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from left: Dracorex hogwartsia, Stygimoloch spinifer and Pachycephalosaurus wyomingensis Dinosaur Species Vanish! The dinosaurs above have been considered three species. But a new analysis of fossil skulls led by the University of Montana suggests they're different life stages of P. wyomingensis, whose horns disappear and dome head grows over time. The find fuels speculation that up to a third of recognized dinosaur species are in fact juvenile forms of other specicies.

This Behind the Scenes article was provided to LiveScience in partnership with the National Science Foundation. When the time came for chemical ecologist Walter Leal to test whether humans make a natural odor that attracts mosquitoes, Leal himself was the first to volunteer. "I measured my own levels," Leal said. "I thought I would set a good example. If you do it first, then others won't be scared." In truth, there was little if any reason to be frightened. The scientists were looking only for the substance itself, not trying to find out whether the compound would lure the insects...

Emus and ostriches became fat, flightless birds after dinosaurs died out and were no longer around to chase them, scientists believe.An abundance of food and lack of predators following the mass extinction 65 million years saw previously flighted birds put on so much weight that they had to walk instead, according to research by Australian National University. A molecular dating study revealed that the African ostrich, Australasian emu, South American rhea and New Zealand moa became flightless independently following the disappearance of dinosaurs.

Alligators breathe like birds, scientists have discovered. > "They cannot argue with this data," she said. "I have three lines of evidence. If they don't believe it, they need to get an alligator and make their own measurements." >

Washington, D.C. are reporting laboratory evidence supporting the possibility that some of Earth's oil and natural gas may have formed in a way much different than the traditional process described in science textbooks. Their study is scheduled for Nov./Dec. issue of ACS' Energy & Fuels, a bi-monthly publication. Anurag Sharma and colleagues note that the traditional process involves biology: Prehistoric plants died and changed into oil and gas while sandwiched between layers of rock in the hot, high-pressure environment deep below Earth's surface. Some scientists, however, believe that oil and gas originated in other ways, including chemical reactions between carbon...

Infectious diseases can be transmitted by sneezing, touching, or – for Tasmanian devils – biting each other on the face, a habit that may have driven the dinosaurs to extinction through the transmission of a protozoan parasite. Jacqueline Upcroft, a member of f1000 Biology, highlights the 'paleobiological detective work' of David Varricchio and colleagues published in PLoS One. This led them to deduce that a protozoan parasite was to blame for the diseased jaw bones seen in many tyrannosaurid fossils. The parasite's modern-day equivalent, which infects birds, eats away at the jawbone and can cause ulcers so severe that the...

Long, long ago, some of the first dinosaurs walked the Earth. But scientists have not known with any confidence where those initial dino prints were made. Much more recently, hikers stumbled across a few bits of bone at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico, leading to the discovery of a game-changing dinosaur that reveals where it all began. The dinosaur, now called Tawa hallae, had a body that was only the size of a medium to large dog, but its remains have helped scientists shore up where dinosaurs came from. The research team used the extremely well-preserved and complete skeletal remains...

New research has heated up the debate over whether dinosaurs were ectothermic (cold-blooded) or endothermic (warm-blooded like us). The topic is addressed in this week's Johns Hopkins News-Letter and a recent PLoS One paper. The prevailing view for decades was that dinosaurs were cold-blooded, as reptiles, fish and amphibians are today. Now support is leaning toward the warm-blooded dinosaur theory, which opens up a slew of intriguing questions: Did dinosaurs sweat? Were they able to live in very cold regions? Did they have to eat a lot to fuel their lifestyle? and more. Herman Pontzer at Washington University in St....

Although creation-based organizations have reported for over a decade on the technical scientific journal articles published about soft tissue found inside dinosaur remains, mainstream media outlets have largely been silent on the subject. But a recent segment that aired on CBS’s 60 Minutes finally broke the news to a broader audience. The soft tissue issue may be gaining more traction, and even “may be changing the whole dino ballgame,” according to correspondent Lesley Stahl.[1] The program is currently viewable online at the CBS website. In a field test demonstration to determine whether a dinosaur fossil was real bone, and not...

A new concept making its way through the scientific community holds that just a few key changes in the right genes will result in a whole new life form as different from its progenitor as a bird is from a lizard![1] This idea is being applied to a number of key problems in the evolutionary model, one of which is the lack of transitional forms in both the fossil record and the living (extant) record. The new concept supposedly adds support to the "punctuated equilibrium" model proposed by the late Harvard paleontologist Stephen J. Gould. Dr. Gould derived his ideas...

Saturn's orange moon Titan has hundreds of times more liquid hydrocarbons than all the known oil and natural gas reserves on Earth, according to new data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. The hydrocarbons rain from the sky, collecting in vast deposits that form lakes and dunes. ... Cassini has mapped about 20 percent of Titan's surface with radar. Several hundred lakes and seas have been observed, with each of several dozen estimated to contain more hydrocarbon liquid than Earth's oil and gas reserves. The dark dunes that run along the equator contain a volume of organics several hundred times larger than...

"The forests went out. The fungi proliferated, and the Earth became a giant compost pile. An enormous number of spores were released," said Dr. Arturo Casadevall, an infectious disease researcher who proposed last month that air thick with fungal spores after the meteor hit could have overwhelmed animals' immune systems, causing sickness and death... "It's just a beautifully creative suggestion," said Nicholas Money, a mycologist, or mold expert, from Miami University of Ohio and author of "Carpet Monsters and Killer Spores: A Natural History of Toxic Mold." ...Casadevall, of Albert Einstein College of New York... has long been troubled by...

A new dinosaur found in South Africa has given scientists a glimpse into the evolution of sauropods, the biggest animals ever to have walked the Earth, a new study says. The newfound, 20-foot-long (7-meter-long) dinosaur species is a close cousin to the common ancestor of all sauropods -- gigantic, four-legged, long-necked, big-bellied plant-eaters. Dubbed Aardonyx celestae, the 195-million-year-old dinosaur had a lot of sauropod-like features, such as a robust skeleton for holding up its heft. (See extreme dinosaur pictures.) Unlike sauropods, though, the newfound species walked on two legs and only dropped down on all fours, the new research shows....

Many dinosaurs may have been warm-blooded just like mammals or birds, potentially explaining their extraordinary success before their extinction. For decades, scientists assumed that because dinosaurs resembled lizards, they were cold-blooded as well, their internal temperature rising and falling with the outside world. However, birds are warm-blooded, and the fact that birds seem to be descended from dinosaurs raises the question of whether their ancestors were as well. If dinosaurs were warm-blooded, they would have possessed the potential for athletic abilities rivaling those of mammals and birds. They could have survived in colder habitats that would kill cold-blooded creatures, such...

A salamander allegedly “18 million years old” is the latest fossil to produce astonishingly well preserved soft tissue. This time, it’s muscle tissue, and it is supposedly the most pristine example yet. Background—the “dinosaur connection”...

A husband and wife team of American paleontologists has discovered a new species of dinosaur that lived 112 million years ago during the early Cretaceous of central Montana

Dinosaur experts in Dorset, England, are examining the fossilized skull of a sea monster so large they say it could have eaten a Tyrannosaurus rex for breakfast.

BEIJING (AFP) – Paleontologists in east China may have discovered the remains of a new species of dinosaur at what is said to be the world's largest group of fossilised dinosaur bones, state media said Wednesday. Scientists in Zhucheng city, Shandong province, have for months been exploring a gully over 500 metres (1,650 feet) long and 26 metres deep that is strewn with thousands of dinosaur bones, the Jilu Evening News said. Paleontologists believe that a fossilised skeleton dug up in Zhucheng and shipped to the China Academy of Sciences in Beijing last week could be a new species of...

News to Note, October 10, 2009: A weekly feature examining news from the biblical viewpoint...

ICR Article Link Dinosaurs are a popular topic of study, whether in the public imagination or in scientific research. The scientific community, however, has a dirty little secret regarding the manner in which that research is handled. Dinosaur DNA Research: Is the tale wagging the evidence? by James J. S. Johnson, J.D., Jeffrey Tomkins, Ph.D., and Brian Thomas, M.S.* Dinosaurs are a popular topic of study, whether in the public imagination or in scientific research. The scientific community, however, has a dirty little secret regarding the manner in which that research is handled. If dinosaur DNA doesn't "look like chicken"...