The fourth installation of the Jurassic Park movie series, Jurassic World, is being filmed in Hawaii and New Orleans right now, and is due to hit cinemas in June 2015. But the film has courted controversy for a number of reasons, not least for the suggestion that its representations of dinosaurs are inaccurate and … [Read more…]
Source: Information from M Benton (2014), Vertebrate Palaentology, 4th edn, Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell; and personal communication with Professor Mike Benton.
Archaeopteryx, the ‘first bird’, has fascinated people since the first mostly complete specimen was dug out of a quarry in Bavaria in 1861. Along with a number of other dinosaurs and early birds, researchers have now been able to look at the microstructural features of fossilised feathers of the animal, and determine that its … [Read more…]
Happy birthday to Mary Anning (21 May 1799 – 9 March 1847) – one of the most important women to influence the history of science. I’m excited to see that Mary Anning – pioneering British female fossil hunter and palaeontologist – is rocking the Google doodle today, on what would have been her 215th birthday. Anning made … [Read more…]