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'Jurassic World Aftermath' Lets You Play VR Hide-and-Seek With a Cartoon Velociraptor

Friday, December 18, 2020

Ever catch yourself watching that fraught kitchen scene with the kids from the first Jurassic Park film and wondering how well you’d handle a face-off against a cunning velociraptor? If so, then the new Oculus Studios exclusive Jurassic World Aftermath is your chance to test those nerves of steel.

“It’s about evasion,” says Brian Gomez, executive producer for Universal Games and Digital Platforms, of Aftermath’s stealth-and-puzzle-based gameplay. “It’s about really learning the velociraptor’s [thinking] … being able to read its body language. You’re going to spend a lot of time sneaking around the facility, hiding under desks, hiding in lockers, hiding in ventilation shafts, and observing.”

Gomez isn’t underselling the virtual reality experience. Aftermath, which launches this Thursday, Dec. 17 for $25 on the Quest platform, is primarily a game of cat and mouse that takes place on the fictional-but-familiar-to-Jurassic-fans setting of Isla Nublar. The game, developed by indie studio Coatsink, puts players in the shoes of Sam — a security expert tasked with infiltrating the ruins of notorious genetics company InGen’s dinosaur-ridden facility, in order to pillage trade secrets from its servers. The premise sounds straightforward enough except for the fact that you’re being hunted the entire time by wily velociraptors who can hear, and remember, your every noisy move.

“There were countless hours spent trying to balance the velociraptor because she was just so damn good,” Gomez says of the enemy dino’s artificial intelligence. “AI really [progressed] to the point where it was very few of us that could actually survive her. And I think we finally got to the point where, when you first start, you're probably going to die a lot. You're going to die a lot until you start learning her behavior and … reading her body language and audio cues.”

Aftermath’s sound design is absolutely crucial to successfully navigating the experience, so it’s best to play with headphones. Dr. Mia Everett, your offscreen partner (voiced by Laura Bailey of The Last of Us: Part II fame), will guide you through the experience, providing you with audio-based story updates and mission objectives. To progress, you’ll often need to pause and listen carefully to nearby sounds like approaching footsteps, clanging objects being knocked over, or the disquieting chirps of the chicken-sized compsognathus before blindly barreling ahead. Even something as innocuous as the rumbling growl of a nearby apatosaurus is enough to send players into a mild panic. 

Hello, "clever girl!" IMAGE: COATSINK / OCULUS / UNIVERSAL

Oh, and if you run too much, the noise you make will trigger the velociraptor’s curiosity and you’ll soon find yourself set on a red-screened course for imminent death. Instead, it’s best to play Aftermath slowly and quietly, relying on your wrist-worn compass for navigation and taking advantage of environmental triggers like an alarm or radio to distract the velociraptor and throw her off your trail while you solve puzzles. 

“You're essentially ringing the dinner bell for a velociraptor to go to a feeding station or something and go to an area of the lab,” Gomez says. “And that'll buy you 10 seconds to run to a new hiding space or do the thing you've got to do and get the hell out.”

I think she sees me. IMAGE: COATSINK / OCULUS / UNIVERSAL

Rest assured Aftermath isn’t straight-up VR horror, so players of varying degrees of mental fortitude will be able to stomach the game’s panic-inducing scenarios. Personally, I worried it would prove too intense for my tastes. After all, I still haven’t been able to beat Half Life: Alyx’s “Jeff” level and I also noped out of Alien: Isolation, both of which employ gameplay elements similar to Aftermath. But after a tense initial hour of play during which I remained in a crouch pose and very, very, very cautiously moved throughout the facility while occasionally turning noisy cranks so painfully slowly that it seemed five minutes had passed, my anxiety lessened. Aftermath isn’t a cheap game rife with jump scares akin to Five Nights at Freddy’s. If you make too much noise and alert the velociraptors, well, then that’s on you.

Coatsink worked closely with Gomez’s team at Universal to ensure a delicate balance to Aftermath’s fear-based gameplay so that it would be welcoming to all fans of the Jurassic franchise. 

“We just tried to strike a similar tone to the films because the films often move seamlessly from those moments of terror into those moments of wonder,” he says. 

“There's times where you've just spent the last 20 minutes playing hide-and-seek with a velociraptor and it's sort of super intense. And then you'll get to an area of the lab where you look out the window and there's a flock of pterodactyls flying by.”

Easing that tension somewhat is the game’s distinct, comic-book-like art style. The simple, flat-shaded look of the environments and dinosaurs, with their thick-inked outlines, helps to dial down the terror, making it easier for nervous players (like myself) to progress. And it makes sense: A one-on-one encounter with a cartoon velociraptor is much more tolerable for audiences than one with glistening teeth, flaring nostrils, and a feathery coat. It’s an intentional design shift away from the Jurassic franchise’s bread-and-butter aesthetic of realistic CGI dinosaurs.

“We wanted it to still be scary and affecting and immersive, even if it wasn't filmic — like photo-realism. But we also didn't want it to be so intimidating and so scary … [for] a huge portion of the Jurassic audience that doesn't want a totally visceral R-rated horror experience,” Gomez says.

But reducing the terror level isn’t the sole reason for Aftermath’s signature look, although it is a nice bonus. Gomez says it mostly has to do with the game’s art, AI, and sprawling environmental design fitting within the technological constraints of the mobile chipsets powering the Quest and Quest 2 headsets. This, he says, allowed the team “to create the Raptor behavior and the size of the facility.”

Players looking for a meaty, multi-hour stealth experience may be disappointed by Aftermath’s length. The game can be completed in about three hours’ time, but Gomez cautions that’s only for those who follow the “golden path,” making little to no mistakes and ignoring optional story content. I’ve logged about two hours with Aftermath so far and I’m only just past the first main objective. But, again, I’m playing very carefully because I don’t do well with horror, so your total playtime will obviously vary. If you find yourself wanting more after a full playthrough, hold tight — Coatsink plans to release a Part 2 DLC sometime in 2021 which, Gomez teases, will ramp up “the danger and the intensity.”

Brb, just need to change my underwear. IMAGE: COATSINK / OCULUS / UNIVERSAL

As for play style options, Aftermath offers the ability to toggle between standing or seated mode, as well as three comfort presets: comfortable, moderate, and intense. There’s also a custom option which lets you toggle your preferred settings for movement (sorry, there’s no teleport!), turning, and vignette strength. I’ve been playing on the moderate setting which adds a mild vignette to your peripheral vision while you move about the environment, and have had no issues whatsoever.

Oh, and for those looking for familiar faces from the Jurassic film franchise sprinkled throughout the game, I’m sorry to say you won’t find any in Aftermath. But you will hear them. That’s right, Jeff Goldblum and B.D. Wong have recorded original dialogue for the game, reprising their roles as Dr. Ian Malcolm and Dr. Henry Wu, respectively. 

No word on a Laura Dern easter egg, though. (A boy can dream.)

Source: https://mashable.com/

How They Designed The T-Rex Roar in 'Jurassic Park'

Thursday, December 17, 2020

One of the rare sound effects as iconic as its accompanying visual effect.

What are some of the most memorable movie sound effects? The threatening hum of an unsheathed lightsaber? What about the ghostly gurgling in The Grudge? Or the Wilhelm scream?

Well, for my money, there are few examples of sound design as singular, recognizable, and soul-shattering as the T. rex roar in Jurassic Park. Of the film’s three Academy Award wins, two were for sound. Jurassic Park is literally the reason the surround sound Digital Theatre System (DTS) was proliferated in American cinemas. Sound is an enormous part of how Jurassic Park tells its story, how it impresses a sense of awe, danger, and scale.

And in a sea of spectacular sound design, the T. rex roar stands out. It is a rare instance of a sound effect being as iconic as its accompanying visuals. And the film knows it. The introduction of the T. rex (and of its spine-tingling bellow) is one of the most spectacular scenes in the film.

       

We hear the T. rex well before we see it: a distant, low, and disturbingly steady thud. An unexpected storm has hit Isla Nublar at the same time a treacherous employee has disarmed the park’s security system. The electrical track powering the guests’ state-of-the-art jeeps has lost its charge. Which is unfortunate considering they’ve come to a stop right in front of the T. rex enclosure.

The bleats of a baited goat fall ominously silent as our heroes wait for the power to return. The plastic water cups on the dash begin to tremble. Suddenly, a bloody goat leg smacks the jeep’s sunroof — coinciding, as all good horror moments do, with a crack of lightning. An all-too-recognizable tiny arm tests the now un-electrified fence and a guttural growl rumbles through the rain.

The creature slashes through its pen, each footstep thundering with the weight of a felled sequoia. Glistening in the downpour, the T. rex bends forward and lets forth a deafening roar; a primal scream that tells you everything you need to know about its power, its size, and its intentions.

How’d they do that?

Long story short:

By mixing the recorded vocals of a baby elephant, a tiger, and an alligator.

Long story long:

Like most of Jurassic Park‘s dinosaur sound effects, to create the roar of a long-dead reptile from scratch, sound designer Gary Rydstrom looked to … less extinct creatures. Rydstrom and his team spent months recording animal vocalizations, which were then experimentally mixed and edited.

As Rydstrom recalled to NPR in 2013: “We started recording all kinds of weird animal sounds … I tried to get every interesting animal recording we could find, not even caring right away what they would be for … Then you try to sift through [the recordings] in the studio and see what’s interesting.”

And in a 2015 interview with Vulture, he explained, “One of the fun things in sound design is to take a sound and slow it down It becomes much bigger.”

To accomplish the theater-shaking T. rex roar, Rydstrom was looking to create something that sounded otherworldly and massive but still believable and organic. And, most importantly: he was trying to establish an ancient, elemental enemy.

According to the behind-the-scenes book The Making of Jurassic Park: An Adventure 65 million Years in the Making, the infamous roar of the T. rex was a composite mix of a baby elephant’s squeal, and alligator’s gurgle, and a tiger snarl.

The very deep alligator vocals acted as the low-frequency element of the final roar. However, as Rydstrom stresses, the key part of the sound is the high-frequency element: the baby elephant.

Pictured: a very angry and very hungry baby elephant.

Rydstrom describes how, during the recording session, the baby elephant only did the iconic “cute high-pitched scream” that forms the basis of every T. rex roar in the film once. “We kept trying to get it to do it again, and the handlers were saying, ‘We never heard it do that before; that’s a weird sound.'”

As Rydstrom stresses, the introduction of the T. rex is a scene expressly planned around sound design. “I think maybe other directors would have had a shock moment where you see the T. rex show up out of the blue … Spielberg was great in the T. rex scene by getting several minutes of tension because you knew what was coming. And you knew it because you heard it before you saw it … it’s nice when movies think about sound that way.”

What’s the precedent?

First off, you may be wondering what a real-life T. rex sounded like. Well, as anyone with a passing fancy in paleontology will tell you, there is a sizable discrepancy between the portrayal of dinosaurs in popular culture and what we know about them from the fossil record. And look: scientific consensus and what best serves the story aren’t necessarily the same thing. After all, managing realism with what compels an audience is one of the great balancing acts of movie-making.

To boot, when Jurassic Park was being filmed, only seven (ish) T. rex skeletons had been discovered. So suffice to say: what the creature sounded like was up in the air. Creative liberties are more than understandable when something’s been extinct for roughly sixty-five million years.

For the curious: the best guess is that a real-life T. rex probably sounded like their closest living relatives: Crocodilia and birds. A study from 2016 suggests the T. rex did not roar, let alone open its mouth to communicate. Instead, they relied on closed-mouth vocalizations. They likely hooted, cooed, and boomed, not unlike modern-day emus and ostriches — which is way more ominous than what you’re imagining, trust me.

To Rydstrom’s credit, the throaty sound the T. rex makes right before and after it engulfs the goat does bear a resemblance to this kind of throaty vocalization. The source of that particular sound effect could be an alligator or a koala, both of which Rydstrom cites as part of the mix. Experts, weigh in!

Most dinosaurs didn’t have larynxes or syrinxes (a vocal organ found in birds) and likely relied instead on deep bass vibrations that humans potentially couldn’t hear but could almost certainly feel if the source was big enough. Think of that vibrating water glass on the jeep dashboard, but instead, it’s your bones.

So, if anything, T. rex sounded like the opening cellos in the Jaws theme. It’s all rumble and no roar, but somehow that’s just as — if not more — terrifying.

The first cinematic debut of the Tyrannosaurus rex was all the way back in 1918 with The Ghost of Slumber Mountain. The silent film featured stop-motion animation by the great Willis O’Brien, who would go on to also animate the dinosaurs in 1925’s The Lost World.

Eight years later, O’Brien lent his talents — and his dinosaur models — to 1933’s King Kong, which, notably, was a sound picture. In King Kong, the T. rex‘s shrieks are a mix of cougar screams and the sound of compressed air. Kong’s own roar was a combination of lion and tiger vocalizations. Technicians then played the resulting mix slowly in reverse.

In truth, creating a mix out of animal sounds is one of the oldest tricks in the sound editor playbook. To this point: Rydstrom’s mentor, Ben Burtt, used animal recordings for many beasts in Star Wars. Burtt created Chewbacca’s voice by mixing walrus, camel, and tiger sounds. He also used slowed down audio of a “bathtub full of raccoons” for Dagobah’s unseen swampy wildlife.

Both the fearsome Rancor and the yeti-like Wampa made use of elephant sounds recorded at the Oakland Zoo. Burtt created the calls of the lumbering Tauntaun with “an Asian Sea Otter that was recorded at a game farm to the south of [San Francisco].” Horse whinnies played backward brought the horrible asteroid-dwelling Mynocks to life.

If there is a roar as iconic and thunderous as the T. rex‘s in Jurassic Park, it’s titular King of Monsters in Godzilla. Reportedly, the team of the 1954 original film experimented with various animal sounds. But they were unable to achieve the desired sense of unfamiliarity and scale.

According to the film’s composer, Akira Ifukube, the problem was that no matter how many combinations and distortions they tried, the result was always too recognizable. Eventually, Ifukube found a deep, grating solution: rubbing a coarse leather glove coated in resin up and down the lowest string of a contrabass.

Ultimately, for all its creativity and precedent, the singular power of Jurassic Park‘s T. rex roar is a narrative one. As Rydstrom put it during a 2004 talk hosted by the American Cinematheque and MPSE (Motion Picture Sound Editors): “Sound effects, to me, are not just to make the unbelievable believable … They’re really there for the sake of storytelling … to give us a sense of fear [and] a sense of who these dinosaurs are.”

Well, in one sound we know exactly who the T. rex is, at least in this story (and in our nightmares). We probably won’t look at baby elephants the same way again.

Source: https://filmschoolrejects.com/

Here's What Happened To The Jeep Wrangler From Jurassic Park

Thursday, December 17, 2020

The Jeep Wrangler from Jurassic Park (1993) is One of those Film Cars No One Forgets, it has a sense of Adventure which matched that of the Film's Theme and Tone.

Due to the many iterations of the Wrangler in the film, it is hard to define where they all are now. To add to that, there are many replica versions out there as well. But we have done our best to find out where they are.

Steven Spielberg's illustrious filmography includes many great mentions, from any of the Indiana Jones Trilogy to the worlds-first summer blockbuster, Jaws in 1975. And, Jurassic Park (1993), at the very least, has to be included in the top 5 of Speilberg's filmography. It's a Spielberg classic with its adventurous story plot to its engaging characters. A must watch for any film lover or Jeep lover, or if you like dinosaurs then you might enjoy this film too.

Jurassic Park & The Jeep Wrangler.

There are two stand-out vehicles that make an appearance in the film, the Ford Explorer and the Jeep Wrangler. The Explorer's were used by the tourists as they made their way around the park, from the Visitors Centre to the park's "safe" enclosures. Jeep Wrangler's were used to ferry people to and from the airport and the park's main building. During the dinosaurs break out scenes, some characters attempted to escape the island in one of the Wrangler units, the keyword being 'attempted to'. The ruggedness of the Jeep Wrangler came in handy when the other characters were being chased by a T-Rex. Something Chrysler, Jeep's parent company, did not have in mind when they designed the Wrangler.

Jeeps were first produced during World War 2 and the Wrangler is a direct family member to those military models but for general public use. The first Wrangler CJ-7 being released in 1986. CJ standing for Civilian Jeeps. From then on, Jeep has played around with its wheelbase, having been a 2-door model then including a 5-door model. Despite its long history, the Wrangler's overall aesthetic and design haven't been changed much. The only real mention is the shape of the front headlights going from square to round, flip-flopping back and forth between models. The Jeep Wrangler's design and usability are a huge positive for its sales and re-sales, as a 2018 iSeeCars.com study named the Wrangler as the vehicle with the lowest depreciation after 5-years. So if you are lucky enough to own one, you are sitting on a quality used car.

Where Is It Now?

As the film turned out to be quite popular during its release and long after. There are many replica versions of the Jurassic Park Jeep Wrangler on the market, some even fetching a decent amount; one going for $9,000. Depending on the quality of the replica attempt, some of the versions are very realistic and picture-perfect, others are paint-job enthusiasts.

The actual models used in the making of Jurassic Park were modified by Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) for production purposes. Each Wrangler having a specific unit number, the known vehicle units are; 10, 12, 14, 18, 29. Therefore, identifying the original models used in production is hard to do unless you have the chassis numbers.

However, it seems the Jeep Wrangler models from Jurassic Park were kept by Universal Pictures themselves. They have been making a reappearance in the latest films Jurassic World. But the original models have been kept in private collections and only showed to the public during museum exhibits or car shows. There is no real evidence on the internet to say that an original model is in public circulation.

But here are the models that anyone can go visit if you are in their vicinity. Wrangler unit 12 is calmly sat in Islands of Adventure at Universal Studios, Orlando. Wrangler unit 10 sat for your viewing at Universal Studios, Hollywood. And there are a couple of fan-made replicas that can be seen in New York, Florida, and Texas.

However, if you are not wanting to travel all that way to have a peek at the original models in Universal Studios. And you happen to have a 1992 Jeep Sahara Wrangler in your possession and are thinking of a new paint job. We have found a handy little how-to guide in getting your Wrangler to look as if it's just driven off the set of Jurassic Park. It has everything you need, paint codes, design layouts, decals, and other specifications. The video below showcases the intense detail the guide goes into.

Source: www.hotcars.com/

Ubirajara jubatus Had Impressive Mane and Shoulder Ribbons

Thursday, December 17, 2020

Life restoration of Ubirajara jubatus. Image credit: Bob Nicholls, paleocreations.com.

A maned theropod dinosaur with elaborate filamentous structures has been identified by a research team led by University of Portsmouth paleontologists.

The newly-discovered dinosaur species lived about 110 million years ago (Aptian stage of the Cretaceous period) in what is now Brazil.

Named Ubirajara jubatus, the ancient animal was chicken-sized with a mane of long fur down its back.

It also had long, flat, stiff shoulder ribbons of keratin, each with a small sharp ridge running along the middle. Its arms were covered in fur-like filaments down to the hands.

“What is especially unusual about the beast is the presence of two very long, probably stiff ribbons on either side of its shoulders that were probably used for display, for mate attraction, inter-male rivalry or to frighten off foe,” said co-author Professor David Martill, a paleontologist in the School of the Environment, Geography and Geosciences at the University of Portsmouth.

“We cannot prove that the specimen is a male, but given the disparity between male and female birds, it appears likely the specimen was a male, and young, too, which is surprising given most complex display abilities are reserved for mature adult males.”

“Given its flamboyance, we can imagine that the dinosaur may have indulged in elaborate dancing to show off its display structures.”

Ubirajara jubatus’ mane is thought to have been controlled by muscles allowing it to be raised, in a similar way a dog raises its hackles or a porcupine raises its spines when threatened.

“Any creature with movable hair or feathers as a body coverage has a great advantage in streamlining the body contour for faster hunts or escapes but also to capture or release heat,” Professor Martill said.

“The elaborate plumage of Ubirajara jubatus might have improved its chances of survival,” added lead author Robert Smyth, also from the School of the Environment, Geography and Geosciences at the University of Portsmouth.

The holotype of Ubirajara jubatus preserved as slab and counter slab. Image credit: Smyth et al., doi: 10.1016/j.cretres.2020.104686.

The fossilized partial skeleton of Ubirajara jubatus was collected from the Lower Cretaceous Crato Formation of Northeast Brazil.

Ubirajara jubatus is the first non-avian dinosaur to be described from Brazil’s Crato Formation, a shallow inland sea laid down about 110 million years ago,” the paleontologists said.

“It is also the first non-avian dinosaur found on the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana with preserved skin.”

Ubirajara jubatus is not only important because of the integumentary structures present for the first time in a non-avian dinosaur, completely changing the way of seeing the behavior of certain dinosaurs,” said co-author Dr. Hector Rivera Sylva, a paleontologist at the Museo del Desierto, Mexico.

“Rather, the scientific value transcends, forming a watershed, since it is the first evidence for this group in Latin America, as well as one of the few reported for the subcontinent of Gondwana, expanding the knowledge about non-avian feathered dinosaurs for America, whose evidence is very scarce.”

The discovery is reported in a paper in the journal Cretaceous Research.

_____

Robert S.H. Smyth et al. A maned theropod dinosaur from Gondwana with elaborate integumentary structures. Cretaceous Research, published online December 13, 2002; doi: 10.1016/j.cretres.2020.104686

Source: www.sci-news.com/

Paleontologists Reconstruct Neuroanatomy of Thecodontosaurus antiquus

Wednesday, December 16, 2020

Life restoration of Thecodontosaurus antiquus. Image credit: Mario Lanzas / CC BY-SA 4.0.

A team of paleontologists from the University of Bristol and the Oxford University Museum of Natural History has digitally reconstructed the brain of Thecodontosaurus antiquus, a species of small sauropodomorph dinosaur that lived some 205 million years ago (Late Triassic period), and found that this dinosaur may have eaten meat, was bipedal, and had adaptations to retain a steady head and gaze while moving.

“Our analysis of Thecodontosaurus antiquus’ brain uncovered many fascinating features, some of which were quite surprising,” said lead author Antonio Ballell Mayoral, a Ph.D. student in the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol.

“Whereas its later relatives moved around ponderously on all fours, our findings suggest this species may have walked on two legs and been occasionally carnivorous.”

Using CT scanning, the researchers created detailed 3D models of Thecodontosaurus antiquus’ brain and identified previously unseen anatomical details.

“Even though the actual brain is long gone, the software allows us to recreate brain and inner ear shape via the dimensions of the cavities left behind,” Ballell Mayoral said.

“The braincase of Thecodontosaurus antiquus is beautifully preserved so we compared it to other dinosaurs, identifying common features and some that are specific to Thecodontosaurus antiquus.”

“Its brain cast even showed the detail of the floccular lobes, located at the back of the brain, which are important for balance. Their large size indicate it was bipedal.”

“This structure is also associated with the control of balance and eye and neck movements, suggesting Thecodontosaurus antiquus was relatively agile and could keep a stable gaze while moving fast.”

Braincase and endocast of Thecodontosaurus antiquus. Image credit: Antonio Ballell / BioRender.com / PhyloPic.org.

The scientists were also able to reconstruct the inner ears of Thecodontosaurus antiquus, allowing them estimate how well it could hear compared to other dinosaurs.

The dinosaur’s hearing frequency was relatively high, pointing towards some sort of social complexity — an ability to recognize varied squeaks and honks from different animals.

“Our analysis showed parts of the brain associated with keeping the head stable and eyes and gaze steady during movement were well-developed,” Ballell Mayoral said.

“This could also mean Thecodontosaurus antiquus could occasionally catch prey, although its tooth morphology suggests plants were the main component of its diet. It’s possible it adopted omnivorous habits.”

“It’s great to see how new technologies are allowing us to find out even more about how this little dinosaur lived more than 200 million years ago,” said senior author Professor Mike Benton, a paleontologist in the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol.

The findings were published in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.

_____

Antonio Ballell et al. The braincase, brain and palaeobiology of the basal sauropodomorph dinosaur Thecodontosaurus antiquusZoological Journal of the Linnean Society, published online December 14, 2020; doi: 10.1093/zoolinnean/zlaa157

Source: www.sci-news.com/

4 Tips and Tricks to playing Jurassic World Evolution: Complete Edition on Nintendo Switch

Wednesday, December 16, 2020

To help you get off to the best possible start in Jurassic World Evolution: Complete Edition, we’ve compiled four essential gameplay tips.

1 - Connect your hatchery

Building a hatchery for each enclosure can get expensive. Instead, connect your hatchery to a temporary holding enclosure. You can then connect it to other enclosures via gates, and transport dinosaurs using the ACU’s transport team. It’s a great way to save cash.

2 - Take pics

Another way to get money quickly is by selling photos. To do it, take control of a ranger team and drive into your enclosure for an up-close and personal look at your dinosaurs. The more dinosaurs are in shot, and the better their poses, the more cash you’ll get.

3 - Perfect palaeobotany

Keep an eye on which species of dinosaur are in the enclosure when looking at the palaeobotany rating. If they’re in the same dinosaur family, the plants don’t need to be varied, leading to a rating boost.

4 - Feeder placement matters

Are your ranger teams getting attacked when they enter enclosures? There’s a simple way to fix this. Place feeders near the enclosure gates and you’ll reduce the chances of harassment. After all, the rangers are just trying to help.

We hope these tips help your park flourish. There’s so much to discover in Jurassic World Evolution: Complete Edition, so start playing today!

Source: https://fullsync.co.uk/

Jurassic World 3 Undergoes Some Alterations, Jeff Goldblum Shares Details

Tuesday, December 15, 2020

Jurassic World franchise took several years before they could set in a reboot for the original movie called Jurassic Park. Now the dinosaur devotees are ardently looking forward to the making of Jurassic World 3.

Fans are wondering how Jurassic World 3 titled Jurassic World: Dominion could end the franchise. Do they need to give a satisfying end for the trilogy? Jurassic World 3 requires to explain what happened with the freed dinosaurs give Owen and Clare's indecisive relationship a happy (or at least conclusive) ending, and do justice to the returning legacy cast by wrapping up the long-running InGen/BioSyn rivalry neatly, Screenrant claimed.

The making of Jurassic World 3 titled Jurassic World: Dominion was badly affected due to the prevailing Covid-19 pandemic. We all know how China's Wuhan-emerged coronavirus and its transformation into a global pandemic crippled the entertainment industry with unfathomable financial losses. Almost all the entertainment projects were halted and postponed for indefinite time.

However, Jurassic World aka Jurassic World: Dominion saw its story tweaked to fit in the wake of coronavirus pandemic. The imminent film will explore the issue of humanity's place in the natural scheme of things. Some alterations were made to the movie for reflecting the current state of things, as revealed by star Jeff Goldblum (speaking to EW).

"There are things that my character talks about, has always talked a little bit about, the fragility of our species and the global cooperation that's needed and the foundation and science that is needed. Oh, and the ethical use of science that's needed to unite us in trust and connectedness as a family. To reach our potential and do right by ourselves and this glorious planet -- all of that. So all of those things are now as you can imagine more relevant than ever. In many aspects of this [Dominion] plot, there are other things we're kind of finding that are kind of apropos, but there are some sensitive things they are tweaking and adjusting to make it right for now, and contributive and nourishing for right now," Jeff Goldblum opined.

House of Cards star Campbell Scott will be seen reprising the role of Dr. Lewis Dodgson in Jurassic World 3. He is likely to play one of the villains in the movie. The upcoming movie Jurassic World 3 is set to bring back many of the lovable characters from previous instalments. Those include Jurassic Park alums Laura Dern, Sam Neill, Jake Johnson, Justice Smith, Bryce Dallas Howard and Omar Sy Daniella Pineda to name a few, all of whom are returning as their characters from the 1993 original movie, revealed Movie Web.

Jurassic World 3 titled Jurassic World: Dominion was previously set to hit the big screens on June 11, 2021 but was later pushed back to June 10, 2022. Stay tuned to Devdiscourse to get the latest updates on the Hollywood movies.

Source: http://unitedbacke.xyz/

115,000-Year-Old Iguana Nest Fossil Found on San Salvador Island

Tuesday, December 15, 2020

Illustration shows a cross section of the prehistoric iguana burrow, and how the surrounding landscape may have looked during the Late Pleistocene epoch. Image credit: Anthony Martin.

A trace fossil preserved in the Grotto Beach Formation on San Salvador Island, the Bahamas, is the first known fossil example of an iguana nesting burrow.

Iguanas are relatively large terrestrial lizards that are primarily native to Central America, South America, the Caribbean, and the Bahamas.

They can grow up to 1.8 m (6 feet) in length, including their tails. Despite their large size, formidable claws and fierce-looking spikes arrayed on their backs, iguanas are mostly herbivores.

The fossil record for iguanas goes back to the Late Cretaceous period in South America.

Their skeletal remains are well represented in Paleogene, Neogene, and Quaternary rocks. However, their trace fossils, whether as tracks, burrows, coprolites, or additional sign, remain unreported.

“One of the cool things about iguanas is that they are survivors,” said Professor Anthony Martin, a paleontologist in the Department of Environmental Sciences at Emory University.

“And one of the main ways that they survive is through burrowing.”

“Digging burrows has helped them survive hurricanes, droughts and other bad things that might be in their environment, like most predators. But burrows are not as helpful when it comes to rats and pigs.”

During a stop on the shoreline road on the south end of San Salvador Island, Professor Martin and colleagues happened to notice an unusual trace fossil on the limestone outcrop.

After further investigation, they determined that the fossil they found was that of a nesting iguana burrow.

They also were able to date the fossil to about 115,000 years ago due to tell-tale red paleosols.

Professor Martin next to the Pleistocene iguana burrow. Image credit: Melissa Hage.

“San Salvador is one of the outer-most islands in the Bahamas chain and really isolated,” Professor Martin said.

“It’s a mystery how and when the modern-day San Salvadoran rock iguanas arrived there. Today, they are among the rarest lizards in the world, with only a few hundred of them left.”

The San Salvador rock iguana (Cyclura riyeli riyeli), a terrestrial and burrow-nesting subspecies of rock iguana, lives on modern-day San Salvador.

This and other rock iguanas were plentiful throughout the Bahamas before 1492, when European ships began introducing rats, pigs and other invasive species that feed on the lizards’ eggs.

The oldest iguana skeletons found on San Salvador only date back less than 12,000 years (Holocene epoch), so the discovery of the iguana trace burrow pushes their presence on the islands back significantly.

“We’re hoping researchers who study iguana evolution will be inspired by our paper to dig deeper into this question,” Professor Martin said.

The team’s paper was published in the journal PLoS ONE.

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A.J. Martin et al. 2020. First known trace fossil of a nesting iguana (Pleistocene), The Bahamas. PLoS ONE 15 (12): e0242935; doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0242935

Source: www.sci-news.com/

Scientists Discover Sauropod Footprints in Tibet

Wednesday, December 16, 2020

A drawing of the sauropod species (Provided to Xinhua)

A team of international scientists announced that they have discovered a group of dinosaur footprints in southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region.

The team consisting of experts from China, the United States (US) and Germany found about 99 footprints in sandstone in the region’s Qamdo City.

According to their findings, published in the academic journal Historical Biology earlier this month, these footprints ranging from 22cm to 99.3cm in length are believed to have been left by large, medium and small-sized sauropods dating back to the Middle Jurassic period, about 176 to 161 million years ago.

Researchers work at a dinosaur footprint site in Qamdo, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, April 3, 2019. (Provided to Xinhua)

Scientists estimate that these dinosaurs measured 22 metres, 10 metres and five metres in length.

These footprints will enrich the dinosaur records in Qamdo, lead researcher of the team and an associate professor with the China University of Geosciences Xing Lida told Xinhua yesterday.

Xing noted that the site of the large footprints is a famous tourist attraction and has become part of a folkloric legend, as locals believe the sauropod footprints were left by the mythological warrior King Gesar.

Source: https://borneobulletin.com.bn/

Land-Dwelling Dinosaur Relatives Bridge Gap to Origin of Pterosaurs

Tuesday, December 15, 2020

Ixalerpeton, a species of lagerpetid that lived in what is now Brazil approximately 233 million years ago. Image credit: Rodolfo Nogueira.

Pterosaurs were highly successful reptiles that lived between 210 and 65 million years ago. They were the first vertebrates to evolve powered flight, but their origin has remained an unresolved enigma in paleontology since the 19th century. With the help of pterosaur skulls and skeletons that were unearthed in North America, Brazil, Argentina, and Madagascar in recent years, a team of paleontologists has now demonstrated that flightless dinosaur precursors called lagerpetids (family Lagerpetidae) are the sister group of pterosaurs.

Pterosaurs are deeply rooted in popular culture, are frequently portrayed in books and films, and include the largest flying animals ever known. Their evolutionary history spans more than 150 million years, ending at the close of the Mesozoic era.

The oldest pterosaurs are from the Upper Triassic period (219-201.3 million years ago) of Europe and North America and they diversified into several groups by the Middle-Late Jurassic periods.

The oldest recognized pterosaurs already had a highly specialized body plan linked to their ability to fly, which was conserved in all pterosaus.

“The first pterosaurs were found during the 18th century and, from that time, it was observed that they had an anatomy, a body plan that was very different from that of other known reptiles, having wings formed by membranes, supported by an hyperdeveloped fourth finger of the hand (the ring finger in humans), which is a unique feature of pterosaurs,” said lead author Dr. Martín Ezcurra, a paleontologist at the Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales, CONICET and the University of Birmingham.

“Since then, and during the next 250 years, one of the main mysteries of vertebrate paleontology was who were the closest terrestrial relatives of these flying reptiles and thus be able to understand how this evolutionary transition occurred.”

“The origin of the flying reptiles was one of the great enigmas of paleontology and evolutionary biology as a whole,” said co-author Dr. Federico Agnolin, a paleontologist at the Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales, CONICET and the Universidad Maimónides.

“Now, we know that there was an intermediate step in the lagerpetids, terrestrial reptiles that look similar to a lizard, which could not fly, but that, in this study, we could already observe some evolutionary steps in their brain and inner ears that were adaptations that later would have allowed pterosaurs to develop flight.”

The lagerpetids were small, wingless reptiles that lived across Pangea during much of the Triassic period, from 237 to 210 million years ago.

In their research, Dr. Ezcurra, Dr. Agnolin and their colleagues used micro-computed tomographic (μCT) scanning to examine fragile skull bones (jaws, skull roofs and braincases) and associated skeletal remains of lagerpetids.

They determined that the lagerpetid brains and sensory systems had many similarities with those of pterosaurs.

“Some of these delicate fossils were collected nearly 80 years ago, and rather than destructively cutting into the first known skull of a lagerpetid species called Dromomeron gregorii, we were able to use this technology to carefully reconstruct the brain and inner ear anatomy of these small fossils to help determine the early relatives of pterosaurs,” said co-author Dr. Michelle Stocker, a researcher in the Department of Geosciences at Virginia Tech.

One stark and mystifying finding was that the flightless lagerpetids had already evolved some of the neuroanatomical features that allowed the pterosaurs to fly, which brought forth even more information on the origin of flight.

“From the CT scans, we discovered that lagerpetids shared a number of unique characteristics with pterosaurs, which allowed them to have greater agility,” Dr. Ezcurra said.

“One of these characteristics is that in the cerebellum of lagerpetids and pterosaurs, there is a structure called flocculum, highly developed in both, which is interpreted as an evolutionary adaptation that gave them a greater capacity for processing information.”

“For example, between the eye, the rest of the head and the members of the body, so they could have greater visual coordination.”

Now that lagerpetids are deemed the precursors of pterosaurs, paleontologists can say that pterosaurs evolved at the same rate as other major reptile groups, thanks to the newly-discovered ‘middle man.’

“Flight is such a fascinating behavior, and it evolved multiple times during Earth’s history,” said co-author Dr. Serjoscha Evers, a researcher in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Oxford and the Department of Geosciences at the University of Fribourg.

“Proposing a new hypothesis of their relationships with other extinct animals is a major step forward in understanding the origins of pterosaur flight.”

Some questions still remain in this evolutionary mystery. Now that lagerpetids are the closest relatives of pterosaurs, why are they still lacking some of the key characteristics of pterosaurs, including the most outstanding of those — wings?

“We are still missing lots of information about the earliest pterosaurs, and we still don’t know how their skeletons transformed into an animal that was capable of flight,” said co-author Dr. Sterling Nesbitt, a researcher in the Department of Geosciences at Virginia Tech.

The findings appear in the journal Nature.

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M.D. Ezcurra et al. Enigmatic dinosaur precursors bridge the gap to the origin of Pterosauria. Nature, published online December 9, 2020; doi: 10.1038/s41586-020-3011-4

This article is based on press-releases provided by Virginia Tech and CTyS-UNLaM Agency.

Source: www.sci-news.com/

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