China’s tragic magnitude 6.9 earthquake on April 13 and the recent devastating earthquakes in Haiti, Chile, Mexico, and elsewhere have many wondering if this earthquake activity is unusual. Scientists say 2010 is not showing signs of unusually high earthquake activity. Since 1900, an average of 16 magnitude 7 or greater earthquakes — the size that […]
Posts Tagged ‘Russel T Sajeev’
Insect fossil Sheds Light On Climate Change
July 12th, 2013 
Riffin Simon Fraser University biologists have discovered a new, extinct family of insects that will help scientists better understand how some animals responded to global climate change and the evolution of communities. “The Eocene Apex of Panorpoid Family Diversity,” a paper by SFU’s Bruce Archibald and Rolf Mathewes, plus David Greenwood from Brandon University, was recently […]
How Early Earth Kept Warm Enough to Support Life
July 11th, 2013 Riffin Solving the “faint young sun paradox” — explaining how early Earth was warm and habitable for life beginning more than 3 billion years ago even though the sun was 20 percent dimmer than today — may not be as difficult as believed, says a new University of Colorado Boulder study. In fact, two CU-Boulder researchers […]
The Origin of the Turtle Shell: Mystery Solved
July 10th, 2013 Riffin A team of researchers from Japan has finally solved the riddle of the origin of the turtle shell. By observing the development of different animal species and confirming their results with fossil analysis and genomic data, researchers from the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology show that the shell on the turtle’s back derives only from […]
The Evolution of Fins to Limbs in the Land Invasion Race
July 8th, 2013 Riffin Why did animals with limbs win the race to invade land over those with fins? A new study comparing the forces acting on fins of mudskipper fish and on the forelimbs of tiger salamanders can now be used to analyze early fossils that spanned the water-to-land transition in tetrapod evolution, and further understand their capability […]
Fossil Insect Traces Reveal Ancient Climate, Entrapment, and Fossilization at La Brea Tar Pits
July 5th, 2013 Riffin The La Brea Tar Pits have stirred the imaginations of scientists and the public alike for over a century. But the amount of time it took for ancient animals to become buried in asphalt after enduring their gruesome deaths has remained a mystery. Recent forensic investigations, led by Anna R. Holden of the Natural History […]
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Tags: Fossil Insect, Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev, WFS, world fossil society 
No Comments »The Giant Cretaceous Coelacanth (Actinistia, Sarcopterygii) Megalocoelacanthus dobiei Schwimmer, Stewart & Williams, 1994, and Its Bearing on Latimerioidei Interrelationships
July 4th, 2013 Riffin We present a redescription of Megalocoelacanthus dobiei, a giant fossil coelacanth from Upper Cretaceous strata of North America. Megalocoelacanthus has been previously described on the basis of composite material that consisted of isolated elements. Consequently, many aspects of its anatomy have remained unknown as well as its phylogenetic relationships with other coelacanths. Previous studies have […]
After Major Earthquake: A Global Murmur, Then Unusual Silence
July 3rd, 2013 Riffin 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
July 1st, 2013 Riffin 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 […]
Posted in Featured Post Tags: Psittacosaurus, Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev, WFS, world fossil society No Comments »Large Dead Zone Forming in the Gulf
June 30th, 2013 Riffin Ocean experts had predicted a large “dead zone” area in the Gulf of Mexico this year, and according to the results from a Texas A&M University researcher just back from studying the region, those predictions appear to be right on target. Steve DiMarco, professor of oceanography and one of the world’s leading experts on the […]
