What’s the penalty for smuggling dinosaur bones? A lot more than you’d think

from i09:  What’s the penalty for smuggling dinosaur bones? A lot more than you’d think

A man who illegally exported a Tyrannosaurus skeleton from Mongolia has plead guilty to all charges and now faces up to 17 years in prison. As magistrate judge Ronald L. Ellis' ruling suggests, it's no small matter to engage in fraud of this kind.
The skeleton, which sold for more than $1 million via Heritage Auctions in May, was described as a "superb Tyrannosaurus skeleton," a remnant of a long-extinct animal that "ruled the food chain of the ancient flood plains that are today's Gobi Desert."
Too bad it got into the country illegally. The New York Times reports:

The odd story of the Tyrannosaur on the auction block surfaced several months ago when a paleontologist, Mark A. Norell of the American Museum of Natural History, noticed the listing in the Heritage catalog.
He wrote an open letter about the 24-foot-long skeleton, saying, "These specimens were undoubtedly looted from Mongolia."
Within days, the president of Mongolia had obtained a court order to block the auction of the skeleton, which had been sold but not transferred.
At about the same time, Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan, filed a civil complaint seeking the forfeiture of the skeleton so that it could be returned to Mongolia, where dinosaur skeletons are deemed government property.
That request cited several experts who said the particularized coloring of the bones meant that they had come from a specific area in Mongolia known as the Nemegt Basin.
Under Mongolian law, the removal of fossils is a crime; violators may be jailed and fined.
Mr. [Eric] Prokopi contested the forfeiture request from federal officials but was eventually charged with the criminal offenses.

During the trial, Prokopi admitted to shipping the skeleton from the Gobi: "I forwarded a few shipments of fossils of Mongolian origin from Great Britain to the U.S. that were mislabeled," he said. "I imported and transported Mongolian fossils that were exported from Mongolia without the proper permits."
Prokopi was told to return to court in April for his sentencing where he could be handed a 17-year prison term.
But as part of a plea agreement, he will hand over the Tyrannosaur skeleton that was put up for auction, two additional Tyrannosaur skeletons, and hadrosaur remnants. He also agreed to forfeit two Oviraptor skeletons that were seized from his home in Florida.

 

Financial Fundamentals: New facts about a dinosaur extinction

From Shreveport Times:  Financial Fundamentals: New facts about a dinosaur extinction

What do you know about the brontosaurus? If you are like I am, you remember it, along with the tyrannosaurus rex, stegosaurus and triceratops, as one of the four major dinosaurs that you learned about in school. The brontosaurus was a giant, with a massive body, long neck and very small head. It stood approximately 50 feet tall and was about 85 feet in length. In 1989, the U.S. Postal Service included the brontosaurus as one of four dinosaurs it commemorated in stamps that year. What do you know about its extinction?
If you think I'm talking about the various theories on how all dinosaurs became extinct, think again. I'm actually referring to the fact that scientists now will tell you that the brontosaurus never existed. Surprisingly, that isn't a new idea, even if you just heard about it. Paleontologist Elmer Riggs first argued that the skeletal remains of the brontosaurs was actually a misidentified Apatosaurus in 1903. (That's 86 years prior to being placed on the U.S. stamp.) Today, most adults remember the brontosaurs, but grade school children and paleontologists are the ones most likely to know that the brontosaurs never actually existed.
In his fascinating book The Half-Life of Facts: Why Everything We Know has an Expiration Date, Samuel Arbesman uses the story of the brontosaurus to illustrate how knowledge changes over time. He also points out that sometimes old facts are hard to replace and new information often is slow to be disseminated or accepted.
Do you know if it is OK to drink red wine, how many eggs are safe to eat, and whether caffeine is actually good for you? Do you remember when your answers were different than today? New information is coming to us at an accelerated rate and keeping abreast is important if you want to make good decisions. This is important in most industries, because it means that the things professionals learned when they were getting started might be very different from what we know to be true today. This holds true in professions such as medicine, law, accounting and certainly in financial services.

 

CT: Special Events at Dinosaur State Park This Week

From Rocky Hill Patch: Special Events at Dinosaur State Park This Week

Events at Dinosaur State Park
Thursday, December 27, 2012, at 1 p.m.- Modern Dragons
Riverside Reptiles will feature a number of live lizards. Space is limited to 100 visitors. Tickets will be available on a first-come, first-serve basis at 9 a.m. on the day of the show. This 45-minute show is recommended for ages 5 and older. This special program is made possible through the sponsorship of the Friends of Dinosaur State Park and Arboretum (FDPA).
Wednesday, December 26, - Sunday, December 30, 2012
Naturalist Programs are scheduled at 11 a.m., 11:30 a.m., and 2:30 p.m. featuring either a Track Talk or an Animal Demonstration.
Make a craft:  A craft area will be open on Wednesdays from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. during the week of December 26 - December 30. Visitors will be able to make a craft to take home.
For additional information on Dinosaur state Park in Rocky Hill, click here.

Here's info from Dinosaur State Park at Wikipedia:
Dinosaur State Park and Arboretum is a unique 63-acre (250,000 m²) state park located 20 minutes south of Hartford at 400 West Street, Rocky Hill, Connecticut, USA. It contains one of the largest dinosaur track sites in North America, with early Jurassic fossil tracks in sandstone from about 200 million years ago.

History

The Connecticut Valley has extensive fossil discoveries. Some of these fossils date to the Jurassic Period. Many specimens uncovered in brownstone quarries during the 1800s are included into the collections of museums throughout the world. History was made 1966 when hundreds of dinosaur tracks were exposed in Rocky Hill.The dinosaur tracks in Rocky Hill were discovered by a bulldozer operator who was excavating for a new state building. The site became Dinosaur State Park, which became a Registered National Landmark in 1968.

Dinosaur tracks

Dinosaur State Park is one of the largest dinosaur track sites in North America. The tracks are from the early Jurassic period and were made over 200 million years ago by a carnivorous dinosaur similar to Dilophosaurus. At present 500 tracks are enclosed within a 55,000-square-foot (5,100 m²) geodesic dome; the remaining 1,500 are buried for preservation. The park's in-site tracks are Eubrontes, named by Prof. Edward Hitchcock, pioneering student of fossilized tracks and one of America's first geologists. The tracks range from 10 to 16 inches (410 mm) in length and are spaced 3.5 to 4.5 feet (1.4 m) apart. The exhibit center also includes rock slabs with other Connecticut Valley fossil tracks, including large four-toed Otozoum tracks with clearly visible skin impressions.
In addition to the tracks, the dome houses life-sized dioramas depicting the Triassic and Jurassic periods, complete with common plants and creatures, and including the aforementioned Dilophosaurus. There are also several interactive displays, a reconstruction of a geologic foundation, highlights of the tracks’ discovery, as well as a discovery room with several lizards, some Madagascar hissing cockroaches and dinosaur arts and crafts.

Arboretum

The arboretum's goal is to grow representatives of as many Mesozoic Era plant families as possible on the site. It currently contains more than two miles (3 km) of nature trails with more than 250 species and cultivars of conifers, plus collections of arborvitae, chamaecyparis, ginkgo, juniper, Katsura, pine, and magnolia. Some rarer species in the arboretum's collection include the evergreen Southern Magnolia and the Monkey Puzzle. Recent plantings have focused on woody plants from the Cretaceous angiosperm families.

Events and Activities

Dinosaur State Park Day is usually held each year in August, has had almost 2,000 visitors come to the state park and participate in games, experiment with arts and crafts and listen to live music, while also being able visit the indoor and outdoor features of the park. Events and prizes are funded by The Friends of Dinosaur Park and Arboretum, Inc.(FDPA), as well as 25 other sponsors, such as, Subway (restaurant), Starbucks and Big Y.
The arboretum has an auditorium that shows educational films on the weekends that rotate accordingly. During warmer months, visitors can create their own track casts in the track casting area.
Some other activities include educational programs that are centered around including guided trail walks, lectures, films and more.

Park Hours and Admission

The park grounds are open daily 9 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. (trails close at 4:00 p.m.). The exhibit center is open 9 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. Tuesday thru Sunday—closed Mondays, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. The cost is $6 for adults and teens (13 and over); $2 for youths (ages 6-12); and free for children five and under
 

Giant tooth hints at truly monumental dinosaur

From BusinessStandard: Giant tooth hints at truly monumental dinosaur

Researchers have discovered a giant dinosaur tooth that suggests the huge creatures that roamed the Earth some 230-million-years ago were much bigger than believed.
The sauropod dinosaurs - the biggest animals ever to walk the Earth - were enormous plant-eating beasts with long necks and tails. The biggest are aptly named titanosaurs, and could reach 30 metres long and weigh 80 tonnes.

However, some titanosaurs may have been even bigger than that, says Rodolfo Garcia at the National University of Rio Negro in Argentina, 'New Scientist' reported. Garcia has found a 7.5-centimetre-long titanosaur tooth at Salitral de Santa Rosa in Rio Negro – that makes it 32 per cent longer than the previous record holder. He said it is possible the tooth probably came from an enormous skull which suggests a monumental body.

Philip Mannion of Imperial College London points out that we do not yet have good fossil skulls of the largest titanosaurs, so the tooth might simply belong to one of them.

We'll need to find more of the dinosaur from which the tooth came to convince him that it was an even bigger beast, he said.

If more evidence was found to suggest its existence, the next task would be to name it. Palaeontologists would need to go one better than Ultrasaurus, Supersaurus and Megalosaurus but Colossasaurus is still up for grabs.

Japan: Dr. Dinosaur' presents the basics of paleontology

From Asahi Shimbun:  Dr. Dinosaur' presents the basics of paleontology

Wanting to learn some basic facts about dinosaurs, The Asahi Shimbun GLOBE and, through Twitter, some of its readers posed questions to Makoto Manabe, a senior scientist at the National Museum of Nature and Science.

GLOBE: Could you please provide us with a definition for a dinosaur?

Manabe: Roughly corresponding to the arms and legs of a human, appendages protrude from the sides of a reptile’s elongated body. Lifting their trunks off the ground in a push-up-like manner, they use these four splayed legs to wiggle themselves forward. During the course of evolution, however, some reptilians developed front and back limbs held erect beneath their bodies, allowing them to walk in an upright manner. These were dinosaurs. They were able to run faster than other reptiles and also range farther while expending the same amount of energy; it is believed they flourished as a result.

Dinosaurs are also classified according to other detailed characteristics such as having a hole in the femoral joint and a sacrum (large, triangular bone at the base of the spine) composed of not less than three fused vertebrae.

The name “dinosaur” is attributed to British paleontologist Richard Owen who used it as a general term to define megalosaurus, iguanodon and hylaeosaurus back in 1842. Plesiosaur (aquatic animals) and pterosaur (winged lizards), which existed at the same time as dinosaurs, are not classified as such.

There are many ways of defining dinosaurs; one is “the most recent common ancestors of Owen’s three species and all their descendants.” Whichever definition is used, however, all share the commonality of including the birds of today as “descendants.”

@yuminyuming: Is it possible to bring dinosaurs back to life?

A: In the novel "Jurassic Park," dinosaurs were resurrected by extracting DNA from dinosaur blood found in a mosquito preserved in prehistoric amber. While theoretically possible, the probability of the complete genome being preserved is extremely low, making it very difficult to realize such a feat.

@yukialice: To what extent is there accurate information about dinosaurs, such as the presence or absence of hair, color, etc.?

A: Fossilized feathers and scales have been discovered, though ground water sediments have permeated them, leading to discoloration. “Not knowing the color” is conventional wisdom as it pertains to dinosaurs. In 2010, a pigment-producing organ was found on the surface of a feather belonging to a feathered dinosaur fossil. By measuring the shape and density of the organ, the color came to be known. It’s also been proven that a dinosaur with a red patch at the top of its head and one with a striped tail existed.

@snkzombi333: What did dinosaurs eat?

A: It would be great if the stomach content of dinosaurs was also fossilized; unfortunately, however, such occurrences are extremely rare. Based on tooth marks left on fossilized dinosaur bones, we have come to realize that in all likelihood tyrannosaurus preyed on triceratops and other species. Examining fossilized feces is also very important in this regard, but identifying the animal which they came from is difficult. Incidentally, bones belonging to a baby dinosaur were discovered in the fossilized stomach of a mammalia class animal, meaning mammals at the time weren’t just prey for the dinosaurs.

GLOBE: Which was the most powerful dinosaur?

A: I am often asked which was stronger, the tyrannosaurus or the even larger carnivorous spinosaurus. Without actually pitting them against each other, however, we’ll never know. And with the tyrannosaurus being native to North America and the spinosaurus inhabiting Africa, they probably never met. Though carnivorous dinosaurs were at the top of the food chain, it probably wasn’t easy for them to bring down herbivorous sauropods in the 20- to 30-meter length class.

Q: Did dinosaurs get sick or become ill?

A: Yes, in addition to finding broken bones, traces of mended bone fractures and marks on bones indicating injury, there have been a great number of deformities discovered that are believed to have been caused by infectious disease. The tip of a toe on one tyrannosaurus was found to be deformed, and the cause is believed to have been gout.

Q: What does it take to become a dinosaur researcher?

A: The normal route is to study subjects like earth sciences, biology, geology, paleontology and zoology at university and then go on to conduct research on dinosaurs and other birds and reptiles from the Mesozoic Era at graduate school and obtain a doctorate. Recently, however, other forms of research, including engineering-centric work such as computer simulations and embryological research on birds, are being applied to the study of dinosaurs, so the paths leading to dinosaur research are diversifying. When asked this question by junior and senior high school students, I tell them it is important to have an interest in English because science researchers must collect information from English language sources and also write papers in English.

Q: Why are people so attracted to dinosaurs?

A: I think both adults and children are intrigued by the fact that there existed at one time creatures we can scarcely imagine by looking at the animals of today. People often say dinosaurs are “cool” when expressing their fascination with attributes such as their size, distinctive appearance and strength. Dinosaurs are also sometimes thought of as being cute as evidenced by some toys and stuffed animals made in their likeness. Some adults have also said they feel comforted by the slow, leisurely walk of gigantic herbivorous dinosaurs.

Q: What would the world be like if dinosaurs had not become extinct?

A: Some dinosaurs transformed into birds and are continuing to evolve; so not all of them became extinct. However, it is a fact that well-known dinosaurs such as the tyrannosaurus and triceratops were wiped out 66 million years ago. Prior to their extinction, sociality was developing among dinosaurs. If the majority of dinosaurs had not met with extinction, our time as mammals may not have come about.

THE GRIEF OF MASS EXTINCTION

Regardless of national boundaries, throughout the ages dinosaurs have never ceased to fascinate people. Wanting to find out why, I started collecting information on these “terrible lizards” from the past for this feature.
The primary reason we are attracted to dinosaurs is their size and strength. Some herbivorous dinosaurs such as seismosaurus and Argentinosaurus grew to lengths in excess of 30 meters.
In the latter part of the 19th century during America’s Wild West, the “steel king,” Andrew Carnegie, an avid supporter of fossil hunters, constructed a natural history museum in Pittsburgh. Among the collection of more than 19 million pieces is a near-complete skeleton of D. carnegii, a species of diplodocus named after Carnegie, which for a long time ranked as the world’s longest dinosaur (26 meters in length). During this period, the discovery of gigantic fossilized dinosaur remains proceeded hand in hand with territorial expansion. It can be said that dinosaurs served as a symbol of a country’s size and strength.
If size and strength are positive dinosaur associations, there are negative ones as well.
Remote mammalian ancestors of humankind lived in fear of dinosaurs. I have heard a tentative theory suggesting that because the memory of such scary times is engraved in the back of our brains, humans continue to have an innate fear of reptiles even to this day. According to this hypothesis, then, when we look at pictures of dinosaurs, this ancient memory of terror is suddenly revived. That is why people look at images of dinosaurs when they “want to see something scary.”
There is another negative association as well. The strongest creatures to rule the Earth for 160 million years across the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, it is well-known that most dinosaurs suddenly vanished about 66 million years ago. Along with feeling grief for this loss, their sudden demise forces us to think about the future in store for mankind as well.
In 1980, American scientist Luis Alvarez, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics, and his son Walter Alvarez, published a paper suggesting a gigantic meteorite crashing to Earth caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. In 2010, an international panel of researchers concluded this hypothesis to be correct.
In prehistoric times, an asteroid measuring 10 to 15 kilometers in diameter and traveling at 20 kilometers per second slammed into the Gulf of Mexico, releasing an amount of energy equivalent to 1 billion times the amount produced by the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The impact created a huge tsunami 300 meters in height that swallowed up the dinosaurs. Those that survived the initial tsunami died off one by one due to sudden changes in the climate, such as cooling caused by soot resulting from tropical forests burning out of control, and acid rain resulting from chemical substances generated by the impact.
It is said the probability of an asteroid this size impacting the Earth is one in tens of millions to hundreds of millions of years occurrence. Over a long, long history, being around in a period that is struck by just one such asteroid is indeed unfortunate.
“For the Japanese, who are attracted to stories like "The Tale of the Heike," which asserts that even the most prosperous inevitably decay, the tragedy of the last days of the overwhelmingly powerful dinosaurs probably touches their heartstrings,” said Keio University professor Takayuki Tatsumi, who is familiar with the culture of dinosaurs in both Japan and the United States.
Only about 200,000 years have passed since modern humans first appeared on the planet. Yet we are already negatively impacting our environment by creating problems such as global warming, deforestation and water pollution. Currently it is estimated that 100 species of organisms are becoming extinct each day and some people are calling these times the “sixth period of mass extinction,” comparable to the five major extinction events that have occurred since life began on Earth.
Takafumi Matsui, director of the Planetary Exploration Research Center of Chiba Institute of Technology, said, “Rather than worrying about whether or not a celestial body will strike the Earth, we should think carefully about the message dinosaurs left us: namely, why they were able to thrive over a period lasting 160 million years.”

 

India: Dinosaur replica at bird habitat in Chilika to be dismantledDinosaur replica at bird habitat in Chilika to be dismantled

From Zee News: Dinosaur replica at bird habitat in Chilika to be dismantledDinosaur replica at bird habitat in Chilika to be dismantled

Bhubaneswar: Orissa Tourism Development Corporation (OTDC) has decided to dismantle a replica dinosaur for a Jurassic Park planned at Chadheihaga Island, a bird habitat on the Chilika lake, following objection from environmentalists.

33 other replica dinosaurs were planned to be installed on the island, a habitat for residential and migratory birds and home to a wide variety of wild plants and butterflies, a senior tourism official said.

He said that the dinosaurs made of fibre would not harm the ecology and have been used in several parks in other states.

Environmentalists, bird lovers and wildlife activists, however, strongly objected to the plan to install the replicas and have asked for dismantling the existing one. "Our demand is to scrap construction of any kind on the island. The entire Chilika area should not face any human interference being a bird habitat," Biswajit Mohanty, Secretary of Wildlife Society of Odisha, said.

Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations (FIAPO), a collective of animal protection organisations in India, said the erection of the fibre dinosaurs would require labour and machinery which would disturb migratory birds.

A FIAPO spokesman also said the lake and its surrounding areas were considered to be the largest wintering ground for migratory birds, with many listed on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's 'Red List' of threatened species.

FIAPO wrote to the OTDC, urging reconsideration of its plan in view of the ecological importance and vulnerability of the proposed location and focus instead on protecting the ecology of the site, which was visited by thousands of migratory birds every year, the spokesman said.

Following the objections, Chairman and Managing Director of OTDC Ashok Tripathy told PTI, "A proposal was mooted about five years ago to put up fibre dinosaur replicas at Chadhehaga island, but only one was installed."

It was decided to remove the sole fibre dinosaur on the island as part of OTDC's plans to attract tourists, he said.

The lone dinosaur would be dismantled and installed near a panth nivas being operated by the OTDC near the Chilika lake, Tripathy said.

The organisation has now decided to construct a nature trail to attract tourists to the eco-sensitive island.

Tripathy said, "OTDC has planned to construct a nature trail on the island, which has rocky terrain, to make it more tourist-friendly".

New posting schedule

Now that I've got this new full-time job, I'll be posting in this blog twice a week - on Monday's and Wednesdays.

So the next post for this blog will be on Monday.

Thanks for your patience.

Found: Whale Thought Extinct for 2 Million Years

Such a misleading headline!

From Yahoo News :  Found: Whale Thought Extinct for 2 Million Years

The pygmy right whale, a mysterious and elusive creature that rarely comes to shore, is the last living relative of an ancient group of whales long believed to be extinct, a new study suggests.

The findings, published today (Dec. 18) in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, may help to explain why the enigmatic marine mammals look so different from any other living whale.

"The living pygmy right whale is, if you like, a remnant, almost like a living fossil," said Felix Marx, a paleontologist at the University of Otago in New Zealand. "It's the last survivor of quite an ancient lineage that until now no one thought was around."

Living fossil
The relatively diminutive pygmy right whale, which grows to just 21 feet (6.5 meters) long, lives out in the open ocean. The elusive marine mammals inhabit the Southern Hemisphere and have only been spotted at sea a few dozen times. As a result, scientists know almost nothing about the species' habits or social structure.

The strange creature's arched, frownlike snout makes it look oddly different from other living whales. DNA analysis suggested pygmy right whales diverged from modern baleen whales such as the blue whale and the humpback whale between 17 million and 25 million years ago. However, the pygmy whales' snouts suggested they were more closely related to the family of whales that includes the bowhead whale. Yet there were no studies of fossils showing how the pygmy whale had evolved, Marx said.

To understand how the pygmy whale fit into the lineage of whales, Marx and his colleagues carefully analyzed the skull bones and other fossil fragments from pygmy right whales and several other ancient cetaceans.

The pygmy whale's skull most closely resembled that of an ancient family of whales called cetotheres that were thought to have gone extinct around 2 million years ago, the researchers found. Cetotheres emerged about 15 million years ago and once occupied oceans across the globe.

The findings help explain how pygmy whales evolved and may also help shed light on how these ancient "lost" whales lived. The new information is also a first step in reconstructing the ancient lineage all the way back to the point when all members of this group first diverged, he said.

 

Posts resume Wednesday, Dec 19, 2012

I got a new job (I'm a freelance writer) and am way far behind, so I've got to do some serious work today and tomorrow. 

Posts therefore resume Wednesday.

Thanks for your patience!

3-toed dinosaur foot returns to Cosmosphere

From CJOnline: 3-toed dinosaur foot returns to Cosmosphere

HUTCHINSON — A three-toed dinosaur foot estimated to be between 70 million and 100 million years old is back on display at the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center.
The foot was one of the first displays at the Hutchinson museum and has been returned for the center’s 50th anniversary. It will be on display through January.
The foot is from a duck-billed dinosaur believed to have lived in the Jurassic period of the Mesozoic Era. The Cosmosphere first displayed it in 1964.
The 200-pound foot was found in a coal mine at Dragerton, Utah. It eventually ended up in the home of a Hutchinson man.
That man sold the foot before he died. His grandson, Tom Zarnowski, spent seven years looking before finding it in Hutchinson.

 

From Golf Courses to Petting Zoos, Dinosaurs Get in the Way

From Smithsonian blog:  From Golf Courses to Petting Zoos, Dinosaurs Get in the Way

inosaurs are much more than real monsters that fire our imaginations, but, let’s face it, part of their persistent appeal is that many were enormous prehistoric oddities. And it’s just that aspect of dinosaurian nature that is raising ire in a historically-rich California town and on an Australian golf course. San Juan Capistrano, California is famous for the local cliff swallows and the historic Spanish architecture, but the town has recently been in the news because of an unwelcome dinosaur. According to the LA Times, a huge sauropod statue erected in the town’s petting zoo has drawn the ire of those who seek to retain some semblance of southern California’s past. Where kids and the zoo’s owner sees the dinosaur as a fanciful distraction, local historians argue that the dinosaur is totally out of place with the rest of the town’s decor. The dinosaur is staying put for now, but may yet be removed if the city decides that there’s just no place for a dinosaur in a place where Californian history and modern life already mix.
A different dinosaur is frustrating Australia’s professional golfers. The wealthy owner of the Palmer Coolum Resort has installed a 26 foot long, animatronic Tyrannosaurus rex in the middle of the course. Along with other recent installations, ESPN reports, the dinosaur is expected to adversely affect the games of Australian PGA Championship golfers set to play there. With the resort’s owner promising more dinosaurs on the way, the sports group has decided to move the tournament elsewhere after this year. Whether a sauropod looks out of place is one thing–having a T. rex get in the way of your shot is another.
Not everyone is so bothered by giant dinosaurs, though. A Best Western hotel in Colorado is taking on an entirely prehistoric theme, including fossil casts and dinosaur sculptures. In addition to attracting tourists, the hotel’s owner says he wants to draw attention to Colorado’s exceptional fossil sites, such as the nearby track site at Dinosaur Ridge. Dinosaur sculptures are frustrating eyesores to some and paleo-vacation essentials to others.

Follow the Smithsonian on Twitter: @SmithsonianMag on Twitter

Apatosaurus Statue Stirs Controversy in San Juan Capistrano

I've posted about this before, but this is yet another news article about it so thought I'd share it.

 ABC News: Apatosaurus Statue Stirs Controversy in San Juan Capistrano

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Image credit: Courtesy Nicole Pena

As the sun rises over one of the oldest neighborhoods in California, San Juan Capistrano Zoomars Petting Zoo is preparing for the inevitable parade of children piling in to get their hands on ponies, llamas, rabbits, donkeys and horses.
It’s a routine owner Carolyn Franks has been used to for the past eight years. After all, the zoo has attracted over three million visitors for 30 years. Yet, the zoo has a new controversial visitor that is stirring the community.
“I saw this amazing beautiful fiber glass dinosaur in 10 pieces around the floor, but I could see it was a really cool thing,” said Franks. “What a great way to get the kids excited.”
The Apatosaurus now stands tall in the middle of the zoo, with its long neck peeking over onlookers half its height.
Franks bought the dinosaur for $12,000, hoping to build a discovery dig activity for children within the zoo.
“It’s fun, it’s educational, it’s history, and again it’s for little kids, so you have to make it engaging,” said Franks. “I thought the dinosaur would be a great vehicle to do that having no idea it would be a controversial issue.”
Since the Apatosaurus made its debut, members of the local community and particularly the San Juan Capistrano Historical Alliance Committee want the dinosaur removed.
“It’s not the dinosaur so much,” said Jerry Nieblas, president and founder of San Juan Capistrano Historical Alliance Committee. “It’s where she chose to put it and how she chose to put it there.”
Nieblas says he founded the committee several years ago to be a voice for the local community regarding changes to historical buildings, character and makeup that were occurring. The committee’s mission statement reads, “With integrity, the Capistrano Historical Alliance Committee proudly recognizes, respects and honors all the historical elements of San Juan Capistrano, its lands, its structures, its families and its tradition.”
“There’s a continuity of history on that street that tells its story about early California rancho, early California life, and now all of a sudden we’ve got this dinosaur, and experts have said that kind of dinosaur didn’t roam this area.”
Zommars Petting Zoo is located on Los Rios Street, which is lined with historic sites, including the 200-year-old San Juan Capistrano Mission just under a mile away.
“It’s interfered with the historical makeup and flavor of that street,” said Nieblas. “It doesn’t fit that continuity,” he says of the fiberglass dinosaur.
The committee filed a complaint with the city that accused owner Carolyn Franks of not following proper city regulations.
“The city came out and the city hit me with a cease and desist violation and it said, ‘unpermitted brontosaurus,’” said Frank. “They say that I need a building permit for this statue.”
Franks will go in front of San Juan Capistrano’s planning commission  January 8  for a decision on the dinosaur. While some members of the community are eager to preserve the old history of San Juan Capistrano, Franks has a different outlook on the statue.
“There’s a cool mix, and this alliance group is very myopic in thinking the area should only be representative of the 1700s and 1800s, because if you walk down the street it’s clearly not,” said Franks. “The kids just love it and getting kids excited about history is not always easy.”
If the planning commission decides to allow the dinosaur to stay, the San Juan Capistrano Historical Alliance Committee could still appeal the decision.

 

'Obamadon gracilis': New lizard named in honour of Obama's toothy grin

Jimmy Carter had a toothy grin...I've never thought of Obama as smiling that much... Also the writer states categorically that they were killed off when a giant asteroid struck the earth...that's a theory, we're not sure if it's correct.

Telegraph: 'Obamadon gracilis': New lizard named in honour of Obama's toothy grin 

The small, insect-eating lizard was first discovered in eastern Montana in 1974 but a recent re-examination showed the fossil had been wrongly classified as a Leptochamops denticulatus and was, in fact, a new species, researchers said.

Obamadon gracilis was one of nine newly discovered species reported on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

In naming the new species, Yale scientists combined the Latin "Obamadon" for "Obama's teeth" and "gracilis," which means slender.

"The lizard has these very tall, straight teeth and Obama has these tall, straight incisors and a great smile," said Nick Longrich, a paleontologist at the school in New Haven, Connecticut.

Like many dinosaurs, the lizard died out about 65 million years ago when a giant asteroid struck earth, scientists say.

Mr Longrich said he waited until after the recent US election to name the dinosaur.
"It would look like we were kicking him when he's down if he lost and we named this extinct lizard after him," he said in an interview.
"Romneydon" was never under consideration and "Clintondon" didn't sound good, said Mr Longrich, who supported Hillary Clinton's failed run against Obama in the 2008 Democratic primary.
Mr Obama is not the first politician whose name has been used to help classify organisms. Megalonyxx jeffersonii, an extinct species of plant-eating ground sloth, was named in honor of President Thomas Jefferson, an amateur paleontologist who studied the mammal.
In 2005, entomologists named three species of North American slime-mold beetles agathidium bushi, agathidium cheneyi and agathidium rumsfeldi in honor of the then-president, vice president and secretary of defense.
Other celebrity names also have been used to name new species. A small Caribbean crustacean has been named after reggae icon Bob Marley, an Australian horsefly has been named in honor of hip-hop star Beyonce, and an endangered species of marsh rabbit has been named after Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner.
Source: Reuters

 

Discovery prompts dinosaur evolution rethink

From Kensington and Chelsea Today:  Discovery prompts dinosaur evolution rethink


On the 5th December scientists reported in the journal Biology letters that fossils of an arm bone and pieces of bone from the back and hips, unpacked from the drawers of London's Natural History Museum, could belong to the earliest dinosaur ever found.

Named Nyasasaurus parringtoni, the ancient animal was the size of a Labrador dog with a tail more than a metre long. It lived about 245 million years ago, which is 10 to 15 million years before any previously known dinosaur or dinosaur-like creature. This means that dinosaurs evolved much earlier than previously thought, in the Middle rather than Late Triassic.

The fossils were unearthed in the 1930s by Cambridge University’s Rex Parrington, from the Manda Beds near Lake Nyasa (now Lake Malawi), Tanzania, hence the species name. They were studied by former curator Alan Charig in the 1950s during his PhD, and then donated to the Museum. Although he intended to publish this work, he passed away before finishing it.

Dinosaur features
An international team, including Museum dinosaur expert Dr Paul Barrett, decided to take another look at the fossils. They found dinosaur features in the bones, as Barrett explains. 'Although the material is limited, it is very distinctive and completely unlike that of other contemporary reptiles.'

'In particular, a prominent crest, found on the upper arm bone, is a feature found only in Nyasasaurus and other dinosaurs. This crest would have supported large muscles, associated with strong grasping forelimbs.'

The microscopic structure of the bone tissue also shows a woven texture and large spaces for blood vessels, which indicates that the animal grew quickly, typical of dinosaurs.

The team also studied a second fossil from Iziko South African Museum, Cape Town, South Africa. It contained several bones from the neck of another Nyasasaurus individual that also shows many dinosaur-like features. It was originally described by South African palaeontologist Sidney Haughton in the 1930s, but had been largely overlooked until now.

Dinosaur or closest relative?
Because the remains of Nyasasaurus are incomplete, there is still room for debate over its exact relationship with other Triassic reptiles.
The team's analysis suggests that is it is most likely a very early dinosaur, as it shares most features with this group. Barrett adds, 'It is not clear if it belongs to any particular dinosaur subgroup such as the meat-eating theropods or plant-eating sauropodomorphs.'

It is possible that instead of being a true dinosaur, Nyasasaurus might have been a very close relative, lying just outside the dinosaur group. ‘If the newly named Nyasasaurus parringtoni is not the earliest dinosaur, then it is the closest relative found so far,' says Lead author Dr Sterling Nesbitt from the University of Washington.

For more information visit:
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/about-us/news/  

 

Dinosaur Family Comes Roaring Back to Neville Museum

From 2WBAY:  Dinosaur Family Comes Roaring Back to Neville Museum

Some prehistoric icons have come roaring back to the front of the Neville Museum in downtown Green Bay.
The Tyrannosaurus Rex sculptures, named Big Mama and Baby Bones, have a fresh coat of paint, but perhaps more important to the museum are their new, anatomically correct poses.
The sculptures were removed in mid-November to be refurbished. And under the guidance of the Neville's paleontologist, their posture of the T. Rex family was corrected to more of a crouch.
The dinosaurs were busy during their "vacation." The Neville Public Museum posted photos of their travels (with some help from Photoshop) on its Facebook page .

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Neville-Public-Museum/70977859383?sk=photos_stream

 

Dinosaur statue in San Juan Capistrano not loved by all

From Los Angeles Times:  Dinosaur statue in San Juan Capistrano not loved by all

Down the narrow corridor that runs through one of California's oldest neighborhoods, behind the perfectly preserved 200-year-old houses, the source of a heated debate in San Juan Capistrano pokes out his leathery neck with a goofy smile. The city resting amid south Orange County's green-covered hills is known for its tight embrace of a rich history: Hundreds of horses march through the streets each year to welcome the swallows' expected return to the mission; an old-world Spanish motif of stucco walls and terra cotta roofs includes even burger joints and banks; and on historic Los Rios Street, there are strict rules about what belongs and what doesn't. And the 40-foot-long apatosaurus cast off by a Romanian shopping mall? A group of neighbors and historical advocates think not, and are fighting a petting zoo to evict the dinosaur statue that has gripped the city's attention for months. "Never in a million years — or 165 million years — did I think it would turn into such a frenzy," said Carolyn Franks, the owner of Zoomars Petting Zoo, who paid $12,000 for the faux Jurassic creature to join the menagerie of floppy-haired alpacas, rabbits, horses and a couple of zebra-donkey hybrids called zedonks. "I brought this statue in with the best of intentions," she said, noting that her recent addition of a fossil hunt had been a hit at the zoo and that she'd wanted more prehistoric fare to please her clientele. She got a Tyrannosaurus rex skull first, then found the apatosaurus — now dubbed Juan the Capistrano Dinosaur — sitting in an Anaheim warehouse. He — or at least they think he's a he — has been at the zoo since June, but his Los Rios Street abode is notably sparse: There's none of the greenery that an herbivore like his ancestors would have munched, and the sandboxes intended for more fossil digging are bare. The placard introducing him to visitors is stamped "Pending City Approval." Although the city's Cultural Heritage Commission gave Juan a stamp of approval in a close vote, his fate remains anything but determined, with city officials still to weigh in on the matter. Juan's opponents say he threatens the integrity of a neighborhood listed on the National Register of Historic Places. For starters, they say, he's an eyesore. And considering that the region was probably underwater when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, no apatosaurus, T. rex or other outsized lizard would have come through San Juan Capistrano unless lost at sea. Nor did the foes take too well to Juan's arriving without previous approval or city permits. (Even Juan's arrival is murky: Critics contend Franks sneaked him in during dark of night. She says he came by truck in half a dozen pieces on a sunny afternoon.) "You're not putting a merry-go-round in the Vatican or a big slide in the White House," said historian Ilse Byrnes, who worked to have Los Rios added to the national registry. "It's destroying the historical integrity of the area if she gets to keep it." Jan Siegel, a Cultural Heritage commissioner, said the Los Rios enclave — described by one business owner as "the soul of San Juan" — has been protected as a quaint, mostly residential area by the rules that Franks appears to be flouting. Proposed businesses, such as a wine and beer garden, have been kept out; businesses have to close shop by 5 p.m.; and the number of visitors who stroll the narrow street each year is regulated. "It's a unique, fragile area, in my opinion, and it needs to be preserved in a special way," Siegel said. Juan's opponents have no problem with the petting zoo, saying it's an example of the livestock that would have been around centuries ago (except for the zedonks). Once known as the Jones Family Minifarm, it has been on Los Rios for three decades, sitting alongside the Historical Society, a nursery that's been in business since 1970 and the Rios Adobe that dates to the 1790s. The dinosaur, Siegel said, arrived as a "kind of slap in the face." But supporters counter that Juan is hardly a neighborhood disturbance and his presence doesn't violate the effort to maintain the surrounding history. "It's a statue!" said Rhonda deHaan, Cultural Heritage Commission chairwoman. "It can't be more passive than that." She said the statue is difficult to spot from the street, camouflaged in his green-gray skin, and that trees will be planted to further obscure Juan's long, skinny neck. He's no more of a distraction, she said, than the delivery trucks or cars clogging the street that, in some places, is about as wide as a sidewalk. On a recent afternoon, Franks, who has owned the site for eight years, stood beside her statuesque acquisition, boasting that he had become almost as much of a draw as the pony rides. She said attendance nearly doubled over the summer, and often there was a line of visitors snapping pictures of the friendly faced apatosaurus. Children, she said, gravitate to him. "They make it sound like this Godzilla that's coming to destroy the town," she said of Juan's critics. Moments later, though, a group of children playing a few feet from the apatosaurus shrieked. "A dinosaur! A dinosaur!" Then the bravest of them dashed over in her red cowgirl boots and stared the creature down: "Get out of my town, you beast!"

 

World's Earliest Dinosaur Possibly Discovered

From Mashable: World's Earliest Dinosaur Possibly Discovered

Dinosaurs, it turns out, may be even older than we'd thought. A new paper, published today in the journal Biology Letters, pushes dinosaurs' lineage back 10-15 million years earlier than we'd previously known. Dinosaurs, per this research, now date back into the Middle Triassic age. (Previously, the oldest known dinosaur came from the same area in present-day Argentina -- from rock sediments figured to be about 230 million years old.)

As lead researcher Sterling Nesbitt told Live Science, "This is our best evidence of a Middle Triassic dinosaur."

The discovery hinges on a set of bones that were unearthed in Tanzania in the 1930s: a humerus (upper-arm) bone and six vertebrae. (This kind of partial evidence is common when it comes to ancient fossil records: The full skeletons we're familiar with from museums, Nesbitt points out, are rare paleontological luxuries.)

The species those bones belonged to is named Nyasasaurus parringtoni, and it lived, the paper reports, sometime between between 240 million and 245 million years ago -- a time when Earth's continents were still fused together in the unified landmass known today as "Pangaea." (Tanzania would have been the southern tip of that mass.)

The dating discovery answers -- or, at least, makes strides toward in answering -- questions that have long been a matter of debate among paleontologists. How old, exactly, are dinosaurs? Since the mid-19th century, scientists suggest that dinosaurs existed in the Middle Triassic (the oldest dinosaur fossils fit into the Late Triassic period). But that theory has been based on fragmentary evidence: literal fragments of bone, but also fossilized footprints. And pedal prints are fairly unreliable when it comes to offering hard data about the creatures that made them: There are lots of animals, and they make lots of similar prints -- particularly over the course of millions of years of Earth-roaming.

Bones, however, are much more conclusive when it comes to the insights they offer about their owners. Even a partial skeleton can contain a wealth of data. Nyasasaurus parringtoni likely stood upright, T-Rex-style, and measured somewhere between 7 and 10 feet in length (3 feet at the hip). It likely had a long neck and tail, and would have been about the size of a large Labrador retriever. Though the animal's overall mass is tougher to determine, it likely weighed somewhere between 45 and 135 pounds. If the creature is not the earliest dinosaur, Nesbitt said, "then it is the closest relative found so far."

But then how do you actually tell the world, "Here is the earliest dinosaur -- or dinosaur-like creature -- we know of"? How do you make that determination in the first place?

The first challenge for Nesbitt and his team was to determine whether the bones in question actually belonged to an early dinosaur. The team used our existing knowledge of dinos -- the fact, say, that the beasts tended to grow quickly -- and applied that to the clues provided by the bones. In this case, a cross-section of the humerus bone suggested the haphazard growth of tissue, which is a sign of rapid growth in the animal the bone belonged to. Dino-y? Check.

Furthermore, "we can tell from the bone tissues that Nyasasaurus had a lot of bone cells and blood vessels," study co-author Sarah Werning, a UC Berkeley researcher who did the study's bone analysis, said in a statement. "In living animals, we only see this many bone cells and blood vessels in animals that grow quickly, like some mammals or birds."

The team also considered the way the bones would have interacted with the musculature of the animal in question. In this case, the humerus displayed an enlarged crest -- an enlarged area, that is, where the animal's arm muscles would have attached to its shoulder muscles. And early dinosaurs are, per Nesbitt, the only animals known to exhibit that particular feature. Dino-y? Check again.

Once the team was reasonably convinced that the bones in question belonged to a dinosaur-like creature, the members moved on to the matter of dating. For that, they analyzed the fossils' surroundings, aging the layer of rock where the fossil was found and, for comparison, the layers both above and below it. They also compared the fossils with similar remains found worldwide. Dino-y, but old? Check. And check.

So. Based on all that, we now have a new, tentative timeline for dinosaurs' stay on Earth. And we have, too, a new sense of how dinosaurs evolved into the "terrible lizards" that live in our minds and our culture today. Dinos developed slowly. They eased into their power, starting small and growing -- and growing and growing -- as Earth evolved with them. The newest paleontological discovery offers a new way to understand an old insight: that dinosaurs' domination of the terrestrial world was as gradual as it was finite.

100 million year-old tracks in the Denver suburbs at Dinosaur Ridge

From DenverPost.com:  100 million year-old tracks in the Denver suburbs at Dinosaur Ridge

Dinosaur Ridge museum in Morrison offers exhibits and trails that include 150 million-year-old dinosaur bones encased in sandstone (Kathryn Scott Osler, The Denver Post)

Southwest of Denver, just above the rivers of traffic flowing north and south on C-470, lies an ancient geological wonderland.
Visitors routinely see stegosauri of many colors — brown, green, pink, multicolored and a red-white-and blue one sporting Uncle Sam's hat.
Children may safely touch the tongue of an iguanodon and stare into a cold green theropod eye.
Those guys are replicas. But there are also real dinosaur tracks left by herds of iguanodons that roamed Colorado millions of years before the buffalo, and evidence of long-gone mangrove swamps.
The story of Dinosaur Ridge is 280

Tour guide Thornton Giese shows Lucas Dreith, 5, one of many exhibits.

million years old, and people who stroll its one-mile road can see and ponder its history, rock layer by rock layer.Few see it these days. At sunset on a recent November afternoon, as the rivers of C-470 traffic turn red, a lone man walks the road as rabbits and deer and raptors emerge.
Scientists have studied this area for more than a century. Until recently, the ancient wonders unearthed along this mile were available to everyone at no charge on a road called Dinosaur Freeway.
Four years ago, the Colorado Department of Transportation donated the Dinosaur Ridge road to Jefferson County and the city of Lakewood. An intergovernmental agreement closed it to all but authorized vehicles, partly to protect the dinosaur tracks from traffic.
It remains free to hikers and bikers and buses full of schoolchildren, and to cars with wheelchairs on their license plates.
For others, there is a charge to travel through 280 million years of geologic time: $5 a head for a guided bus tour.
That's a good thing, according to Sue Kaberline, who works at the Dinosaur Ridge gift shop. In warm weather, hundreds of kids arrive in school buses for a history lesson here, and "It's like herding cats out there. You know how kids are," Kaberline said.
A lost fourteener
About 280 million years ago, Mount Morrison was not a foothill west of Denver. It was a magnificent mountain, rivaling Mount Evans and Pikes Peak.
Over eons, Morrison eroded away, contributing to the deep black dirt that now underlies Iowa and Illinois.
Meanwhile, about 140 million years ago, when Earth was a bit warmer than today, what we call Colorado lay under water. A vast inland sea, 600 miles wide, stretched from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.
As the sea receded, brontosauruses tramped through, leaving round bulges in the mud visible today on Dinosaur Ridge. Later, herds of iguanodon — elephant-sized herbivores that could walk on two or four feet

The Dinosaur Ridge museum in Morrison offers educational exhibits on the types of creatures that roamed Colorado millions of years ago.

— tramped across the water's edge, leaving hundreds of tracks on what is now a steep hillside overlooking the ridge.Crisscrossing the iguanodon tracks, theropods resembling ostriches or emus left birdlike imprints in the same mud.
Elsewhere on the ridge road are obvious signs in the hardened sand and mud that Colorado has a tropical history — impressions of mangrove roots.
About 65 million years ago those wet years ended. Violent movements of plates beneath the Earth's crust thrust up the range of Rocky Mountains we see today. The thrust lifted the ground under the sea into an almost vertical ridge — what we call the hogback, because it looks like the spine of an Arkansas hogback.
The multicolored layers of sand and mud deposited for 100 million years or so became what we call Red Rocks Park and Roxborough State Park and the Garden of the Gods.
Melvin Glerup, a retired geologist with Texaco, taps a dinosaur track with a green stick. He wears red-white-and-blue suspenders and sneakers.
"Anyone know what an omnivore is?" he asks.
A girl from a fourth-grade class in Silverton raises her hand. "Someone who eats eggs?"
Glerup shows the children a pattern of theropod tracks, inviting them to guess how big the animal was and how far it hopped on a single step.
Then he taps what looks like a big round dinosaur track. "What's this?"
A boy raises his hand. "A longneck?"
Wrong answer. That circle was created recently by someone who stole a dinosaur track.
Down below in the gift shop, Brian Davidson, a onetime student of ancient Greek and Roman history, answers questions about older inhabitants of the planet.
What colors were the dinosaurs?
Brown or green, but someone recently found "orange skin on a theropod," Davidson says. "Very exciting."
In the exhibit hall nearby, the stolen dinosaur track has been returned.
Markus, a pale 6-year-old boy, rubs a hand over it.
"I'm a 2,000-million big fan of dinosaurs," he says, the biggest number he can imagine.
And what does he want to be? "A paleontologist!"
He pronounces it perfectly.
DINOSAUR RIDGE Family-friendly exhibits and dinosaur trails. Fossils, dinosaur tracks, exhibit hall, snack bar, gift shop and more. Many special events. 16831 W. Alameda Parkway, Morrison. 303-697-3466 or dinoridge.org

Visiting with her mom and brother, Lauren Dreith, 3, peers over a fence to see the dinosaur tracks. (Photos by Kathryn Scott Osler, The Denver Post)

 

Dinosaur skull is seized from Wyoming home

From NBC.com:  Dinosaur skull is seized from Wyoming home 

JACKSON, Wyo. — U.S. customs officials have seized a dinosaur skull from a Wyoming home as part of a federal Homeland Security Department investigation.

The fossil came from a close relative of the Tyrannosaurus rex and is worth between $250,000 and $400,000.
The Tyrannosaurus bataar, also known as the Tarbosaurus, lived about 70 million years ago.
The Jackson Hole News and Guide reports that federal officials have declined to provide any details about the case, saying it remains under investigation.

Federal officials recently seized a nearly complete Tarbosaurus skeleton that was sold at auction in New York and arrested a Florida man for illegally importing dinosaur fossils.
It's unclear whether there's any connection between the Jackson skull and the New York case.

 

What peer review means for science

From The Guardian:  What peer review means for science

Peer review is far from perfect, but the media presenting material that has not been through review as accepted science is misleading

 In my experience quite a lot of the misunderstandings over research, and the criticisms leveled at science and scientists seems to stem from an ignorance of some relatively basic aspects of scientific work. The Lost Worlds has not really been going long enough for me to have a great handle on the audience I have here, but I do hope that it has a broad appeal and that a good proportion of the readers are those without much of a science background. Even those that do may not have a great concept on how many things are done – it wasn't until my PhD that I really got a proper understanding on how scientific papers are published and the differences between say reviewed papers and book chapters, and I don't think it was even mentioned while I was working on my BSc. Naturally I can't say much about the vast majority of science degrees in the U.K., but I wouldn't be surprised if there's a good number of graduates who, like me, were never really introduced to aspects of science like getting papers published and applying for grants. These issues and others are things I want to cover on here as I think that people having an idea about them and how they work will give people a better appreciation of science and importantly, provide a basis for avoiding bad science.

Let's take peer review. In the last few months there have been a couple of incidents where the popular media have leaped on ideas about extinct reptiles and promoted them as, well if not quite true, then certainly highly credible. Huge numbers of people would have seen IO9s coverage of 'vampire pterosaurs' and others would have heard the BBC's radio coverage of the 'aquatic dinosaurs' idea (which was also covered in plenty of other places too). In both cases, palaeontologists responded quickly and pointed out the huge holes in the proposals and lack of scientific data supporting them (like here, here and here). However, quite how many people saw those rebuttals is another question and I'm sure there's a good number of people out there who saw these things presented as credible science and still labour under the misapprehension that they are mainstream views and quite correct. The question is raised therefore as to why were news organisations promoting such nonsense in the first place, and could they have known that they were not credible?
The short answer is yes. While a quick call to an expert would have revealed the problem, the fact that neither had been through peer review should have had alarm bells ringing.
Now I'm not pretending that peer review is brilliant, it has plenty of problems. Enough bad papers get through and even the best researchers occasionally make major mistakes or miss those of others. However, the fact is that it does at least provide a minimum amount of screening of scientific research and hypotheses, and ideas that have not passed it should be treated with greater suspicion than those that have. With the examples listed above, one idea was published in a popular science magazine (i.e. one full of articles aimed at the public, rather than technical, scientific publications) and the other was a formal conference abstract (though again, not reviewed) and backed by a personal website. I suspect it might be obvious to even non-scientists that neither sound like the right kind of venue to present (allegedly) important new research to the scientific community.
So, what is peer review? Quite simply, when a researcher submits a manuscript to a technical scientific journal, the editors will check the paper for basic competence and then send it onto a number of expert referees (generally two, sometimes many more) to check the actual science. These people are generally experts in the field in question (i.e. a paper on tyrannosaur teeth might be sent to a tyrannosaur specialist and a dinosaur tooth specialist) and they submit reports to the journal about the quality of the work. Is all the necessary information in there? Were the right analyses done in the right way? Is the science repeatable? Is it backed by the right evidence? Are the conclusions supported by the data? Is this original research with proper credit to previous studies? and so on. Assuming the paper is considered suitable, these reports are passed back to the author to make changes suggested by the referees or indeed to challenge them if he disagrees. The paper may go through several rounds of review and ultimately be rejected if it is not considered acceptable and might have to be binned or started again. Those who have tried to get a paper published will know that a great many scientific referees are both thorough and unforgiving and a manuscript is regularly improved by the feedback provided by referees.
This means that a paper that has got into a peer-reviewed journal has at least got past an expert editor and a couple of referees. It might still be rubbish, but has gained the blessing of at least a couple of people in the field who do know the subject well. Contrast this with an article submitted to a popular magazine where the limit to the input of an editor might be to suggest rewriting a few sentences. One can see why giving media coverage to the latter as likely being accurate science on the par with reviewed research might be, at best, unwise.
I would hope that readers can also appreciate how things can be seen by the researchers when their work is covered in the media. It can take months to get reviews back from journals and there may be pages and pages of comments from each of two referees and the editor. Arguments and modifications may go back and forth and additional rounds of review undergone or additional data collected and analyses revised to get things up to scratch. Years can literally pass, you go through debates and discussions with colleagues, refine your arguments and augment your evidence and see your paper eventually published. A major news outlet picks it up and the first thing you see at the bottom is a comment from some smart-assed troll asking how this nonsense ever got published or suggesting some 'obvious' flaw in the analysis. One gets the strong impression that they think researchers can simply write whatever they want in a paper, send it to the journal and a few weeks later it appears in print, and thus one could write almost anything and see it published.
That is of course exactly what can happen with something that is not peer-reviewed, hence it is most important that journalists covering science recognize the difference between the two, as indeed should the audience. But it's this lack of recognition for the process that means the mainstream media can seriously push the idea that all dinosaurs were aquatic and stuck in the water based on a scientific paper that was nothing of the kind.

 

Creation Museum’s Ken Ham Blasts Robertson’s Old Earth Remarks as ‘Destructive Teaching’

There were dinosaurs, and dinosaurs and men did not co-exist. But I share these articles from folks who are blinded by  their religion, just to show what some folk are being taught.

From Christian News:  Creation Museum’s Ken Ham Blasts Robertson’s Old Earth Remarks as ‘Destructive Teaching’
A well-known creationist is blasting televangelist Pat Robertson for remarks he made this week on his television broadcast, in which Robertson explicitly denied that the Bible supports a young earth.
“We don’t need enemies from without the church when we have such destructive teaching within the church,” states Ken Ham, founder and CEO of Answers in Genesis, which operates a creation museum in Petersburg, Kentucky.
Earlier this week, on Robertson’s The 700 Club, a question from a viewer was fielded to the televangelist, in which a woman named Michelle expressed concern that her husband and teenage sons were doubting the authority of the Bible.
“They tell me if the Bible is truth, then I should be able to reasonably explain the existence of dinosaurs. This is just one of many things they question,” she wrote. “How do I explain things to them that the Bible doesn’t cover? I am so afraid that they are walking away from God.”

Robertson’s reply was immediately picked up by outlets worldwide as a declaration that even Robertson doesn’t believe in a young earth.
“Look, I know people will probably try to lynch me when I say this, but Bishop [James] Ussher—God bless him—wasn’t inspired by the Lord when he said it all took 6,000 years. It just didn’t,” he stated.
“And you go back in time, you’ve got radiocarbon dating, you’ve got all these things, and you’ve got the carcasses of dinosaurs frozen in time out in the Dakotas,” Robertson continued. “And so there was a time that these giant reptiles were on the earth, and it was before the time of the Bible.”

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“So don’t try to cover it up and make like everything was 6,000 years. That’s not the Bible. That’s Bishop Ussher,” he exclaimed. “And so if you fight revealed science you’re going to lose your children, and I believe in telling them the way it was.”
Ham and his ministry released statements following the broadcast, both on Facebook and the Answers in Genesis website.

Ken Ham, CEO and founder of Answers in Genesis

“Not only do we have to work hard to not let our kids be led astray by the anti-God teaching of the secularists, we have to work hard to not let them be led astray by compromising church leaders like Pat Robertson,” Ham wrote. “Pat Robertson gives more fodder to our enemies.”
“Mr. Robertson is saying that we should hold the ideas and opinions of man above the very word of God itself,” concurred Dr. Tommy Mitchell in an article entitled Pat Robertson’s Word or God’s Word: Which Will You Believe?, which was posted yesterday on the Answers in Genesis website. “It is precisely this type of compromise within the church that has caused such an erosion of people’s faith in the word of God and a mass exodus of young people from the church.”
Ham noted that secularists are joyful about Robertson’s statement. He shared a comment from an atheist, who said, “I’m rooting for Pat. Pat has also admitted that sex is a force to be reckoned with. Not that I’m endorsing Pat’s position, but at least he seems able to glimpse the real world past his Bible-colored glasses. If he lives to be a hundred and twenty, I’ll put even money on his becoming an atheist.”
“Note the secularist can see that Pat Robertson is not believing the Bible on this issue,” Ham wrote. “I still shake my head at the number of church leaders who want to appease the secularists and accept their anti-God religion of millions of years and even molecules to man evolution.”
Mitchell explained that the Bible does indeed support a young earth and that the dinosaur fossil record is consistent with the Biblical timeline.
“We know that creation week lasted six ordinary days because the Bible says so,” Mitchell said. “A study of the use of the Hebrew word ‘yom’ in Genesis 1 clearly indicates that God told us He created [the universe] in six ordinary, twenty-four-hour days. So how do you put millions of years into the text where it plainly does not fit?”
“There was no ‘before the time of the Bible,’ as Robertson claims,” he continued. “Dinosaurs are land animals and were created on the sixth day of creation week along with all the other land animals and man. They lived and reproduced for hundreds of years before the flood. Then God led at least two of each kind of land animal to Noah. … After the flood, the waters receded, and the dinosaurs and the other animals got off the ark and lived on earth with man. Evidently, the dinosaurs eventually went extinct like so many other creatures have over the centuries.”
The men state that they find it sad that so many visible Christian speakers are compromising their faith in society.
“Such leaders – including Pat Robertson – have a lot to answer to the Lord for one day,” Ham lamented. “Such leaders are guilty of putting stumbling blocks in the way of kids and adults in regards to believing God’s word and the Gospel.”
Robertson is no stranger to controversy, however, as for years many have questioned both his associations with disreputable Republican candidates and his statements on a variety of societal and spiritual topics. In 2011, the televangelist came under fire for advising a man to divorce his debilitated wife, who was suffering with Alzheimer’s Disease.
“I know it sounds cruel, but if he’s going to do something, he should divorce her and start all over again, but make sure she has custodial care and someone looking after her,” Robertson said. “I certainly wouldn’t put a guilt trip on you if you decided that you had to have companionship [because] you’re lonely.”

 

Dallas: Dallas’ Perot Museum of Nature and Science officially opens to enthusiastic crowd

From GuideLive:  Dallas’ Perot Museum of Nature and Science officially opens to enthusiastic crowd 

Aided by unseasonably warm weather and hindered by a balky red ribbon, the Perot Museum of Nature and Science opened Saturday to enthusiastic crowds.
“Merry Christmas, citizens of Dallas. It’s a great gift,” said Mayor Mike Rawlings at the official opening ceremonies.
Rawlings hailed the $185 million museum as a major new institution that would not only raise local education standards, but also serve as an economic engine to create jobs and increase tourism.
The dedication ceremony was brief. The speeches by dignitaries were even briefer.
“I hope you will agree this is 180,000 square feet of inspiration that will get everybody very excited about nature and science,” said museum board chairwoman Carolyn Perot Rathjen in her welcoming remarks.
She was followed by three rounds of cheers led by her father, Dallas businessman Ross Perot — who, with his wife, Margot, lent his name to the museum.
Perot, in turn, was followed by two members of the San Francisco-based Project Bandaloop, who rappelled and danced their way from the top of the museum, the equivalent of 14 stories high. A cannon fired confetti over the crowded plaza.
The only part of the ribbon-cutting that did not go as planned was, well, the ribbon-cutting.
The red cloth was only symbolic, but still wide and thick enough that it resisted the efforts of local officials and the members of the Perot family to cut it with pairs of oversized scissors. Ross Perot Jr. at one point betrayed an exasperated grimace.
“The trick,” confided his mother, Margot Perot, “was to cut the cloth with the scissors and then tear it apart with your hands.”

‘It’s off the charts’

That glitch aside, first-day visitors were enthusiastic.
“It’s off the charts. I don’t believe it,” said Sophia Johnson, who lives in the Cedars neighborhood south of downtown. “It’s not just the exhibits, it’s the layers of other things to do, like videos and interactive games. You could come here 20 times and not see everything.”
Amanda Anderson of Garland had followed the progress of the museum for months and wanted to bring her three children on the first day.
“The older kids liked the universe exhibit, but for the younger ones, it’s definitely the dinosaurs,” she said.
While she was being interviewed, her 5-year-old son, Nathan, tugged her impatiently toward a stuffed bison.
“I grew up going to the Field Museum [in Chicago]. But now that I live here, for Dallas to have something like this, this makes me proud,” she said.
The dinosaur hall was among the busiest exhibits, though the earthquake simulator in the earth hall attracted steady business.
For that exhibit, visitors stand on a platform where they can punch up a quake simulation ranging from mild (roughly magnitude 4.6) to extreme (between 9 and 10).
“The kids all hit the ‘extreme’ button — without exception,” said a staff member.
The sports hall on the ground floor was also popular.
Britanya Anderson of Mesquite watched as her son and her niece, both 3 years old, lined up next to each other to race a T-Rex on the video screen behind them.
Children in line began to chant the countdown to the start of the race. The word “go” appeared on the screen, and the onlookers began screaming in excitement as the two toddlers flung their arms in the air and sped down the track trailing the dinosaur.
Nearby, Irving residents Dawn Crossno and her husband, John, watched as their 8-year-old grandson, Noah Jacobson, tried his hand at different interactive sports activities. They had spent 21/2 hours making their way through the museum but found themselves at a halt once they reached the sports section.
“You could spend the day here easily,” she said, adding that Noah had raced a video cheetah four times.
The museum opened on a busy day downtown, one that saw abnormally mild December weather.
The Children’s Medical Center Holiday Parade, which passed a few blocks south of the museum, drew tens of thousands of spectators.
Dealey Plaza, the West End and Klyde Warren Park attracted crowds, although vendors at the deck park said the previous weekend had been busier because of visitors in town for Thanksgiving.

‘We’re thrilled’

Fearing potential traffic congestion, Samantha Harris of Grand Prairie woke up her family at 5 a.m. so they could be on the museum plaza well before it opened.
“We’ve been hearing about it for so long, and we wanted to see it before it got too crowded,” she said.
The prospect of an abnormally busy downtown crowd, though, may have served to scare away some potential visitors.
Amber Pyles brought her 4-year-old son, Mekhai, to the parade and had hoped to make it over to the Perot Museum. But she decided not to, worried it’d be too busy.
“I know it’s the grand opening, so it must be crowded,” Pyles said.
In fact, museum attendance was unexpectedly light for the first hour.
Staff members said they purposely kept morning advance ticket sales down to guard against overcrowding. But temporary queue barriers, clearly set up to deal with anticipated walk-up crowds, at first stood unused.
The situation changed as the parade ended. By 11:30 a.m., traffic began to back up for the museum parking lots. By 12:30 p.m., the queue barriers were filling up.
In any case, museum leaders pronounced themselves pleased.
“We’re thrilled, it’s been fun,” said Nicole Small, the museum’s chief executive.
After walking through the six levels of exhibits, Small stood near the exit, talking to visitors as they left.
“We had trouble getting our son to leave the engineering exhibit,” one told her. “He cried that he didn’t want to go.”
Small beamed.
“That’s what I want to hear,” she said.
Staff writers Danielle Abril and Andrew Pantazi contributed to this report.
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AT A GLANCE: Perot Museum of Nature and Science

Approximate first-day attendance: 6,000
Number of household memberships sold through Saturday: More than 11,000

Hours

Opening weekend: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday
Regular hours:
10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday
Noon to 5 p.m. Sundays

Admission

General admission to exhibit halls:
$15 for adults (18-64)
$12 for students (12-17) and seniors (65+)
$10 for children (2-11)
Free for children under 2 and for museum members
Advance purchase: Tickets can be purchased online; visitors must print them out and present them for entry into the exhibit halls. The museum uses a timed-ticketed reservation system to prevent overcapacity crowds. If you miss your assigned time to get into the museum, you might have to wait in line.
Member tickets: While admission is free for members, they must have tickets to get in and are encouraged to make reservations online to avoid lines.
Film admission to the Hoglund Foundation Theater:
$8 for adults, students, seniors and children
$6 for museum members
$5 for 20-minute shows for all age groups
Combo admission to exhibit halls and theater:
$20 for adults (18-64)
$17 for students (12-17) and seniors (65+)
$15 for children (2-11)

How to get there

The museum is at 2201 N. Field St. at Woodall Rodgers Freeway.
DART buses: Take the bus to the West Transfer Center in downtown Dallas and walk north on Griffin Street to the intersection of Field Street and Woodall Rodgers.
DART trains: The Red, Blue, Green and Orange lines stop at the Akard and West End stations. The Green and Orange lines stop at Victory Station. Each station is about a 10-minute walk from the museum.
Trinity Railway Express: Take the Trinity Railway Express from Irving, Arlington and as far west as Fort Worth. Get off at Victory Station for a 10-minute walk to the museum. The train does not run on Sundays. For a schedule, go to trinityrailwayexpress.org.
Driving: The museum is at Field Street at Woodall Rodgers Freeway, which runs through downtown Dallas between Interstate 35E and North Central Expressway. Take any exit off Woodall Rodgers and take the westbound frontage road to Field Street.