paleobotanist at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.

Shedding light on how mammals ascended during the critical aftermath of the disaster would reveal insights "on the origin of the modern world," said project co-leader Tyler Lyson, a vertebrate paleontologist also at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. "The history of humans can be traced back to the survivors of this mass extinction."

But fossils from that time have been rare. Now Lyson, Miller and their colleagues have uncovered fossils from before and after the mass extinction that shed light on how animals and plants on land recovered from the catastrophe. They made their find at Corral Bluffs in central Colorado, a site that scientists have explored for fossils for nearly a century with little luck. The researchers shared their results in the journal Science

"Our first time out at Corral Bluffs, we hiked around for a few days and found basically nothing," Lyson said. "I could fit all the fossils I found in one hand."

Paleontologists are typically trained to hunt for fossils by looking for scraps of bone at the bases of hills, deducing where they might have washed down from, and digging there. But Lyson recalled that on digs in South Africa, scientists there showed him to look for a special type of rock called a concretion that forms around bone or other organic matter. In 2016, he saw a concretion "that looked sort of like a loaf of bread, an amorphous blob that didn't look like much. I picked it up, cracked it open with a rock hammer, and could see the cross-section of a mammal skull looking back at me."

"We found like four or five mammal skulls within a few minutes," Lyson added. "That was one of the most remarkable moments in my life." So far the scientists have found more than 1,000 vertebrate fossils and more than 6,000 plant fossils from after the extinction event. 

Before the extinction event, the site was home to tyrannosaurs, ankylosaurs, duck-billed hadrosaurs, triceratops and other dinosaurs, as well as turtles, fish, amphibians, crocodilians and mammals. They all lived in a forest among palm trees and towering conifers in a Miami-like climate, Miller said.

After the mass extinction, "the world was completely blanketed with ferns," Miller said. Before the extinction event, the largest mammals there weighed about 8 kilograms, but the survivors "weighed just half a kilo, or about the size of a rat," Lyson said.

By about 100,000 years after the mass extinction, palms started dominating the forests, and mammals quickly grew to reach their former size, Lyson said. "That's quite fast -- we were struck by how quickly that aspect of recovery occurred."

Starting about 300,000 years after the mass extinction, mammals jumped up in size, perhaps because of these new food sources such as members of the walnut family. "Mammals grew from the size of a raccoon to be about as big as a small pig, about 25 kilograms," Lyson said.

By about 700,000 years after the mass extinction, the world's oldest known legume fossils appear at this site. "At that exact same time, we find two of the largest mammals from this interval of the first million years after the mass extinction -- Taeniolabis, which was about 35 kilograms, or the size of a small capybara, and Eoconodon, which was about 50 kilograms, or about the size of a wolf," Lyson said. The researchers suspected calorie-rich legume bean pods might have again spurred animal growth.

The fossils were exceptionally preserved likely because of the newly uplifted Rocky Mountains about 10 kilometers west of the area. Water flowing down from the peaks regularly buried animal and plant remains, Lyson explained. 

"Sites like this are extremely rare, and I can't think of anything comparable in terms of the preservation of such a variety of plants and animals," said Anjali Goswami, a vertebrate paleobiologist at the Natural History Museum in London, who did not participate in this study. 

This discovery may shed light not just on the end-Cretaceous mass extinction, but on others from the Earth's history. 

Further, the scientists now hope to figure out which species the fossils they discovered are related to. Fossil evidence suggests that placental mammals -- those that, like humans, keep fetuses alive with placentas -- may have evolved after the end-Cretaceous mass extinction, and by analyzing mammals from that critical time, "we're hoping we can shed light on the mammal tree of life," Lyson added.

Source: www.insidescience.org/

Sam Neill Shares His Delight at Jurassic Park Cast Reunion on Franchise's New Film

Saturday, October 26, 2019

Sam Neill has taken to social media to document his joy at the some of the original Jurassic Park cast being back together.

"Did I mention, delighted to be working with these old friends again?" he wrote on Twitter.

"It's a dinosaur movie. I am unable to confirm whether Jeff will be taking his shirt off again, sorry. I'm a lot greyer now, but they are much the same."

The Kiwi actor is reprising his role as Dr Alan Grant in the upcoming Jurassic World 3 movie, directed by Colin Trevorrow.

Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum are also reappearing in their respective roles of Dr Ellie Sattler and Dr Ian Malcolm.

In a similar post on Neill's Instagram account he wrote that he was also looking forward to working with Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard, whose characters Owen Grady and Claire Dearing were introduced in 2015's Jurassic World.

"We always had a ball on the previous [movie], and are sure to again. They (Dern and Goldblum) are the bestest of best company," Neill wrote, alongside an image of the trio.

"I found those boots there the other day, the very same," he added. "Them boots was made for kicking raptors. Thought I should auction them off for charity; might get 10 bucks or something for them."

Neill and Dern last appeared in the franchise's third movie, Jurassic Park III (2001), while Goldblum was in The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018).

Laura Dern and Sam Neill in 1993's Jurassic Park. Photo / Supplied

The upcoming film represents the first time the trio have appeared together in one of the franchise's productions since 1993.

Jurassic World 3 is slated to be released in June 2021.

Source: www.nzherald.co.nz

Parmastega aelidae: Devonian Tetrapod Had Crocodile-Like Lifestyle

Friday, October 25, 2019

An artist’s reconstruction of the Devonian-period Sosnogorsk lagoon just before a storm. Image credit: Mikhail Shekhanov / Ukhta Local Museum.

Paleontologists have discovered the fossils of a new type of early tetrapod (four-limbed vertebrate) in the Komi Republic. Dubbed Parmastega aelidae, the ancient creature lived about 372 million years ago (Devonian period) and was an aquatic, surface-cruising animal.

“The first tetrapods evolved from fishes during the Devonian period, which ended about 360 million years ago,” said lead author Dr. Per Erik Ahlberg of Uppsala University and colleagues.

“For many decades, our idea of what they were like has been based on just a few genera, chiefly Ichthyostega and Acanthostega.”

“Most other Devonian tetrapods are known only from a few scraps of jaws or limb bones: enough to show that they existed, but not really enough to tell us anything useful.”

“Furthermore, Ichthyostega and Acanthostega lived at the very end of the Devonian period. Some of the fragmentary tetrapods are a lot older, up to 373 million years old, and the oldest fossil tetrapod footprints date back a whopping 390 million years.”

“So Devonian tetrapods have a long early history about which, until now, we have known very little. Parmastega aelidae changes all this.”

The fossilized remains of Parmastega aelidae were recovered from the Sosnogorsk Formation, a limestone formed in a tropical coastal lagoon, which is now exposed on the banks of the Izhma River in the Komi Republic. They are only marginally younger than the oldest fragmentary tetrapod bones.

Fish-like characteristics in some bones indicate that Parmastega aelidae is not only the earliest but also the most primitive of the well-preserved Devonian tetrapods.

“And what a strange creature it is,” the paleontologists said.

“Like other Devonian tetrapods, Parmastega aelidae is vaguely crocodile-like in shape, but its eyes are raised above the top of the head, and the curve of its snout and lower jaw create a disconcerting ‘grin’ that reveals its formidable teeth.”

“A clue to its lifestyle is provided by the lateral line canals, sensory organs for detecting vibrations in the water, which it inherited from its fish ancestors.”

“These canals are well-developed on the lower jaw, the snout and the sides of the face, but they die out on top of the head behind the eyes. This probably means that it spent a lot of time hanging around at the surface of the water, with the top of the head just awash and the eyes protruding into the air. But why?”

“Crocodiles do this today, because they are keeping an eye out for land animals that they might want to catch. We don’t know very much about the land that surrounded Parmastega aelidae’s lagoon, but there may have been large arthropods such as millipedes or sea scorpions to catch at the water’s edge.”

Parmastega aelidae’s slender, elastic lower jaw looks well-suited to scooping prey off the ground, its needle-like teeth contrasting with the robust fangs of the upper jaw that would have been driven into the prey by the body weight.

“The fossil material springs one final surprise: the shoulder girdle was made partly from cartilage, which is softer than bone, and the vertebral column and limbs may have been entirely cartilaginous as they are not preserved,” the researchers said.

“This strongly suggests that Parmastega aelidae, with its crocodile-like head and protruding eyes, never really left the water.”

“Did it creep up on prey at the water’s edge and surge onto the shore to seize it in its jaws, only to then slide back into the supporting embrace of the water? We don’t know.”

“Far from presenting a progressive cavalcade of ever more land-adapted animals, the origin of tetrapods is looking more and more like a tangled bush of ecological experimentation.”

The findings were published in the October 24, 2019 issue of the journal Nature.

_____

Pavel A. Beznosov et al. 2019. Morphology of the earliest reconstructable tetrapod Parmastega aelidaeNature 574: 527-531; doi: 10.1038/s41586-019-1636-y

Source: www.sci-news.com

Jurassic World 3: An Updated Cast List

Thursday, October 24, 2019

There are dinosaurs afoot in our modern world, and Jurassic World 3 looks to show the consequences of that fateful night the Lockwood Manor released a bunch of prehistoric beasts into the California wilds. We’ve already seen some of the fallout taking place in the live-action short Battle At Big Rock, but director Colin Trevorrow’s return to the franchise he helped revive will see a lot of characters from Jurassic past and present returning to take part in a huge sequel.

But, of course, there’s also some new additions to the Jurassic World 3 family that will help round out the human contingent of the adventure. And we’ve got a full list of the returning and debuting cast members ready for you to use in preparation for what might be the final Jurassic World film. At the moment, the following actors are slated to take part in Jurassic World 3.

Chris Pratt – Owen Grady

One of the two characters in this threequel who were introduced in Jurassic World, former raptor trainer Owen Grady has been along for the ride in this trilogy, all in the name of protecting his favorite co-worker: the Velociraptor named Blue. Reprising his role once again is actor Chris Pratt, who was most recently seen in Avengers: Endgame and will next be heard as a voice in the Disney/Pixar film Onward.

Bryce Dallas Howard – Claire Dearing

For almost every step of Owen’s journey in the Jurassic World saga, he’s been equally matched in wits and wisdom by the former park administrator-turned-dinosaur conservationist Claire Dearing. Played by Bryce Dallas Howard, her character is another important fixture to the story being told in Jurassic World 3, and much like Owen, she’ll be returning to the world of dinosaurs and humanity clashing in a battle for survival. Howard’s future projects also include directorial efforts on series such as The Mandalorian, as well as her feature film documentary Dads.

Isabella Sermon - Maisie Lockwood

Maisie Lockwood was revealed to be just as much of a product of genetic manipulation as the dinosaurs that she ultimately decided to free. A clone of an eccentric millionaire’s late daughter, she too was saved by Owen and Claire in the aftermath of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom’s climax at the Lockwood Manor. Isabella Sermon will be playing this role again in Jurassic World 3, and presumably will still be hanging around with Owen and Claire.

Jeff Goldblum – Dr. Ian Malcolm

Perhaps the greatest thing that Jurassic World 3 has promised the world is that it’s going to reunite the most legendary characters from the original Jurassic Park. While Dr. Grant and Dr. Sattler will be returning in this film, Jeff Goldblum’s Dr. Ian Malcolm had already come back to the fold with his bit part in the events of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. You can be sure Malcolm will be rather upset that the dinosaurs have been released, and now he’ll have two friends to bounce his scientific anger off of.

Sam Neill – Dr. Alan Grant

Last seen in Jurassic Park III, it’s almost fitting that Jurassic World 3 would be the film to bring Sam Neill’s Dr. Alan Grant into the modern world of the Jurassic franchise. While we don’t know what’s in store for Dr. Grant, and whether his adventure in that previous film will be acknowledged, we do know that Sam Neill has kept busy in recent years. Between television shows like Peaky Blinders and films like Thor: Ragnarok and The Commuter, we’ve gotten quite a bit of Neill on our screens as of late.

Laura Dern – Dr. Ellie Sattler

Laura Dern has been making the rounds in pop culture, both as the kick-ass Vice Admiral Holdo in Star Wars: The Last Jedi and as the tour de force of anger known as Renata Klein on HBO’s Big Little Lies. But before either of those gigs landed in her life, she helped save Jeff Goldblum from a Tyrannosaurus Rex in Jurassic Park as Dr. Ellie Sattler. This makes her very eager inclusion in Jurassic World 3’s cast not only essential, but an equally amazing prospect as seeing her colleagues return for more dinosaur action. While her experience with paleobotany might not be as handy in the Californian wilds as they were on Isla Sorna, Dr. Sattler surely has enough dino knowledge to keep herself, and her fellow survivors, alive in the field.

BD Wong – Dr. Henry Wu

Once in the employment of both Jurassic Park  and Jurassic World’s theme parks , Dr. Henry Wu found himself working for some rather shady types that wanted to weaponize and sell off the very dinosaurs he helped recreate during the events of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. Now, in Jurassic World 3, BD Wong’s return to the character he originated in Steven Spielberg’s original film may signal a return to the side of good. At least, one would hope that the fallout with the release and destruction of the Indoraptor would inspire him to do such a thing.

DeWanda Wise

Finally, rounding out the cast of Jurassic World 3 are two newcomers who are unknown in terms of their characters, but have made quite a splash as acting talents. First up is DeWanda Wise, best known as Nola from the Netflix series She’s Gotta Have It. With recent appearances in CBS All Access’ The Twilight Zone and the Netflix film Someone Great, Wise is now one of the leads in this Jurassic threequel, continuing the tradition of introducing exciting new characters to go along with the old favorites we already know and love.

Mamoudou Athie

Also coming onboard in a new and unspecified role is actor Mamoudou Athie. While Jurassic World 3 will see him facing off against dinosaurs of various species and temperaments, Athie is also about to battle something fierce and unknown in the sci-fi thriller Underwater, alongside Kristen Stewart. Other notable credits in Mamoudou Athie’s career include the Hugh Jackman political biopic The Front Runner, and his role as Basterd in the rap dramedy Patti Cake$.

This is a pretty extensive and impressive cast for what could be one of the biggest sequels in the near future. And as such, there’s no telling who else will join up to bring this next chapter of the Jurassic franchise to life. So as we have further casting updates, we’ll be refreshing this guide to reflect those additional parties and their connection to Jurassic World 3.

In the meantime, Jurassic World 3 is looking to start shooting in the near future, if it hasn’t already, and is slated to drop on June 11, 2021.

Source: www.cinemablend.com

This Inflatable Dinosaur Is One of Amazon’s Hottest Halloween Costumes Right Now

Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Shoppers gave it over 3,000 five-star reviews and call it the ‘best costume ever’

 

That viral T-rex costume you’ve likely seen all over Facebook is going to be everywhere this Halloween.

If Amazon’s list of best-sellers is any indication, this $45 inflatable dinosaur costume, which is currently at the top of its Movers and Shakers chart, is going to be wildly popular. The Prime-eligible costume has already racked up thousands of praise-filled reviews — not to mention, it’s been at the center of many buzzy news moments from viral pregnancy announcements to backyard weddings.

Buy It! Rubie’s Adult Size Jurassic World Inflatable Dinosaur Costume, $44.50; amazon.com

The child’s size design of the inflatable T-Rex costume is currently at the top of Amazon’s clothing charts, while the adult size (that also comes in plus and teen sizes) is also towards the top. Both of the blow-up jumpsuit costumes feature built-in fans that inflate the costume for you — no huffing and puffing required. You can even pay a little more for an upgraded version that features sound effects.

Buy It! Rubie’s Child’s Size Jurassic World T-Rex Inflatable Costume, $53.95 (orig. $59.99); amazon.com

Both kids and grownups rave about the costume, calling it the “best purchase ever made,” “hilarious,” and “worth every penny.” Just be sure to size up if you’re in-between sizes (reviewers claim it tends to run small), and make sure you have a few extra AA batteries on hand in case you need to add some more air mid-party. 

“This was seriously the very best and most fun I have ever had as an adult on Halloween,” one reviewer wrote. “My kids love dinosaurs and they were thrilled with these costumes. They were relatively easy to get on and off, quite warm for our cold Halloween, and a major hit with friends, family, and neighbors! No joke, they got extra candy at almost every house just because they made people laugh.”

“Best money ever spent on Amazon,” another chimed in. “Everyone loves this costume and I have so much fun wearing it. Worth every penny!! I am 5’4″ and about 120 pounds and there is lots of room. My brother is 6′ and about 175 and it fits him also.”

Those who plan to wear it for Halloween will be delighted to know that most reviewers have worn it well beyond October 31. In fact, if you take a quick look at the over 4,500 Amazon reviews, you’ll see that plenty of fun-loving owners have worn it to weddings, family parties, and other special occasions. 

“Best purchase I have ever made,” another reviewer wrote. “I didn’t even buy it for Halloween. I literally just wanted to dress up like a T-Rex from time to time. Life is tough, sometimes you just want to feel happy. My son loves it. I put it on and we have dance parties. It’s the little things. Two small thumbs on very short arms up!”

With this costume on hand, we have a feeling this will be your most rawr-some Halloween yet!

***If you make a purchase using the links included, we may earn commission.

Source: https://people.com

3D Tyrannosaurus rex Skull Model Brings Unexpected Results

Wednesday, October 23, 2019

A 3D image of a Tyrannosaurus rex skull showing muscle activation. University of Missouri scientists created one of the first 3D models showing how ligaments and joints in the skull of a Tyrannosaurus rex work. Courtesy of the MU News Bureau

The T. rex skull has long been considered to be wiggly like that of a bird or snake, but an MU team developed a 3D model that shows that might not have been the case.

One of the great mysteries in the fields of paleontology and anatomy may have been solved by an MU team that created a 3D model for the skull of a tyrannosaurus rex.

These scientists and researchers had long wondered how the dinosaurs were able to shatter bones of their prey without damaging their own skulls. MU scientists are now arguing that the T. rex’s skulls were stiff like those of mammals and crocodiles, rather than flexible like skulls of snakes and birds.

“Previous beliefs about T. rex assumed that T. rex had what we could call a wiggly head. More technically we would call it cranial kinesis,” Kaleb Sellers, a Ph.D. candidate who worked on the model, said.

This assumption was based only on looking at the dinosaur's joints and comparing them to the joints of modern animals with flexible skulls. By creating the 3D model, the team was able to show that it would make much more sense for the skull to be hard.

“Our research showed that anatomically and functionally, the evidence supports a stiff skull for T. rex,” Sellers said.

Casey Holliday, an associate professor of anatomy at the MU School of Medicine, further explained the relationship between the joints and skull to MU News Bureau.

“Dinosaurs are like modern-day birds, crocodiles and lizards in that they inherited particular joints in their skulls from fish — ball and socket joints, much like people’s hip joints — that seem to lend themselves, but not always, to movement like in snakes,” Holliday said to MU News Bureau. “When you put a lot of force on things, there’s a tradeoff between movement and stability.”

This broad principle, when applied specifically to the T. rex, showed why the evidence suggests a stiffer skull.

“Birds and lizards have more movement but less stability,” Holliday said. “When we applied their individual movements to the T. rex skull, we saw it did not like being wiggled in ways that the lizard and bird skulls do, which suggests more stiffness.”

Sellers said this type of 3D modeling can be used not just for the T. rex, but for all dinosaurs and even other animals with fossil records.

“The wider impact of this study on paleontology is that it provides a rigorous way to evaluate the wiggliness, or cranial kinetic status, of fossils,” Sellers said. “T. rex is a sexy example, but it's far from the only interesting animal that paleontologists have an interest in accurately reconstructing.”

Source: www.themaneater.com

Sinraptor Inaugurates New Dinosaur Coin Series From CIT

Tuesday, October 22, 2019

Evolution of Life – Sinraptor

Mongolia. 500 togrog. 2019. Silver .999. 1 oz. 38.61 mm. Antique finish. Mintage999. B. H. Mayer’s Kunstprägeanstalt, Munich.

Mongolia. 1,000 togrog. 2019. Gold .9999. 0.5 g. 11 mm. ProofMintage15,000. B. H. Mayer’s Kunstprägeanstalt, Munich.

Description of the Coin

The obverse features the coat of arms of the Bank of Mongolia, below, 500 togrog in Cyrillic script, in the exergue, MONGOLIA 1 oz .999 SILVER in Latin script.

The reverse features the skull and the claws of a Sinraptor; above, DINOSAURIA and JURASSIC PERIOD, below, EVOLUTION of Life 2019. While the rugged background is reminiscent of a rocky surface, the elaborately rose-gilded skeleton protrudes from the background.

The design of the gold coin’s obverse is the same, the legend was adapted and says therefore 1000 togrog and MONGOLIA 0.5 g .9999 GOLD; the reverse features the same fossil, but only its skull, below, Sinraptor, above, EVOLUTION 2019, small ammonite in front of the year.

Background

The term “dinosaur” derived from Greek and simply means “big lizard”. Because of the film Jurassic Park (1993), these creatures, which went extinct 66 million years ago, have become the epitome of prehistoric fauna.

CIT Coin Invest AG dedicated the fifth edition of its successful series “Evolution of Life” to dinosaurs.

They chose a dinosaur that populated the Mongolian steppe about 160 million years ago to represent this species: The Sinraptor dongi. This “Chinese predator” – that is the literal translation of Sinraptor – was discovered only in 1993 when several fossils were found at the Shishugou Formation, which borders Mongolia.

The dinosaur is named after the palaeontologist Dong Zhiming, who was called “China’s Mr. Dinosaur” by the magazine National Geographic. In the context of the persecution of intellectuals during the Cultural Revolution in China, Dong had been banned from Beijing to the Mongolian border. There, he measured and mapped unexplored territories. During his journeys, he discovered a site with numerous fossils in 1975. After the opening of China, Dong succeeded in having the region protected and he prospected the promising territory together with Canadian scholars. These examinations were financed by, among others by, Steven Spielberg, who had developed an interest in paleontology while directing the film Jurassic Park. Eleven new species were cataloged for the scientific world, including the Sinraptor dongi.

Given that this dinosaur measured 7.2 meters in length and weighed about a ton, it was quite difficult to adequately represent the enormous predator on the coin. Therefore, CIT Coin Invest AG’s designers decided to focus on the impressive skull. Finally, the characteristic skull bones make it possible to identify the Sinraptor as a dinosaur.

Further Information

www.cit.li/coins/sinraptor
www.cit.li/coins/sinraptor-2

Source: https://coinweek.com

Dinosaur-Killing Asteroid Rapidly Turned Oceans to Acid, Disrupted Climate

Tuesday, October 22, 2019

That's going to leave a mark.  Mark Garlick/Getty

New research shows rapid acidification of the ocean following the Chicxulub impact resulted in ecological collapse.

When a huge asteroid slammed into the surface of the Earth about 66 million years ago, it left life on the planet in ruins. The impact caused the last mass extinction event, spelling the end for the dinosaurs. Scientists have long debated exactly how the impact ended the reign of the terrible lizards, with many theories pointing to a disruption of the Earth's climate. New evidence suggests that this is, at least partially, true and that the massive collision caused rapid acidification of the oceans, driving ecological collapse.

The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday, examined the Geulhemmerberg Cave in the Netherlands, the Brazos River in Texas, deep-sea drill cores and Owl Creek in Mississippi to paint a picture of the immediate aftermath of the Chicxulub asteroid impact. The research team suggests that before the asteroid hit the Earth, the oceans were not increasing in acidity.

But afterward, there was a rapid decrease in pH, making the oceans significantly more acidic. At the Geulhemmerberg cave, researchers found the fossilized remains of tiny plankton known as foraminifera.

"In this cave, an especially thick layer of clay from the immediate aftermath of the impact accumulated, which is really quite rare," said Michael Henehan, a geoscientist and first author of the study, in a press release. "Because so much sediment was laid down there at once, it meant we could extract enough fossils to analyze, and we were able to capture the transition."

The fossils were dated to the asteroid impact and the team showed the event was so potent it prevented the plankton from building calcium carbonate shells.

This, they reason, would have caused the plankton to die out and the web of life to deteriorate. Notably, life in the ocean's upper layers would die out, disrupting the carbon cycle. According to the data, it was several million years before bouncing back.

In contrast to the new study, scientists also believe volcanism may have contributed to the downfall of the great lizards. Earlier this year, two studies in Science showed increased levels of volcanic activity from the Deccan Traps, massive volcanoes that started erupting around 400,000 years before the Chicxulub impact and could have expelled enough lava to circle the Earth.

Source: www.cnet.com

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