Archive for July, 2013

After Major Earthquake: A Global Murmur, Then Unusual Silence

In the global aftershock zone that followed the major April 2012 Indian Ocean earthquake, seismologists noticed an unusual pattern. The magnitude (M) 8.6 earthquake, a strike-slip event at intraoceanic tectonic plates, caused global seismic rates of M≥4.5 to rise for several days, even at distances thousands of kilometers from the mainshock site. However, the rate […]

How ‘Parrot Dinosaur’ Switched from Four Feet to Two as It Grew

Tracking the growth of dinosaurs and how they changed as they grew is difficult. Using a combination of biomechanical analysis and bone histology, palaeontologists from Beijing, Bristol, and Bonn have shown how one of the best-known dinosaurs switched from four feet to two as it grew. Psittacosaurus, the ‘parrot dinosaur’ is known from more than […]