Best....video...ever. This is totally the answer to world hunger.

-Erin

New N. America Raptor

Found at E! Science News and over at the Vancouver Sun (a bit longer of an article) is a new North American raptor, named Hesperonychus. Smaller than a chicken, this species becomes the smallest North American dinosaur know yet.

This little guy is most likely related to Velociraptor, Microraptor, and Sinornithosaurus, found in China and Mongolia.

Snippets:

Massive predators like Albertosaurus and Tyrannosaurus rex may have been at the top of the food chain, but they were not the only meat-eating dinosaurs to roam North America, according to Canadian researchers who have discovered the smallest dinosaur species on the continent to date. Their work is also helping re-draw the picture of North America's ecosystem at the height of the dinosaur age 75 million years ago. "Hesperonychus is currently the smallest dinosaur known from North America. But its discovery just emphasizes how little we actually know, and it raises the possibility that there are even smaller ones out there waiting to be found," said Nick Longrich, a paleontology research associate in the University of Calgary's Department of Biological Sciences.

"Small carnivorous dinosaurs seemed to be completely absent from the environment, which seemed bizarre because today the small carnivores outnumber the big ones," he said. "It turns out that they were here and they played a more important role in the ecosystem than we realized. So for the past 100 years, we've completely overlooked a major part of North America's dinosaur community."

In a paper published today in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Longrich and University of Alberta paleontologist Philip Currie describe a new genus of carnivorous dinosaur that was smaller than a modern housecat and likely hunted insects, small mammals and other prey through the swamps and forests of the late Cretaceous period in southeastern Alberta, Canada. Weighing approximately two kilograms and standing about 50 centimetres tall, Hesperonychus elizabethae resembled a miniature version of the famous bipedal predator Velociraptor, to which it was closely related. Hesperonychus ran about on two legs and had razor-like claws and an enlarged sickle-shaped claw on its second toe. It had a slender build and slender head with dagger-like teeth.

"It was half the size of a domestic cat and probably hunted and ate whatever it could for its size – insects, mammals, amphibians and maybe even baby dinosaurs," Longrich said. "It probably spent most of its time close to the ground searching through the marshes and forests that characterized the area at the end of the Cretaceous."

Fossilized remains of Hesperonychus, which means “western claw,” were collected in 1982 from several locations including Dinosaur Provincial Park. The most important specimen, a well-preserved pelvis, was recovered by legendary Alberta paleontologist Elizabeth (Betsy) Nicholls, after which the species is named. Nicholls was the curator of marine reptiles at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller and earned her MSc and PhD degrees at U of C. She passed away in 2004. The fossils remained unstudied for 25 years until Longrich came across them in the University of Alberta’s collection in 2007. Longrich and Currie focused on fossilized claws and a well-preserved pelvis for their description.

-Erin

My New Favorite Xmas Carols

There really aren't any words. Go here, and listen to the music samples. Hopefully...you'll laugh like I did because I cracked up. TONS.

-Erin

Pregnant Fossilized Turtle

Paleontologists from Alberta Canada have discovered a 75 million year old fossil turtle that's pregnant. Apparently the female was found in association with another female's nest, but the eggs were found inside the skeleton and are unusually hard-shelled.

Check out the full article here: Pregnant Fossil Turtle

I've got another office pet: a lovely little female black widow I've nicknamed Angel. Her photo, along with a nifty little orb-weaving spider I discovered in the window of my office are above. :)

Photo of the pregnant turtle fossil is courtesy of scientificblogging.com.

-Erin

Goldilocks and the 18

CONGRATS to the U.S. WOMEN'S SOCCER TEAM!!! They've successfully taken the gold medal! Brazil wasn't an easy team to play against, and it was just about the most defensive game I've seen all year.

Here's my story:
Now...I'd told my boyfriend, everyone at work, our roomate...as many people as I could FIND not to tell me how the game went because I had it TiVO'd at home.

I sit and watch the WHOLE GAME. Not too exciting...though there were some great saves, especially by our goalie Hope Solo.

Pass the first half: 0-0

Into the second half: 0-0

Elbows, knees, bodies flying EVERYWHERE! Best thing: hardly any fouls unless they were absolutely necessarily called. I LOVE ROUGH SOCCER!

87th minute: phone call from my mother.

"Hello mother, what's up?"

Before I get a chance to say anything, especially don't tell me about the game, "Congrats! Your girls did it! Took home the GOLD!"

"DAMN IT!"

So...we sit and watch the rest of the game, which by this time, crunch time, was WAY entertaining.

Carli Lloyd...MAGNIFICANT GOAL...boosh. End of game. And, despite knowing they won, I still jumped up and down, woke up the boyfriend, and probably pissed off the neighbors below us. And, it was the United States official 1,000th gold medal. How cool is that?

My ladies did it! The odds were slightly stacked against them but it was FANTASTIC to watch them drive through everyone and beat them all to the finish line.

Can't wait to see them in more games this September! GO U.S.A.!!!!!

Another Mass Extinction?

That what they're saying. According to U.S. biologists and researchers from the University of California-Berkeley there have been devestating amphibian decline world-wide. This event is caused by a virulent fungus that may be damaging to more than our little slimy, bumpy friends.

Seeing as amphibians have been around for, oh, 250 million years and counting, it's hard to imagine what could wipe them out. Still...hopefully we can find something that will help these fun little animals regain their sticky foothold (sorry for all the descriptiveness...I'm in a mood today lol).

I found this story, and many interesting others, at http://blog.hmns.org/


-Erin

O-lay, o-lay o-lay o-lay...

That's right, you know what's coming up? It's time for the Women's National Team to walk away with an Olympic medal!! Be it gold or silver, it's a HUGE testament as to how well these ladies have done!

From getting a 2-0 wake-up call by Norway in the first game, coming back 4-0 against New Zealand, 1-0 against Canada, and finally clinching the final match against Brazil by beating Japan 4-2, it's off to the finals we merrily skip!

Brazil is a tough team, and though we'll be playing minus Lesli Osborne, Kat Whitehill, and Abby Wambach, this team has just persevered through every trial thrown at them and come out of it on top.

Good luck on Thursday ladies! GO U.S.A.!

As a side note, and there are probably fans out there of this sport (none that read my blog), I watched an Olympic event a couple of days ago that was...strange to me. Border-line ridiculous. 20k Walk.

Now...don't get me wrong, I know that it'd be tough to maintain a fast walking pace for 20k, but come on now. We made an event out of something that defines a pedestrian?! Is there really Olympic Power-Walking?! Get outta here! Grats to Russia for clinching the prestige title of Gold Medal Winner for the 20k Men's Race-walk.

That, to me, is a bit of a silly sport. And yes, being the hypocrite that I am I watched the whole damn thing. 1 hour, 18 minutes of race-walk.

Go U.S.A., no matter what silly gold we're going for! (But especially our soccer stars!)

-Erin