Miscellaneous Dino News

[bh480@scn.org]

From: Ben Creisler bh480@scn.org

A few news items that might be of interest:

Russian Dinosaur Exhibit in Sacramento--a story from the 
Sacramento Bee with photos:
http://www.sacbee.com/news/news/local06_20010128.html

Berkeley Feathered Dinosaur Exhibit rescheduled.
Planned for March 3 - May 28, 2001, but the UCMP online 
newsletter mentions a delayed start date to be announced 
in February:
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/museum/ucmp_news/2001/1-
01/ontap1-01.html

Evidence of Massive Volcanism at End of Permian.
http://www.freep.com/news/nw/erupt29_20010129.htm

Pterosaur Design Studied to Build Flapping Ornithopter.
Researchers planning to build a machine that flies by 
flapping see pterosaur wings as more practical than bird 
wings as a model. NOTE: This story is from the Science 
magazine website and needs a password to be read on some 
computers.
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2001/126/
4

Dinosaurs to Get Ribbing
I attended a lecture by John Rensberger at the Burke 
Museum here in Seattle last week--he recently had a paper 
in Nature about the microstructure of dinosaur bone, 
showing that ornithomimids and modern birds have very 
similar growth patterns with rapid bone replacement. He 
mentioned plans to study a wider variety of dinosaurs, 
including T. rex. He will use rib bones from now on since 
researchers in charge of specimens don't consider ribs of 
much diagnostic value and are willing to see them sliced 
and ground down--a fate to be avoided for precious skulls 
and limb bones!