The earliest known cave paintings fuel arguments about whether Neanderthals were the mental equals of modern humans.
In a damp Spanish cave, Alistair Pike applies a small grinder to the world’s oldest known paintings. Every few minutes, the dentist-drill sound stops and Pike, an…
Primeval Meta - 7 Impossible Things Danny Quinn Accomplished.
(And because you can never have too much Danny, here’s a repost of a fun little Meta that Primeval_Denial tasked me with writing….)
Well, there’s been some debate in the past over the authenticity of many of Danny’s actions throughout the series. The term “Marty Stu” has even been used. But are these accomplishments actually possible? To find out, we take a more in depth look* at seven of the Accomplishments of The Mighty Quinn.
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Played Cat & Mouse with a G-Rex (3-04)
The Stunt: While pursuing a G-Rex at an airfield, Danny hijacks a helicopter and uses it to act as bait and lure the G-Rex back to the anomaly. With 2 lessons under his belt, Danny manages to fly the ‘copter through the hanger doors and into the anomaly without injuring anyone. The helicopter is left on the other side of the anomaly, and Danny crosses back to safety.
Help Save the World’s Best Marine Reserve: Cabo Pulmo
Established in 1995, Mexico’s Cabo Pulmo Marine National Park is slightly more than 7,000 hectares of coastal waters in the Gulf of California, offshore from the small village of Cabo Pulmo. The park’s establishment followed a period of determined lobbying by the village’s 100 or so residents, who had become alarmed at overfishing and declines in the area’s marine life. The reserve is no more than 5 kilometers (3 miles) wide and measures just 14 kilometers (almost 9 miles) north to south. And yet its impact on the marine life within it, such as these Devil Rays, has been profound – so much so that researchers have dubbed it “the most successful marine reserve in the world.”…
(read more: http://news.discovery.com/animals/endangered-species/most-successful-marine-reserve-cabo-pulmo-110812.htm)
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What Can You Do to Help?
You can help save one of the oldest living coral reefs in the world with a click of your mouse: http://bit.ly/178KBhG
For 20,000 years, the reef of Cabo Pulmo has provided sanctuary for whale sharks, Pacific manta rays, humpback whales, dolphins and sea turtles, but today this marine reserve and the thriving sea that surrounds it is still under threat from overdevelopment.
Urge North America’s environmental authorities to support strong enforcement and protect the coral reef. Send your message!
http://bit.ly/178KBhG
(Photo courtesy of of Octavio Aburto / iLCP)
Cargese, directed by Doctor Who’s Matt Smith - first review
There are a lot of intense, theatre-workshop two-handers, which Smith directs with restraint, mostly staying out of the way and using close-ups sparingly and effectively. But the sketchy script also obliges him to fill in the gaps with his own, more esoteric imagery. This makes Cargese a brave choice of first project, but his compositions show a lot of promise. I liked his recurring, hand-held wide shot of Stephen swallowed up by a particularly drab and anonymous part of town, and his occasional trick of bringing out the nuance of the dialogue by laying it over shots of the same characters interacting wordlessly. He makes good use of the cold sky and snowy ground that were available during the January shoot, too.
Smith himself doesn’t appear in Cargese. Since he’s so faultlessly good in Doctor Who, you’d hate to see too many future projects where he contents himself with staying behind the camera – but it’s clear he has talent there too. It’s a nice problem to have…
Ötzi the Iceman could have used a dentist. The amazingly preserved Neolithic mummy found in the Italian Alps had tooth decay, gum disease and dental trauma, new research suggests.
The new findings, published Tuesday (April 9) in the European Journal of Oral Sciences, suggest that the Iceman…
Yacarerani boliviensis: More Mammal-Like Notosuchians.
Size: About 31 inches (80 centimeters) long.
Time Period: The Turonian to Santonian Stages of the Late Cretaceous.
Locale: Amboro National Park in Bolivia.Name: The generic name means “first Yacare” in the indigenous Guarani language. A Yacare is a kind of caiman with the highest population density of any extant crocodilian, by the way. The specific name obviously addresses the country of Bolivia, where the anima was found.
My first post about crocodilians was about Armadillosuchus, a fascinatingly mammal-like notosuchian. It had some peculiar adaptions of its own, as well as some that resembled an extant armadillo. I’m returning to the world of crocodilians after what feels like ages to talk about yet another mammal-like notosuchian named Yacarerani, which was described in 2009.
Yacarerani is represented by two individuals and was found in association with eggs that are thought to be part of a nest. If this is true, then it’s possible that Yacarerani and its fellow notosuchians resembled modern crocodilians in protecting their nests and not abandoning them. Yacarerani may have lived in small groups, creating burrows in which it laid eggs. This is a helpful adaption, as it would have protected the eggs of the animal before they even hatched.
As with many of the notosuchians, Yacarerani’s dentition is heterodont. This means that there were differently shaped teeth in different parts of the animal’s jaws. Two of the teeth in the lower jaw of Yacarerani project forward from the tip, and they look like the incisors of a rabbit, hence my claim that Yacarerani is something of a mammal wannabe (or that a rabbit is something of a notosuchian wannabe, considering their temporal distribution). Some of the teeth that are situated more posteriorly and are cusped are adapted for grinding or chopping up food. Yacarerani probably ate food that it could access easily on the ground, and may have eaten tubers or small arthropods. It was an omnivore, which may seem unusual for a crocodilian if you don’t know a thing about notosuchians. In the lower jaw, Yacarerani’s dentary tooth rows merge behind the front dentary teeth. This is exactly the same as in the upper tooth rows, where the teeth merge on the palate.
Yacarerani presents similar teeth morphology to Adamantinasaurus, a crocodylomorph from the Adamantina Formation of Brazil, which was rougly contemporaneous with Yacarerani (as well as living in the same place as Armadillosuchus). Phylogenetic analyses have placed Yacarerani in the node Ziphosuchia, where it’s more basal than Adamantinasuchus but more derived than the piglike Mariliasuchus (both animals are pictured above).
Why were the notosuchians so diverse? I suppose it was due to a lack of competitors, which allowed these crocodilians to flourish and diversify to staggering degrees. The notosuchians underwent multiple strange radiations since their origin, evolving herbivory, omnivory, and terrestrial hypercarnivory. They had strange mammal-like features and bands of flexible shield-like armor. Yacarerani is one of these weird, underrated crocodilians. I’m probably going to make more posts about the notosuchians in the near future, just because of how much they interest me.
