I. Various Species Concepts A. Determining whether two plants are members of the same species has intriqued and perplexed biologists for a very long time. Indeed, some question the reality of species from a philosophical standpoint, such as nominalism and realism (see Wikipedia for discussion of this as well as definitions of species). Darwin said […]
Archive for March, 2013
Species Concepts in Paleontology
March 11th, 2013 
Riffin 
Posted in Featured Post 
Tags: ALLOPATRIC, Phylogenetic, Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev, Species Concepts, SYMPATRIC, WFS, world fossil society 
No Comments »Dinosaurs Died Within Hours After Asteroid Hit Earth 65 Million Years Ago
March 10th, 2013 Riffin According to earlier research led by a University of Colorado at Boulder geophysicist, a giant asteroid that hit the coast of Mexico 65 million years ago probably incinerated all the large dinosaurs that were alive at the time in only a few hours, and only those organisms already sheltered in burrows or in water were […]
WFS Profiles:Dr. Robert T. Bakker
March 9th, 2013 Riffin Dr. Robert T. Bakker is one of palaeontology greatest and most well known characters. Bakker was the first man who hypothesized that dinosaurs may have been warm-blooded, and was the scientist who believed that diseases caused the demise of the terrible lizards. He is also the author of the famous book The Dinosaur Heresies. Bakker […]
Posted in Featured Post Tags: Apatosaurus, Camarasaurus, Dr. Robert T. Bakker, Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev, WFS, world fossil society 1 Comment »Reanalysis of “Raptorex kriegsteini”: A Juvenile Tyrannosaurid Dinosaur from Mongolia
March 9th, 2013 Riffin The carnivorous Tyrannosauridae are among the most iconic dinosaurs: typified by large body size, tiny forelimbs, and massive robust skulls with laterally thickened teeth. The recently described small-bodied tyrannosaurid Raptorex kreigsteini is exceptional as its discovery proposes that many of the distinctive anatomical traits of derived tyrannosaurids were acquired in the Early Cretaceous, before the […]
Research shows Snakes originated on land
March 8th, 2013 Riffin One of the most primitive snake fossils have debunked the belief that the slithery reptiles had originated in the sea, suggesting instead that they were the creatures of land. The animal, which lived at the same time as the dinosaurs, probably emerged from a line of burrowing reptiles that eventually lost their legs. Where […]
Fossil Critter Pee Reveals Past Climate Change
March 7th, 2013 Riffin But that’s nothing to Brian Chase, a researcher at Montpelier University in France. Chase prefers pee of a somewhat older vintage: the crystallized pee of the rock hyrax (Procavia capensis) that dates to some 55,000 years ago. Chase uses the information gathered from crystallized hyrax pee in southern Africa to study Earth’s climate thousands of years […]
Volcano location could be greenhouse-icehouse key
March 5th, 2013 Riffin A new Rice University-led study finds the real estate mantra “location, location, location” may also explain one of Earth’s enduring climate mysteries. The study suggests that Earth’s repeated flip-flopping between greenhouse and icehouse states over the past 500 million years may have been driven by the episodic flare-up of volcanoes at key locations where enormous […]
WFS Profiles: Luis Alvarez 1911 – 1988
March 4th, 2013 Riffin Photo Courtesy :LBNL Image Library — Collection BERKELEY-LAB/PEOPLE/INDIVIDUALS Luis Alvarez was a physicist with wide ranging interests. At the University of Chicago, he took a class called Advanced Experimental Physics: Light, and later claimed, “It was love at first sight.” He graduated in 1932 and stayed at Chicago for his graduate work. He married, had […]
Posted in Featured Post Tags: Enola Gay, Ernest Lawrence, Luis Alvarez, Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev, WFS, world fossil society No Comments »Prehistoric colours in fossil insects
March 4th, 2013 Riffin An international research team led by a University of Bristol scientist has explained the preservation of colours in fossil insects for the first time. The discovery explains why colours change and why they are destroyed during fossilisation, revealing hidden gems in the insect fossil record that could help reconstruct the evolution of colours in insects. […]
WFS Dinosaur Diary: Argentinosaurus
March 3rd, 2013 Riffin Argentinosaurus is a genus of titanosaur sauropod dinosaur first discovered by Guillermo Heredia in Argentina. The generic name refers to the country in which it was discovered. The dinosaur lived on the then-island continent of South America somewhere between 97 and 94 million years ago, during the Late Cretaceous Epoch. Reconstructed skeleton of Argentinosaurus huinculensis at […]
