Posts

May 15, 2013

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11:00 AM | My Charlie

Yesterday’s blog prompt was about what someone has done to comfort you. My reaction was that just being there is sufficient most times. I have a friend who always knows when I’m down and insists on being close to me … Continue reading →

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10:00 AM | Vintage Dinosaur Art: Dinosaurs - A Picture Dictionary

Today's featured book is 1990's Dinosaurs: A Picture Dictionary. Featuring evocative artwork by Tessa Hamilton, it features a welcome variety of animals due to its alphabetical imperative - an organizing theme which also forgives some temporally and geographically questionable pairings of animals. It also just so happens to be the book I chose for Mike Keesey as his prize for his second place showing in the LITC All Yesterdays contest. It begins with a brief introduction to dinosaurs, set […]

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4:23 AM | A New Non-mammaliaform Eucynodont from the Ischigualasto Formation of Argentina

Martínez, R. N., Eliana Fernandez, E., and O. A. Alcober. 2013. A new non-mammaliaform eucynodont from the Carnian-Norian Ischigualasto Formation, Northwestern Argentina. Revista Brasileira de Paleontologia 16: 61-76. doi:10.4072/rbp.2013.1.05 Abstract - The record of non-mammaliaformes eucynodonts from the Carnian-Norian Ischigualasto Formation is diverse and abundant, including a medium to large size herbivore and small carnivores. Here is described a new small eucynodont from the […]

May 14, 2013

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3:25 PM | Conservation biology – let’s get integrated!

This was initially posted at: http://blogs.egu.eu/palaeoblog/?p=600 Conserving our world’s biodiversity is currently one of the biggest challenges we face. I wrote a post recently about some of the issues palaeontologists face when trying to make our science relative to current conservation … Continue reading →

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3:22 PM | Protected: Progressive Palaeontology live Twitter feed [TEST]

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

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11:00 AM | ¡Volvemos al campo!

Por que.. desde el 16 hasta el 29 de Mayo estaremos de nuevo en el Yacimiento Paleontológico de Somosaguas. Un año más dan comienzo las tareas de excavación de este yacimiento en el que llevan desarrollandose tareas desde hace más de 10 años. leer más

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11:00 AM | More than Words

National Blog Posting Month – May 2013 – Comfort Prompt – Tell us about a time when a friend comforted you in the past. What did he/she do that made a difference? —— Y’know, most of the time when I … Continue reading →

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10:00 AM | Mesozoic Miscellany 59

Plenty of news about Jurassic Park 4 lately, with the latest latest news being that it might not be happening any time soon. Still, it's inspired a nice flurry of writing among our blogging comrades, and that's a good thing. Matt Martyniuk at DinoGoss wrote about it, with this nice turn of phrase: "it's a bit sad that JP has eaten its own tail and become the self-perpetuating font of inaccurate science the original film was designed to destroy." Andrea Cau doesn't really care either way, and […]

May 13, 2013

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9:48 PM | The Supertree Method

Unrelated administrative note: While revamping my computer set-up, which included complete formatting of my main drive, my wonderfully-curated paper database that I had cumulatively built over 6 years and that contained over 106000 papers got destroyed. The PDFs are unharmed, thankfully, but the actual database sorting them out with proper metadata is gone, and it […]

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9:10 PM | Who owns a peer-reviewed, revised, accepted manuscript? YOU DO!

Suppose that, for some good and sane reason, you need to place a paper in a paywalled journal. You do some research. You write a paper and prepare illustrations. You send it off to a journal, and a volunteer editor sends it out to volunteer peer-reviewers. You handle the reviews, revise your manuscript, write rebuttals […]

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8:47 PM | A Dinosaur’s Unexpected Appearance

Sometimes your research shows up in the places where you least expect it. Seniors at Armour High School–my alma mater square in the middle of Armour, South Dakota (population 699)–have a fun and quirky tradition at graduation. When called …

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8:13 PM | A new NSF grant, and new publications site

I recently received word from the National Science Foundation that VMNH successfully applied for a grant related to our fossil insect collections. The grant is part of a collaborative proposal that includes most of the major fossil insect collections in … Continue reading →

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5:35 PM | The Valley of Gwangi

I've been working off and on on this review for a while. Some of you will recall my occasional promises to have it up "soon," which you probably and reasonably disbelieved. But recently, we got some sad news: the death of one of special effects' greatest legends, a personal hero of mine, the affable and talented Ray Harryhausen. In recognition of his life and work, I leave the following for your perusal. Ray Harryhausen died May 7th, 2013, at the age of 91. This is one of the things […]

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11:11 AM | Academic ancestry

While looking through Don Henderson’ personal collection, I stumbled across this picture of my (and indeed Don’s) PhD supervisor, Mike Benton. It’s from a book of Mike’s (On the trail of the dinosaurs) from 1985 and shows him with a hadrosaur skull he found while in Alberta. Don spotted immediately that it was a specimen […]

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11:00 AM | My Bestie and the Elevator

National Blog Posting Month – May 2013 – Comfort Prompt – If you had to be trapped in an elevator, which friend would you want trapped with you and why? —— The good news is, methinks I’d most want to … Continue reading →

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10:30 AM | Harpacodus Pentalodont Fossil Tooth

Here are some images of the Harpacodus dentatus? petalodont fossil tooth. It was found in the Big Clifty Formation of the Indiana Springs Shale Member of Crawford County, Indiana, USA. The creature existed in the Mississippian Period.See another example of one at the Indiana State Museum web site HERE.Thanks to Mark for showing me this fossil.

May 12, 2013

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1:00 PM | My Persona

Within the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA), each member must develop for themselves a ‘persona,’ in which they may select a new name for themselves, along with a simple history that includes a time and place in which this persona … Continue reading →

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10:30 AM | Ruby Red Shark Tooth Fossil

This is an interesting color for a fossil... ruby red. The following are images of the Thrinacodus sp shark fossil tooth. Thrinacodus was named by Susan Turner in 1982 and this genus is known for its three hook like cusps. It was found in the Big Clifty Formation of the Indiana Springs Shale Member of Crawford County, Indiana, USA. The creature existed in the Mississippian Period.Why this fossil is so red? Iron content maybe?Thanks to Mark for showing me this fossil.

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5:57 AM | Wooster’s Fossils of the Week: Embedded cornulitids from the Lower Silurian of Estonia

At first specimen this looks like a series of holes drilled into a small, smooth substrate (like Trypanites), but then you notice that the substrate has grown up around the holes, and on the far left you can make out two cones. These are cornulitid tubes that lived on and then inside a living stromatoporoid [...]

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4:33 AM | Stink Bug – Chapter 8

T’r’bl swooped down from the trees and landed in the center of the cleared area before me. Flames fluttered in the wind kicked up by her flapping. I ducked to avoid getting dust in my eyes. W’oo’woo trilled quietly. He … Continue reading →

May 11, 2013

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10:27 PM | The SV-POW! open-access decision tree

As part of the progressive erosion of RCUK’s initially excellent open-access policy, barrier-based publishers somehow got them to accept their “open-access decision tree“, which you can now find on page 7 of the toothless current version of the policy. The purpose of this manoeuvre by the Publishers Association is to lend an air of legitimacy […]

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5:57 AM | Wooster’s Fossils of the Week: Embedded cornulitids from the Lower Silurian of Estonia

At first specimen this looks like a series of holes drilled into a small, smooth substrate (like Trypanites), but then you notice that the substrate has grown up around the holes, and on the far left you can make out two cones. These are cornulitid tubes that lived on and then inside a living stromatoporoid [...]

May 10, 2013

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9:00 PM | The Thecodontosaurus that Didn't

This was originally conceived around this time last year as my entry for Bristol Dinosaur Project's Thecodontosaurus Illustration Competition. Sadly (though perhaps predictably), I failed to make the competition deadline.Thecodontosaurus (with sphenodont). Sepia ink on Saunders Waterford hot pressed watercolour paper; 150 x 280mm. I've decided that her name is 'Thesis'. Yes.Details. Unfortunately, this illustration suffers somewhat from reduction, though it seems to withstand considerable […]

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12:00 PM | Friday Headlines: 05-10-13

Friday Headlines, May 10, 2013 THE LATEST IN THE GEOSCIENCES RUSSIAN RESEARCHER CLAIMS TO HAVE FOUND ROCKS FROM AN OBJECT THAT CAUSED THE TUNGUSKA EXPLOSION In 1908, there was a tremendous explosion over Siberia, called the Tunguska explosion or event. … Continue reading →

May 09, 2013

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11:18 PM | What happens if the Earth’s magnetic field fails?

Interested in what might happen if the Earth’s magnetic field suddenly vanished? I blogged about it, but not in my own blog. Check it out here!

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9:45 PM | Biology and palaeontology papers in arXiv

Back in February last year, in a comment section, we got to discussing arXiv, the free-to-use open-access preprint repository that pretty much every physicist, mathematician and astonomer deposits their papers in. At the time, I wrote: The immediate answer is that arXiv doesn’t accept palaeontology papers — the closest it comes is “computational biology”. After […]

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9:09 PM | Vintage Dinosaur Art: Dinosaur Dream

In my last-but-one Vintage Dinosaur Art post - about three years ago now - I reviewed a book entitled Dreaming of Dinosaurs. While some commented that it wasn't very vintage, others (on Facebook, mostly) noted how its title reminded them of a different book that they treasured as a child - Dinosaur Dream. Well wouldn't you know, I've only gone and procured that one too! And no, as it's from 1990, it isn't very 'vintage' either. However, hopefully this will be forgiven on the grounds that it's […]

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6:39 PM | Dreaming of San Onofre Beach

SAN ONOFRE STATE BEACH, CA – The warm spring weather in Wooster, OH has us dreaming of the beach rather than finals week. Some lucky Wooster Geologists had a recent beach fix when they visited San Onofre State Beach in southern California during the Keck Symposium. Symposium attendees had two options for the traditional Friday Field Trip: [...]

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5:18 PM | Genetic Clues from Sabercat Bones

Smilodon is the most famous of North America’s long-lost sabercats. But the burly carnivore wasn’t the only long-fanged …

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3:35 PM | Mutant Blastoid Fossil

This unique Pentremites sp. blastoid fossil was found in the Indian Springs Formation of Crawford County, Indiana, USA. It is unique because instead of having five ambulacra (food gathering sections populated with hair like brachioles), this specimen only had three. It is about 1 cm long so it was able to function with fewer sections and grow to this respectable size. Why it mutated would be a good question to get an answer to.I did not look to see how many holes were at the top of it. If there […]