dinosaurs

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Scientists Grow Chickens With Dinosaur Legs

'With one small modification, millions of years of evolution can be undone'

(Newser) - Scientists—presumably so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think whether they should—have grown chickens with dinosaur legs, Phys.org reports. More accurately, a team at the University of Chile grew chicken embryos with dinosaur-like fibulas. In modern birds, the fibula is shorter...

For T. Rex, Size Originally Didn't Matter

Horse-sized ancestor reveals evolutionary path, and intellect came before size

(Newser) - Though one of the most well-known dinosaurs, Tyrannosaurus rex is actually somewhat of a mystery, having suddenly emerged as a fearsome beast some 80 million years ago. As a 20-million-year gap in the fossil record preceded T. rex, paleontologists have known little about its evolutionary path—until now. The discovery...

Dinosaurs' Last Moments Found—Behind a Lowe's?

Weirdly, this quarry is open to the public

(Newser) - Amateur enthusiasts and kids on field trips have been flocking to a New Jersey quarry pit for years to dig up some of its many prehistoric fossils. Incredibly, this pit may also be the only known dinosaur graveyard dating back to their destruction 66 million years ago, the New York ...

Awesome Dinosaur Discovery: They Danced
 Awesome Dinosaur 
 Discovery: They Danced 
new study
Jan 7, 2016 4:32 PM CST

Awesome Dinosaur Discovery: They Danced

Specifically, the guys did to woo females, says study

(Newser) - It must have been an amazing sight: Paleontologists now say that dinosaurs danced—with gusto. More specifically, they think that some male dinosaurs did so as part of a mating display to woo females, study authors say in a post at Phys.org . The evidence? Telltale scrape marks from claws...

Nicolas Cage Returns Stolen Dinosaur Skull

He bought the fossil, smuggled from Mongolia, for $276K

(Newser) - Remember that dinosaur skull in Nicolas Cage's collection? It's now in the hands of US authorities who say it was stolen from Mongolia. Cage isn't accused of stealing the Tyrannosaurus bataar skull himself; his publicist says he bought it from a Beverly Hills gallery in March 2007...

One of the Biggest Raptors Found in South Dakota

Meet Dakotaraptor

(Newser) - Archaeologists have found one of the biggest raptors ever, one that used to roam what is now Hell Creek in South Dakota. Hence, the name: Dakotaraptor. Discover reports that this beast was about 16 feet long with sickle-like claws of nearly 10 inches, making it one of the largest raptors...

Rare Dino Skull Excavated in Most Unusual Way

It was the only way out for Pentaceratops remains

(Newser) - This was something that had never been seen before—the full skeletal remains of a baby Pentaceratops, a plant-eating dinosaur with large horns that once roamed what's now North America tens of millions of years ago. The fossils first caught the attention of paleontologists with the New Mexico Museum...

Scientists Finally Stop Fighting About Dinosaur Deaths

Study says asteroid and volcanos killed the dinosaurs

(Newser) - After 35 years of intense scholarly debate—and probably some name calling—scientists have agreed to compromise: Both a giant asteroid and massive volcanic eruptions were responsible for killing off the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. Time reports this agreement comes after researchers used a new technique to more precisely...

T. Rex Had Vicious Teeth, the Better to Shred You With

This feature is only seen in the Komodo dragon today

(Newser) - The Komodo dragon is the only known creature on the planet today to boast teeth that are serrated, like a jagged-edged steak knife. But now researchers have discovered that the mighty T. rex not only sported serrated teeth, but also secret folds hidden toward the bottom of those teeth that...

Dinos Issued a Climate Warning 215M Years Ago
Dinos Issued a Climate Warning 215M Years Ago
NEW STUDY
Jun 17, 2015 12:40 PM CDT

Dinos Issued a Climate Warning 215M Years Ago

Sauropods avoided volatile tropics in Triassic

(Newser) - Scientists have long been baffled by a lack of Triassic period fossils from large, herbivorous dinosaurs known as sauropods near the equator. A new study offers some illumination: It suggests a hot, unpredictable climate and high carbon dioxide levels kept some of the world's first dinosaurs away—and may...

In 'Crap' Dinosaur Fossils, Scientists Strike Gold

If 75M-year-old soft tissue has survived, could DNA, too?

(Newser) - The fossils may be in such poor shape that scientists are calling them "crap," but the 75-million-year-old fragments are golden in another sense. A theropod claw, triceratops-like toe bone, and duck-billed dinosaur limb and ankle bones first unearthed in Canada 100 years ago appear to retain soft tissue,...

Scientists Find First Evidence of Dinosaurs in Wash. State

80M-year-old femur belonged to a theropod

(Newser) - It appears that around 80 million years ago, a theropod dinosaur roughly the size of a transit bus died near the sea and was jostled by waves, and at some point part of its femur became wedged into a rocky outcrop alongside clam fossils in Washington state's San Juan...

Scientists Grow Chicken Embryos With Dino Snouts

As part of an effort to learn about beak evolution

(Newser) - It sounds straight out of Jurassic Park: Researchers have successfully created chicken embryos with what LiveScience frames as Velociraptor-like snouts. It's an end that has its beginning in a bird-dino quandary described by Carl Zimmer at the New York Times : "Even the most exquisitely preserved fossil can't...

Dinosaur-Age Cockroach Was Fearsome Predator

100M-year-old insect also had swiveling head, took flight

(Newser) - A mean-looking cockroach that lived alongside the dinosaurs had a long neck, swiveling head, and elongated legs that enabled it to surprise prey, New Scientist reports via Gizmodo . Found embedded in amber in Myanmar, the 100-million-year-old insect resembles a cross between a roach, a crane fly, and a praying mantis:...

Tiny Dinosaur Had Wings Like a Bat

They were made of skin, not feathers

(Newser) - A pint-sized dinosaur has a big surprise: It apparently sported a pair of bizarre wings. Dinosaurs normally used wings mostly made of feathers for flight. But the newly discovered creature evidently had wings made of skin instead, like those of a bat or some ancient flying reptiles. It's not...

Researcher Says He's First to Tell Male, Female Dinos Apart

It all comes down to a stegosaurus's plates

(Newser) - If the sight of broad, wide plates along the back of a stegosaurus fails to drive you wild with desire, that's probably because you're not a female stegosaurus. In what the University of Bristol calls the "first convincing evidence for sexual differences in a species of dinosaur,...

4-Year-Old's Big Find in Texas: a Dinosaur

Wylie Brys discovered what may be a 100M-year-old nodosaur

(Newser) - Imagine being a 4-year-old boy who loves dinosaurs, digging in the dirt, and spending time with your dad. For Wylie Brys, those three passions intertwined for the best day ever last September when he made an astounding discovery behind a shopping center in Mansfield, Texas: the fossil of what scientists...

The Brontosaurus Really Did Exist, Study Says

Scientists say it's deserving of its own genus after all

(Newser) - It's big news, quite literally. New research indicates that the Brontosaurus really did exist, some 112 years after scientists declared the opposite was true. The backstory: Paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh and his team discovered the fossils of two long-necked dinosaurs in the Western US in the 1870s and had...

Did Dinosaurs Hallucinate After Chewing Grass?
Did Dinosaurs Hallucinate After Chewing Grass?
NEW STUDY
Feb 11, 2015 9:15 AM CST

Did Dinosaurs Hallucinate After Chewing Grass?

Oldest grass specimen ever found was topped with fungus linked to LSD

(Newser) - If you're glad you weren't on the planet in the days when Stegosaurus was whipping its spiked tail around in agitation, imagine the dino stumbling around with its eyes ablaze on the prehistoric equivalent of an acid trip, courtesy of newly discovered fungus-tipped grass. A perfectly preserved, 100-million-year-old...

'Dragon' Dino Had Neck Like a Crane

Qijianglong might have inspired tales of dragons in ancient China

(Newser) - Scientists are seriously excited about a new long-necked dinosaur species found near China's Qijiang City. For one thing, fossils of the beast, which lived 160 million years ago in the Late Jurassic period, show a skull still attached to its neck—a rare find among dinosaurs like this as...

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