In a paper published in Nature Communications on January 22, 2013, a team of paleontologists including Dr. Luis Chiappe, Director of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County’s (NHM) Dinosaur Institute, has discovered a way to determine the sex of a prehistoric bird species. Reconstruction of Confuciusornis sanctus. (Credit: Stephanie Abramowicz, NHM Dinosaur Institute) […]
Posts Tagged ‘Russel T Sajeev’
Sex of Early Birds Suggests Dinosaur Reproductive Style
January 23rd, 2013 
Riffin 
Posted in Featured Post 
Tags: Confuciusornis sanctus, Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev, WFS, world fossil society 
1 Comment »How dinosaurs measure up with laser imaging
January 22nd, 2013 Riffin Karl Bates and his colleagues in the palaeontology and biomechanics research group have reconstructed the bodies of five dinosaurs, two T. rex (Stan at the Manchester Museum and the Museum of the Rockies cast MOR555), an Acrocanthosaurus atokensis, a Strutiomimum sedens and an Edmontosaurus annectens. The team, whose findings are published in the Public Library […]
Mars May Have Supported Life: Martian Underground Could Contain Clues to Life’s Origins
January 21st, 2013 Riffin Minerals found in the subsurface of Mars, a zone of more than three miles below ground, make for the strongest evidence yet that the red planet may have supported life, according to research “Groundwater activity on Mars and implications for a deep biosphere,” published in Nature Geoscience on January 20, 2013. Up to half of […]
Posted in Featured Post Tags: Mars Rock, Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev, WFS, world fossil society No Comments »Insect plugs gap in fossil record
January 20th, 2013 Riffin One day 370 million years ago, a tiny larva plunged into a shrimp-infested swamp and drowned. Unearthed in modern-day Belgium, the humble bug could plug a giant gap in the fossil record. Named Strudiella devonica, the eight-millimetre invertebrate – while in far from mint condition – is thought by researchers who published their findings in […]
Posted in Featured Post Tags: Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev, Strudiella devonica, WFS, world fossil society 1 Comment »India’s first dinosaur fossil rediscovered
January 19th, 2013 Riffin More than a century after it went missing, the fossil of what has been regarded as India’s first recorded dinosaur has been rediscovered in Kolkata, according to a top scientific journal. The recovery of Titanosaurus Indicus, or the Indian Tital reptile, was possible due to a collaborative programme between the Geological Survey of India (GSI) […]
Posted in Featured Post Tags: Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev, Titanosaurus Indicus, WFS, world fossil society No Comments »The Completeness of the Fossil Record of Mesozoic Birds: Implications for Early Avian Evolution
January 17th, 2013 Riffin Many palaeobiological analyses have concluded that modern birds (Neornithes) radiated no earlier than the Maastrichtian, whereas molecular clock studies have argued for a much earlier origination. Here, we assess the quality of the fossil record of Mesozoic avian species, using a recently proposed character completeness metric which calculates the percentage of phylogenetic characters that can […]
Posted in Featured Post Tags: Mesozoic Birds, Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev, WFS, world fossil society 2 Comments »Scientists reassemble the backbone of life with a particle accelerator synchrotron X-rays
January 16th, 2013 Riffin Scientists have been able to reconstruct, for the first time, the intricate three-dimensional structure of the backbone of early tetrapods, the earliest four-legged animals. High-energy X-rays and a new data extraction protocol allowed the researchers to reconstruct the backbones of the 360 million year old fossils in exceptional detail and shed new light on how […]
Low Extinction Rates Made California a Refuge for Diverse Plant Species
January 14th, 2013 Riffin The remarkable diversity of California’s plant life is largely the result of low extinction rates over the past 45 million years, according to a new study published in the journal Evolution. Although many new species have evolved in California, the rate at which plant lineages gave rise to new species has not been notably higher […]
Posted in Featured Post Tags: Plant Species Extinction, Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev, WFS, world fossil society 2 Comments »Study Reveals Jurassic Ecosystems Were Similar to Modern: Animals Flourish Among Lush Plants
January 12th, 2013 Riffin Typically researchers count the number of animal species discovered in a region to determine how many different types of animals once lived there. Scientists call that a measure of faunal richness. Myers took a different approach. Using a traditional method typically used to estimate carbon dioxide in the ancient atmosphere, Myers instead applied it to […]
Posted in Featured Post Tags: Jurassic Ecosystem, Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev, WFS, world fossil society No Comments »Giant Fossil Predator Provides Insights Into the Rise of Modern Marine Ecosystem Structures
January 8th, 2013 Riffin An international team of scientists has described a fossil marine predator measuring 8.6 meters in length (about 28 feet) recovered from the Nevada desert in 2010 as representing the first top predator in marine food chains feeding on prey similar to its own size. A paper with their description will appear the week of Jan. […]
Posted in Featured Post Tags: Fossil Predators, ichthyosaurs, Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev, WFS, world fossil society No Comments »
