SCIENCE

Blog Carnival #25: Reading Dino Tracks, Catching a Thief, Wikipedia Whiffs and More…

October 28, 2010

Walking the Walk: Two paw prints on a beach; both are from the same dog, yet completely different from one another. At Archosaur Musings, David Hone explains how these prints reveal the pitfalls of reading too much into fossilized dinosaur tracks: “Quite simply, tracks will vary and you want a decent set of them to make sure that any variations are accounted for, and therefore one must be especially careful with unusual, isolated tracks.”

Dinosaurs of a Feather: “Even when the colors of a prehistoric feathered dinosaur haven't been revealed by studies of feather microstructure, there are ways to infer which colors were and were not likely,” notes DinoGoss, who offers a detailed guide to several processes that add pigmentation to the feathers of birds and, presumably, their oversized ancestors.

Eureka? The latest cartoon at Walcott’s Quarry mocks the flashy unveilings of “game-changing” fossil discoveries. “They’re usually pretty heavy on media coverage, and pretty light on science.”

The Paleo-Justice League: At ArtEvolved, read the thrilling tale of how dinosaur bloggers banded together to catch an online art thief.

“There Are No Known Aetosaur Fossils From Madagascar!”: A glaring paleo-error prompts Chinleana to offer a timely reminder that Wikipedia remains a work in progress.

Taking a Stand: “Dinosaurs walked on their toes, unlike us humans who walk on the whole of the foot,” notes Everything Dinosaur. “Most reptiles sprawl with their legs at the side of the bodies, but dinosaurs carried their limbs directly underneath their bodies, just like mammals. This is a much more efficient method of walking about when compared to the sprawling stance of lizards and crocodiles for instance.”

That’s good news if you’re a dinosaur, but not such good news if you’re trying to get your authentic plastic model of a dinosaur to stand upright. Fear not: Everything Dinosaur has produced a short video on how to fix a wobbly dinosaur.

Not That There’s Anything Wrong With That: Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs reveals that famed paleontologist Barnum Brown (Feb. 12, 1873 – Feb. 5, 1963) had a “dinosaur foot fetish.”