Air flows mostly in a one-way loop through the lungs of monitor lizards — a breathing method shared by birds, alligators and presumably dinosaurs, according to a new University of Utah study. The findings — published online Dec. 11 in the journal Nature — raise the possibility this breathing pattern originated 270 million years ago, […]
Posts Tagged ‘Russel T Sajeev’
The Mystery of Lizard Breath: One-Way Air Flow May Be 270 Million Years Old
December 17th, 2013 
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Location of Upwelling in Earth’s Mantle Discovered to Be Stable
December 16th, 2013 Riffin A study published in Nature today shares the discovery that large-scale upwelling within Earth’s mantle mostly occurs in only two places: beneath Africa and the Central Pacific. More importantly, Clinton Conrad, Associate Professor of Geology at the University of Hawaii — Manoa’s School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST) and colleagues revealed that […]
Edmontosaurus:Dinosaur Fossil With Fleshy Rooster’s Comb Is First of Its Kind
December 15th, 2013 Riffin The structure above the fossil’s head was so unexpected that Phil Bell put his chisel straight through the middle of it. “I was just expecting there to be rock, and all of a sudden there was skin underneath, and I thought to myself, ‘Whoops,’” he said. What Bell had found was the first dinosaur fossil […]
Runaway Process Drives Intermediate-Depth Earthquakes
December 14th, 2013 Riffin Stanford researchers have uncovered a vital clue about the mechanism behind a type of earthquake that originates deep within Earth and accounts for a quarter of all temblors worldwide, some of which are strong enough to pose a safety hazard. Stanford scientists may have solved the mystery of what drives a type of earthquake that […]
Tooth Structure and Wear Provide Clues to Ecology and Evolution of Ancient Marine Creatures
December 13th, 2013 Riffin A trio of published studies have highlighted the importance of examining dental structure and wear in ancient creatures to better understand their ecology and evolution. New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine Assistant Professor Brian Beatty, Ph.D., contributed to all three of the studies with his expertise in analyzing patterns of tooth wear […]
Lithosphere Deformed And Fractured Under Indian Ocean Much Earlier Than Previously Thought
December 12th, 2013 Riffin The discovery by Indian and British scientists that the Earth’s strong outer shell – the ‘lithosphere’ – within the central Indian Ocean began to deform and fracture 15.4–13.9 million years ago, much earlier than previously thought, impacts our understanding of the birth of the Himalayas and the strengthening of the Indian-Asian monsoon. India and Asia […]
Western Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami Hazard Potential Greater Than Previously Thought
December 11th, 2013 Riffin Earthquakes similar in magnitude to the 2004 Sumatra earthquake could occur in an area beneath the Arabian Sea at the Makran subduction zone, according to recent research published in Geophysical Research Letters. The research was carried out by scientists from the University of Southampton based at the National Oceanography Centre Southampton (NOCS), and the Pacific […]
Cockroaches Probably Cleaned Up after Dinosaurs
December 10th, 2013 Riffin Dinosaurs undoubtedly produced huge quantities of excrements. But who cleaned up after them? Dung beetles and flies with rapid development were rare during most of the Mesozoic. Candidates for these duties are extinct cockroaches (Blattulidae), whose temporal range is associated with herbivorous dinosaurs. An opportunity to test this hypothesis arises from coprolites to some extent […]
Why beaks evolved in some theropod dinosaurs and what their function : New Study
December 9th, 2013 Riffin Why beaks evolved in some theropod dinosaurs and what their function might have been is the subject of new research by an international team of palaeontologists published this week in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences). Beaks are a typical hallmark of modern birds and can be found in a huge variety of […]
Expedition to Undersea Mountain Yields New Information About Sub-Seafloor Structure
December 8th, 2013 Riffin Scientists recently concluded an expedition aboard the research vessel JOIDES Resolution to learn more about Atlantis Massif, an undersea mountain, or seamount, that formed in a very different way than the majority of the seafloor in the oceans. Unlike volcanic seamounts, which are made of the basalt that’s typical of most of the seafloor, Atlantis […]
