Cutting edge imaging technology isn’t just helping us tiny humans — it’s helping solve a dinosaur identity crisis. Researchers have developed a brand-new imaging technique that builds a 3D image of a dinosaur skull, creating a CAT scan-style readout. They say this technique proves that what we thought were three separate species of dinosaur are actually the exact same creatures.
This video is pretty bizarre but hey who doesn’t like dinosaurs, mammoths, dragons, giant bugs and timelapse videos? The timelapse video was shot at Borrego Springs, California, a small town that fiercely protects the darkness of the night sky by regulating outdoor lighting. It’s apparently 1 of 4 communities in the world that are considered an official ‘Dark Sky Community’.
At the American Museum of Natural History’s two-week camp Capturing Dinosaurs: Reconstructing Extinct Species Through Digital Fabrication, a group of teens learned the processes and tools used by paleontologists for studying dinosaur bones and digitally reconstructing them. And we got to tag along for some of it.
Australia’s Outback is a forbidding land, and many of its dinosaur bones remain unexcavated. But in the early 2000s, a small family of cattle ranchers discovered a bone gold mine on their land. They set out to build a structure for their ongoing find—and their sheer enthusiasm convinced a group of architects and contractors to build the museum pro-bono.
Jurassic Park III may not be your favorite movie in the series. But that doesn’t mean its effects weren’t fantastic. In fact, the somewhat random third entry in the series boasted the biggest animatronic ‘saur yet: the Spinosaurus. Stan Winston Studios recalls the details of that behemoth’s construction, and it’s wild to watch.
As a young pup watching Jurassic Park, I was in terrified of the T-Rex, fearful of the Raptors, in awe of the Brachiosaurus and annoyed of that little spraying dinosaur. But probably above all, I felt for the Triceratops. It was hurt! It was dying! It was so incredibly detailed. Stan Winston School revealed how they built the Triceratops, how they painted it, how they shipped it and how the puppeteers controlled it in this video. Part two of the Triceratops video can be found here. [Stan Winston School] More »
A Nine-Year-Old Girl Got a New Ancient Flying Reptile Species Named After Her Because She Discovered It
Posted in: Today's Chili When Daisy Morris was four years old, she found fossilized bones of a previously undiscovered species of the flying reptile beast pterosaur. Now, at nine years young, scientists have decided to name the reptile, which lived during the same time period as dinosaurs, after Daisy. It’s called Vectidraco daisymorrisae. How cute. More »
New Ancient Evidence Confirms That Yes, An Asteroid Killed All the Dinosaurs
Posted in: Today's Chili For most of us laypeople, it’s an accepted truth the dinosaurs were wiped out by a big ol’ asteroid that smashed into the Earth, easy as that. For scientists, however, there’s always been some question as to whether or not that was actually the case. But some new revelations have proven that we dummies were right in our gross over-simplification all along. More »
This Latin inscription on this his curious beast identifies it as a “dragon as it was recovered in the hands of the engineer Cornelius Meyer”. The picture comes from a 1696 book that Meyer wrote describing his construction projects, and an etching on the cover claims to show the dragon as it looked alive in 1691, stalking the marshes near Rome. More »
A Scottish toy company called H. Grossman has decided that kids are tired of the inanimate plastic dinosaurs most of us grew up with. Apparently today’s young’ns need interaction, and a grander sense of scale. So the company plans to release a $14,000+ dinosaur toy called the Megasaur for priveleged children around the world. More »