Model of the Newly Discovered Hesperonychus Elizabethae
It had razor sharp claws and its teeth may have been the terror of Alberta 75 million years ago – among animals smaller than a squirrel, that is.
The kitten-sized predator identified by paleontologists at the University of Calgary and the University of Alberta is the smallest carnivorous dinosaur ever found in North America. The next smallest meat-eating dinosaur ever found on the continent was about the size of a wolf.
“Until we found this animal, basically we had no evidence for any small carnivores being present in North America,” said University of Calgary researcher Nicholas Longrich, in a video released by the university on Monday.
Longrich and the University of Alberta’s Philip Currie have written an article describing the velociraptor-like dinosaur, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
The tiny, bird-like predator ran on two legs and was about half the size of a housecat, weighing less than two kilograms, and standing about as tall as an average wastebasket. It likely hunted near the ground in marshes and forests for insects, small mammals, amphibians and “maybe even baby dinosaurs,” Longrich said.
The researchers have given the dinosaur the scientific name Hesperonychus Elizabethae.
Hesperonychus means “western claw” and Elizabethae is a tribute to the late Elizabeth (Betsy) Nicholls, the well-known Alberta paleontologist and former curator at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller who originally unearthed the bones.
Darwin Day is a global celebration of science and reason held on or around Feb. 12, the birthday anniversary of evolutionary biologist Charles Darwin. This year marks the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth.
Rock on with the ultimate bad Oscar, otherwise known as Charles Darwin, on his 200th birthday, February 12th, 2009. Apparently, the Great Wise Dude turns 200 this year, and I couldn’t wait for his birthday to post it. The darwinday.org site is mostly a place to find Darwin Day celebrations near you or tools to help you plan a party yourself. But, also check out www.darwinday.org/learn/ to learn about Darwin’s life and works.
Happy (early) Birthday, Darwin! Thanks to you, I know I am a monkey! (Or, great ape, to be exact)
PS I was turned on to Chuckie’s birthday by reading a new blog favorite: Globe Campus’ Nerd Girl. If you like your academia-focused humor, this chick’ll crack you up. Ha!
PPS The image is an rtfa original, remixed in the style of Lawrence Lessig in honor of our favorite Chuck. Thanks to farkinga for suggesting the base images!
In the race for ever-thinner displays for TVs, cell phones and other gadgets, Sony may have developed one to beat them all – a razor-thin display that bends like paper while showing full-color video.
Sony Corp. released video of the new 2.5-inch display Friday. In it, a hand squeezes a display that is 0.3 millimeters, or 0.01 inch, thick. The display shows color images of a bicyclist stuntman and a picturesque lake.
Although flat-panel TVs are getting slimmer, a display that’s so thin it bends in a human hand marks a breakthrough.
…
Tatsuo Mori, an engineering and computer science professor at Nagoya University, said some hurdles remained, including making the display bigger, ensuring durability and cutting costs.
But he said the display’s pliancy is extremely difficult to imitate with liquid crystal displays and plasma display panels — the two main display technologies now on the market.
“To come up with a flexible screen at that image quality is groundbreaking,” Mori said. “You can drop it, and it won’t break because it’s as thin as paper.”
The new display combines two technologies: Sony’s organic thin film transistor, which is required to make flexible displays, and organic electroluminescent display.
The video of this new display technology is pretty amazing. Granted, it’s not perfect (notice the vertical and horizontal lines that appear over multiple demo videos => I strongly suspect durability is the greatest hurdle before this prototype goes to market), but the technological breakthrough speaks for itself. Wow!
For decades, astronomers thought when it came to the major galaxies in Earth’s cosmic neighborhood, our Milky Way was a weak sister to the larger Andromeda. Not anymore.
The Milky Way is considerably larger, bulkier and spinning faster than astronomers once thought, Andromeda’s equal.
Scientists mapped the Milky Way in a more detailed, three-dimensional way and found that it’s 15 percent larger in breadth. More important, it’s denser, with 50 percent more mass, which is like weight. The new findings were presented Monday at the American Astronomical Society’s convention in Long Beach, Calif.
That difference means a lot, said study author Mark Reid of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass. The slight 5-foot-5, 140-pound astrophysicist said it’s the cosmic equivalent of him suddenly bulking up to the size of a 6-foot-3, 210-pound NFL linebacker.
“Previously we thought Andromeda was dominant, and that we were the little sister of Andromeda,” Reid said. “But now it’s more like we’re fraternal twins.”
That’s not necessarily good news. A bigger Milky Way means that it could be crashing violently into the neighboring Andromeda galaxy sooner than predicted – though still billions of years from now.
Mwuah ha ha ha!
Oh and all you worry warts out there -> we’ll be way out of the milky way by time it crashes into Andromeda, but at least we’ll be able to have some good, old fashioned, home pride.
TASTELESS, colourless, odourless and painful, pure capsaicin is a curious substance. It does no lasting damage, but the body s natural response to even a modest dose such as that found in a chili pepper is self-defence: sweat pours, the pulse quickens, the tongue flinches, tears may roll. But then something else kicks in: pain relief. The bloodstream floods with endorphins-the closest thing to morphine that the body produces. The result is a high. And the more capsaicin you ingest, the bigger and better it gets.
Which is why the diet in the rich world is heating up. Hot chilies, once the preserve of aficionados with exotic tastes for cuisine from places such as India, Thailand or Mexico, are now a staple ingredient in everything from ready meals to cocktails.
Wait for it …
Among other things, that may give a scientific explanation for the habit, not formally researched, of snorting the “pink fix” (a mixture of cocaine and chili powder).
Crikey!
This is a fabulously informative and interesting article; all “heat geeks” must RTFA. In addition to describing the neural pathways and scientific studies regarding our perception of spicy foods, the article is chock full of hilarious tidbits and has good external links.
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