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Late-Nite Science: Early Edition
May. 21st, 2008 11:43 pmSo, first off, the discovery of a Jurassic-age trackway left by ornithopod and sauropod dinoaurs in what is now Yemen. And, while we're on the subject of dinosaur ichnology, how about the discovery of a theropod track in the Late Cretaceous of southern Australia, yet more evidence that some non-avian dinosaurs were quite well-adapted to cold weather. Indeed, this seems to be the season for dinosaur tracks, including a new trackway attributed to juvenile sauropods that's come to light from the Cretaceous of North Gyeongsang Province, South Korea.
The bad news is that here in the US, the Visitor Center at Dinosaur National Monument (Utah) remains closed, two years after the structure, built in the late '50s, was condemned. The strata at the Visitor Center exposes a fabulously bone-rich section of the Late Jurassic Morrison Formation, including remains of such famous dinosaurs as Apatosaurus ("Brontosaurus"), Allosaurus, Stegosaurus, and Diplodocus.
Or. Regarding something almost as far back in time and much farther away in space — "Astronomers have observed for the first time the thunderclap of x-rays that announces a star has exploded into a supernova. Researchers monitoring spiral galaxy NGC 2770, approximately 88 million light-years away, observed a brief but intense flash of x-rays in early January, followed by a prolonged afterglow of visible and ultraviolet light—the hallmark of a supernova."
Meanwhile, an Irish effort to recover "ghost" nets that are responsible for the deaths of innumerable fish and other sea life. "A joint Irish, Norwegian and British study from 2002 estimated that 1,254 kilometres (620 miles) of 600 by 50 metre (1,970 by 164 feet) sheets of nets were being lost every year but there was a reluctance to talk about the problem in the industry." Deep-sea sharks have been especially hard hit by ghost nets, their numbers "falling to about 20 percent of original levels in less than 10 years."
The bad news is that here in the US, the Visitor Center at Dinosaur National Monument (Utah) remains closed, two years after the structure, built in the late '50s, was condemned. The strata at the Visitor Center exposes a fabulously bone-rich section of the Late Jurassic Morrison Formation, including remains of such famous dinosaurs as Apatosaurus ("Brontosaurus"), Allosaurus, Stegosaurus, and Diplodocus.
Or. Regarding something almost as far back in time and much farther away in space — "Astronomers have observed for the first time the thunderclap of x-rays that announces a star has exploded into a supernova. Researchers monitoring spiral galaxy NGC 2770, approximately 88 million light-years away, observed a brief but intense flash of x-rays in early January, followed by a prolonged afterglow of visible and ultraviolet light—the hallmark of a supernova."
Meanwhile, an Irish effort to recover "ghost" nets that are responsible for the deaths of innumerable fish and other sea life. "A joint Irish, Norwegian and British study from 2002 estimated that 1,254 kilometres (620 miles) of 600 by 50 metre (1,970 by 164 feet) sheets of nets were being lost every year but there was a reluctance to talk about the problem in the industry." Deep-sea sharks have been especially hard hit by ghost nets, their numbers "falling to about 20 percent of original levels in less than 10 years."
