Unshelved by Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum
comic strip overdue media

Friday, December 07, 2007

Nifty

Scientists dig up secrets from dinosaur mummy

Among the details of the mineralised body of a duck-billed dinosaur find were scales that showed possible camoflague patterns, heavier musculature than once thought, and a possible death scene--as an early crocodile-like thing apparently died trying to eat it.

I love science. And this was also a neat story because not only is it the most complete fossil of its type, its founder was a teen who stumbled across it in 1999 and came back five years later whilst leading researchers to spots that would be good to excavate in his native North Dakota. Now in his second year of graduate study in paleontology at Yale, he caught the fossil-hunting bug at 6 and made a career out of it. He certainly has a good dissertation topic well in hand. :)

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