Feature Channels: Dinosaurs

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17-Jul-2018 12:30 PM EDT
Newly Discovered Armored Dinosaur From Utah Reveals Intriguing Family History
University of Utah

Fossils of a new genus and species of an ankylosaurid dinosaur—Akainacephalus johnsoni-- have been unearthed in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah, U.S.A., and are revealing new details about the diversity and evolution of this group of armored dinosaurs.

Released: 22-Jun-2018 4:00 PM EDT
Smithsonian Snapshot: “When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth”
Smithsonian Institution

This stamp, featuring the 1993 movie Jurassic Park’s iconic Tyrannosaurus rex, was released by the U.S. Postal Service in 2000 as part of a souvenir sheet “Celebrate The Century: 1990s.” Legendary movie-poster artist Drew Struzan illustrated the stamp. He is known for his more than 150 movie posters, including all the films in the Indiana Jones, Back to the Future and Star Wars film series.

Released: 5-Jun-2018 3:05 AM EDT
Red Tide Fossils Point to Jurassic Sea Flood
University of Adelaide

Dinosaur-age fossilised remains of tiny organisms normally found in the sea have been discovered in inland, arid Australia – suggesting the area was, for a short time at least, inundated by sea water 40 million years before Australia’s large inland sea existed.

Released: 24-May-2018 3:20 PM EDT
Asteroid Impact Grounded Bird Ancestors
Cornell University

An international team of scientists has concluded the asteroid that smashed into Earth 66 million years ago not only wiped out the dinosaurs, but erased the world’s forests and the species that lived in trees. The researchers say only small ground-dwelling birds survived the mass extinction, profoundly changing the course of bird evolution.

18-May-2018 10:05 AM EDT
Turtle and Bird Genomes Provide Tantalizing Clues to Dinosaur Genomics
Iowa State University

Comparing how the chromosomes of modern-day birds and turtles are structured can help scientists figure out how dinosaur genomes might have looked. An Iowa State University scientist contributed to an international research team that recently published its findings reaching back through 260 million years of genomics.

Released: 7-May-2018 3:00 PM EDT
Earth’s Orbital Changes Have Influenced Climate, Life Forms For at Least 215 Million Years
Rutgers University-New Brunswick

Every 405,000 years, gravitational tugs from Jupiter and Venus slightly elongate Earth’s orbit, an amazingly consistent pattern that has influenced our planet’s climate for at least 215 million years and allows scientists to more precisely date geological events like the spread of dinosaurs, according to a Rutgers-led study. The findings are published online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Released: 26-Apr-2018 11:05 AM EDT
In Near-Complete Fossil Form, Only Known Kansas Dinosaur Reappears After 100 Million Years
University of Kansas

Silvisaurus condrayi has made a return to the KU Natural History Museum in a new, more complete form, accompanied by an interactive display that includes stunning depictions of the dinosaur and its environs.

27-Mar-2018 1:05 PM EDT
Decade of Fossil Collecting in Africa Gives New Perspective on Triassic Period, Emergence of Dinosaurs
University of Washington

A project spanning countries, years and institutions has attempted to reconstruct what the southern end of the world looked like during the Triassic period, 252 to 199 million years ago.

12-Mar-2018 12:05 PM EDT
Fossils Found of Giant Flying Creatures Wiped Out with the Dinosaurs
University of Portsmouth

Fossils of six new species of pterosaurs, giant flying reptiles that flew over the heads of the dinosaurs, have been discovered by a team of researchers.

12-Feb-2018 8:00 AM EST
Middle Earth Preserved in Giant Bird Dung
University of Adelaide

While the giant birds that once dominated New Zealand are all extinct, a study of their preserved dung (coprolites) has revealed many aspects of their ancient ecosystem, with important insights for ongoing conservation efforts.

Released: 17-Jan-2018 10:05 AM EST
Why Don’t Turtles Still Have Tail Spikes?
North Carolina State University

In a study covering 300 million years of evolutionary history, researchers from North Carolina State University and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences found four necessary components to tail weapon development: size, armor, herbivory and thoracic stiffness.

Released: 16-Jan-2018 12:05 PM EST
University of Arkansas Scientists Digitally Preserve Important Arkansas Dinosaur Tracks
University of Arkansas, Fayetteville

University of Arkansas researchers used LiDAR imaging to digitally preserve and study important dinosaur tracks.

10-Jan-2018 7:00 AM EST
New Turkey-Sized Dinosaur From Australia Preserved in an Ancient Log-Jam
PeerJ

The partial skeleton of a new species of turkey-sized herbivorous dinosaur has been discovered in 113 million year old rocks in southeastern Australia. The fossilized tail and foot bones give new insight into the diversity of the small, bipedal herbivorous dinosaurs called ornithopods.

27-Dec-2017 4:40 PM EST
The Secret World of Dinosaur Tracks
Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB)

Scans of fossilized dinosaur prints show how some dinosaur feet moved not just on top of but through the earth. The results of this study will be presented at the annual conference of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology in San Francisco, CA on January 4, 2018

Released: 6-Dec-2017 9:00 AM EST
Evolutionary Biologists Say Recently Discovered Fossil Shows Transition of a Reptile From Life on Land to Life in the Sea
Johns Hopkins Medicine

Using modern research tools on a 155-million-year-old reptile fossil, scientists at Johns Hopkins and the American Museum of Natural History report they have filled in some important clues to the evolution of animals that once roamed land and transitioned to life in the water.

14-Nov-2017 8:05 AM EST
Plesiosaur Flippers Inspire a Steering Mechanism for Swimming Robotic Vehicle
American Physical Society's Division of Fluid Dynamics

Plesiosaurs, who thrived during the early to middle Jurassic Period, used four paddlelike flippers of nearly equal size and musculature to swim. Despite the seemingly subpar engineering, the fossil record reveals that plesiosaurs were widespread and prolific. This inspired a team in the U.K. to explore how swimming with four flippers might be advantageous compared to two. They’ll present their work during the 70th meeting of the Division of Fluid Dynamics, Nov. 19-21, 2017.

14-Nov-2017 1:05 PM EST
Stinging Cells Pack a Powerful Pressure
American Physical Society's Division of Fluid Dynamics

The stinging cells of jellyfish, called nematocytes, have evolved to be one of the world’s most efficient predation tools. The nematocysts consist of a capsule and folded tubule, and use high pressure and acceleration for defense and locomotion and, more importantly, to capture prey. Inconsistencies in a previous conceptual explanation of the stinging cell mechanism were identified using a microfluidic system and mathematical models. Researchers will share their mathematical model of nemotocytes at the 70th meeting of the Division of Fluid Dynamics, Nov. 19-21, 2017. The model demonstrates how environmental modifications can reduce the impact of jellyfish stinging capacity.

Released: 13-Nov-2017 12:05 PM EST
UWM Geologists Uncover Antarctica’s Fossil Forests
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Prehistoric polar forests were built for survival, but were not hardy enough to live in ultra-high concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide. A UWM geologist is studying the tree fossil record in Antarctica from a mass extinction 250 million years ago, looking for clues to how greenhouse gases affected plants -- then and now.

8-Nov-2017 8:55 AM EST
Closing the Rural Health Gap: Media Update from RWJF and Partners on Rural Health Disparities
Newswise

Rural counties continue to rank lowest among counties across the U.S., in terms of health outcomes. A group of national organizations including the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the National 4-H Council are leading the way to close the rural health gap.

       
7-Nov-2017 8:05 PM EST
Man's Earliest Ancestors Discovered In Southern England
University of Portsmouth

The two teeth are from small, rat-like creatures that lived 145 million years ago in the shadow of the dinosaurs. They are the earliest undisputed fossils of mammals belonging to the line that led to human beings.

Released: 2-Nov-2017 8:05 AM EDT
Cancer Cells Destroyed with Dinosaur Extinction Metal
University of Warwick

Cancer cells can be targeted and destroyed with the metal from the asteroid that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs, according to new research by an international collaboration between the University of Warwick and Sun Yat-Sen University in China.

   
Released: 31-Oct-2017 10:05 AM EDT
Research Provides Unique Insight Into Extinction Dynamics in Late Triassic
University of Rhode Island

A team of scientists and students at the University of Rhode Island is inching closer to revealing how a group of animals from the Late Triassic went extinct

Released: 16-Oct-2017 11:05 AM EDT
New Research Shows Dinosaur Dung Fertilizes Planet
Northern Arizona University

According to NAU researcher Chris Doughty, these large animals are important not for the quantity of dung they produce, but for their ability to move long distances across landscapes, effectively mixing the nutrients.

Released: 21-Sep-2017 11:05 AM EDT
Dino-Killing Asteroid's Impact on Bird Evolution
Cornell University

Human activities could change the pace of evolution, similar to what occurred 66 million years ago when a giant asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs, leaving modern birds as their only descendants. That's one conclusion drawn by the authors of a new study published in Systematic Biology.

20-Sep-2017 4:05 PM EDT
Big Herbivorous Dinosaurs Ate Crustaceans as Side Dish
University of Colorado Boulder

Some big plant-eating dinosaurs roaming present-day Utah some 75 million years ago were slurping up crustaceans on the side, a behavior that may have been tied to reproductive activities, says a new University of Colorado Boulder study.  

20-Sep-2017 3:05 AM EDT
Bite Force Research Reveals Dinosaur-Eating Frog
University of Adelaide

Scientists say that a large, now extinct, frog called Beelzebufo that lived about 68 million years ago in Madagascar would have been capable of eating small dinosaurs.

Released: 31-Aug-2017 12:05 PM EDT
Texas Tech Paleontologist Aids in New Discovery 33 Years after Finding Fossil
Texas Tech University

The fossilized plesiosaur Sankar Chatterjee found in 1984 is giving scientists a new understanding of convergent evolution between reptiles and mammals.

Released: 30-Aug-2017 7:05 AM EDT
Study Uses Robot to Probe Mystery of Prehistoric Sea Creature’s Swimming Style
University of Southampton

A new study led by the University of Southampton has shed light on the swimming style of plesiosaurs by creating a robot to mimic its movements.

Released: 15-Aug-2017 12:00 PM EDT
Unique Imaging of a Dinosaur’s Skull Tells Evolutionary Tale
Los Alamos National Laboratory

Researchers using Los Alamos’ unique neutron-imaging and high-energy X-ray capabilities have exposed the inner structures of the fossil skull of a 74-million-year-old tyrannosauroid dinosaur nicknamed the Bisti Beast in the highest-resolution scan of tyrannosaur skull ever done.

7-Aug-2017 12:05 PM EDT
First Winged Mammals From the Jurassic Period Discovered
University of Chicago Medical Center

Two 160 million-year-old mammal fossils discovered in China show that the forerunners of mammals in the Jurassic Period evolved to glide and live in trees. With long limbs, long hand and foot fingers, and wing-like membranes for tree-to-tree gliding, Maiopatagium furculiferum and Vilevolodon diplomylos are the oldest known gliders in the long history of early mammals.

27-Jun-2017 2:00 PM EDT
Gigantic Crocodile with T. Rex Teeth Was a Top Land Predator of the Jurassic in Madagascar
PeerJ

Little is known about the origin and early evolution of the Notosuchia, hitherto unknown in the Jurassic period. New research on fossils from Madagascar, published in the peer-reviewed journal PeerJ by Italian and French paleontologists, begin to fill the gap in a million-year-long ghost lineage.

Released: 27-Jun-2017 10:05 AM EDT
Sensitive Faces Helped Dinosaurs Eat, Woo and Take Temperature, Suggests Study
University of Southampton

Dinosaurs' faces might have been much more sensitive than previously thought, and crucial to tasks from precision eating and testing nest temperature to combat and mating rituals, according to a University of Southampton study.

6-Jun-2017 6:45 AM EDT
World’s ‘First Named Dinosaur’ Reveals New Teeth with Scanning Tech
University of Warwick

Pioneering technology has shed fresh light on the world’s first scientifically-described dinosaur fossil – over 200 years after it was first discovered - thanks to research by WMG at the University of Warwick and the University of Oxford’s Museum of Natural History.

1-Jun-2017 4:05 PM EDT
How the Famous Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Bone Bed Came to Be
PeerJ

The Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry is the densest collection of Jurassic dinosaur fossils. Since its discovery in the 1920s, numerous hypotheses have been proposed to explain the origin of the quarry. Were the dinosaurs poisoned? Did they die due to drought? Were they trapped in quick sand? A new study suggests that the quarry represents numerous mortality events which brought the dinosaurs to the site over time, rather than a single fatal event.

Released: 22-May-2017 1:05 PM EDT
Weathering of Rocks a Poor Regulator of Global Temperatures
University of Washington

Observations from the age of the dinosaurs to today shows that chemical weathering of rocks changes less with global temperatures than believed. The results upend the accepted idea for how rocks regulate a planet's temperature over millions of years.

15-May-2017 9:05 AM EDT
The Secrets Behind T-Rex’s Bone Crushing Bites: Researchers Find T-Rex Could Crush 8,000 Pounds
Florida State University

A Florida State- Oklahoma State research team found that T. rex could pulverize bones, chomping down with nearly 8,000 pounds of force.

8-May-2017 12:05 PM EDT
Antibiotic-Resistant Microbes Date Back to 450 MYA, Well Before the Age of Dinosaurs
Massachusetts Eye and Ear

Leading hospital “superbugs,” known as the enterococci, arose from an ancestor that dates back 450 million years — about the time when animals were first crawling onto land (and well before the age of dinosaurs), according to a new study.

   
30-Apr-2017 12:05 AM EDT
New Dinosaur Species Increases the Diversity of the 'Whiplash Dinosaurs'
PeerJ

New sauropod species is named Galeamopus pabsti by the same team which recently reinstated the brontosaurus as a distinct genus.

17-Apr-2017 8:00 AM EDT
What Can We Learn from Dinosaur Proteins?
Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB)

Researchers recently confirmed it is possible to extract proteins from 80-million-year-old dinosaur bones. The discovery sparks hopes for new insights about evolution and environmental change and could even offer useful clues for drug discovery or the search for extraterrestrial life.

10-Apr-2017 9:05 AM EDT
Discovery of Early, ‘Croc-Like’ Reptile Sheds New Light on Evolution of Dinosaurs
University of Birmingham

A new species of ancient reptile has been described by scientists at the University of Birmingham, filling a critical gap in the fossil record of dinosaur cousins and suggesting that some features thought to characterise dinosaurs evolved much earlier than previously thought.

11-Apr-2017 3:45 PM EDT
Virginia Tech Scientists Discover Early Dinosaur Cousin Had a Surprising Croc-Like Look
Virginia Tech

A Virginia Tech paleobiologist's latest discovery of Teleocrater rhadinus has overturned popular predictions.

Released: 28-Mar-2017 10:05 AM EDT
New Research Disproves Common Assumption on Cranial Joints of Alligators, Birds, Dinosaurs
University of Missouri Health

Researchers from the University of Missouri School Of Medicine recently discovered that although alligators, birds and dinosaurs have a similar skull-joint shape, this does not guarantee that their movements are the same.

Released: 13-Feb-2017 10:05 AM EST
A Kiss of Death -- Mammals Were the First Animals to Produce Venom
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg

CT scans of fossils of the pre-mammalian reptile, Euchambersia, shows anatomical features, designed for venom production

Released: 10-Feb-2017 7:05 AM EST
Giant Flying Reptile Ruled Ancient Transylvania
University of Portsmouth

The creature has a considerably shorter and stronger neck with larger muscles than the long graceful necks of others in its species.

Released: 23-Jan-2017 2:05 PM EST
80-Million-Year-Old Dinosaur Collagen Confirmed
North Carolina State University

Utilizing the most rigorous testing methods to date, researchers from North Carolina State University have isolated additional collagen peptides from an 80-million-year-old Brachylophosaurus.

Released: 13-Jan-2017 11:45 AM EST
How the Darkness and the Cold Killed the Dinosaurs
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)

Climate scientists now reconstructed how tiny droplets of sulfuric acid formed high up in the air after the well-known impact of a large asteroid and blocking the sunlight for several years, had a profound influence on life on Earth.

Released: 6-Jan-2017 2:05 PM EST
Dinosaur Eggs Took a Long Time to Hatch; This May Have Contributed to Their Doom
Newswise Trends

New research on the teeth of fossilized dinosaur embryos indicates that the eggs of non-avian dinosaurs took a long time to hatch--between about three and six months.

Released: 3-Jan-2017 4:05 PM EST
Research on Dinosaur Embryos Reveals That Eggs Took 3 to 6 Months to Hatch
American Museum of Natural History

New research on the teeth of fossilized dinosaur embryos indicates that the eggs of non-avian dinosaurs took a long time to hatch--between about three and six months.

29-Dec-2016 1:05 PM EST
How Long Did It Take to Hatch a Dinosaur Egg? FSU Research Says 3-6 Months
Florida State University

How long did it take for dinosaur eggs to incubate? Groundbreaking research led by Florida State University establishes a timeline of three to six months.

21-Dec-2016 2:40 PM EST
Biologists Follow ‘Fossilizable’ Clues to Pinpoint When Mammal, Bird and Dinosaur Ancestors Became Athletes
University of Utah

The study is the first to draw a link between RBC size and microscopic traces of blood vessels and bone cells inside bones. They found that extinct mammal and bird relatives had smaller RBCs and were likely better athletes than earlier terrestrial vertebrates. The timing of RBC-size reduction coincided with Earth's greatest mass extinction 252 mya.



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