5/30 We drove back out to the field site along with some extra volunteers and colleagues.  There were now five of us at the campsite and several more staying in rooms at a nearby mission. With more people and extra cars, we finally allowed ourselves to go out to a basin badland area we’ve affectionately […]

5/21 – 5/23 I flew in to Phoenix, Arizona, on Tuesday the 21st and met up with doctoral student Brandon Hedrick and undergraduate Samantha Cordero, both from the University of Pennsylvania.  Over the next two days, we packed up our gear in the car and drove out 7 hours to our field site in New […]

Dinosaurs are reptiles. Reptiles are cold-blooded.  Birds are dinosaurs.  Birds are warm-blooded.  When did warm-bloodedness — more accurately referred to as endothermy — evolve?  This is a question that has been debated and is rife with controversy for over a century. The traditional viewpoint was that dinosaurs were giant lizards that lived in swamps in […]

Hello, everyone!  I think that it’s about time to go through Jurassic Park and explain what’s real science and what’s completely fictional.  In order to do this, I have decided to sit down and watch the movie for what is probably around the hundredth time, so the following will be in chronological movie order. ·         […]

In my last post, I promised to explain how raptors may have used their protowings to hunt.  A recent and intriguing hypothesis, called the Raptor Prey Restraint (RPR — pronounced “ripper”) model, claims that they would have hunted using a process called “prey-riding.”  Prey-riding is exactly what it sounds like.  The predator jumps on top […]

One of the most striking transformations in our perception of dinosaurs in the past couple of decades is the revelation that many of them had feathers of one sort or another.  As I discussed in my last post, birds are living dinosaurs.  However, feathers are incredibly complex structures.  They couldn’t have just popped up out […]

Hello again!  To get started with this special feature, I’m going to explain just what it is that makes a dinosaur a dinosaur.  There is a lot of confusion among the general public about what constitutes a dinosaur.  Before I get into the details, a couple of rules of thumb are these: 1) dinosaurs walk […]

Hello, everyone!  My name is Adam Laing, and I am a student of paleontology. I got my BA and MS in paleontology at the University of Pennsylvania and am now pursuing my PhD at Stony Brook University.  I’ve been obsessed with all things prehistoric ever since I can remember.  I basically grew up in the American Museum […]

Windows with an on/off switch: a new technology dynamically changes whether windows allow heat to pass through or not, while not impacting the light let in. Free singing telegrams through the end of this year from Western Union! (with a new technological twist) Follow-up to the Murder of Mosquitoes: “Genetic Genocide” details the risks and ethical quandaries […]

Business Section: The dawn of catvertising: “What can cat videos do for YOUR business?” Nuns as gun-totin’ shareholder activists pushing companies to do the right thing (PS: Those are metaphorical guns.  PPS: Googling “Nuns with Guns” is NSFW, which I guess shouldn’t have surprised me.) Retailers force their employees to work the Thanksgiving Holiday as they vie […]

The Christine O’Donnell stories have gotten me thinking about a vexing issue that’s been bugging me for some time. Ask any Christian about their beliefs and the word “faith” will materialize almost immediately. It’s my view that it does so mainly because it’s the only possible way most supporters have of trying to validate their […]

I need to get some of you to do some basic fact-checking before you go sending out e-mails to everyone. Twice in the last week I’ve gotten the same one about how Mars is going to be the closest it’s ever been to Earth in something like 60,000 years and it won’t repeat this until—oddly—something […]