Dinosaurs
The book that could change the way we see dinosaurs: We think of them as sleek and fierce, but what if they were fat and furry?
These new representations might be accurate, they might not be. Research is always underway to get a better idea, more preserved fossils are found that contain the body outline, feathers, and sometimes even flesh. We also have a better idea now than we did even a month ago about how much weight their skeletons could hold (curved bones, as many dinosaur leg bones are, hold less than straight bones etc) as experiments and research continue to be conducted and published.
It is far from the blind guesswork that article* leads you to believe. Ancient reptiles are depicted with the face like their "cat" and body like their "baboon" because that is similar to how modern lizards and birds (a reptile and direct descendant of the dinosaur) look. An actual ancient cat, like the saber tooth, is depicted similar to modern cats, ancient primates with body structures similar to modern primates etc. It is NEVER "oh look a mammal skeleton, let's draw it based on reptile characteristics." *The book may not be as misleading as I find that article to be, I will include it once I have a chance to read the entire book. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2243526/The-book-change-way-dinosaurs-We-think-sleek-fierce-fat-furry.html#ixzz2EDOEw5hK |
ScienceShot: Curves are Tough on the Bones
 Femur of European hedgehog
Simple engineering analyses that estimate bone strength may yield overly optimistic results, a new study suggests. Leg bones must withstand the compressive stresses imposed by an animal's weight. But if the bones are curved—as leg bones often are, even if only slightly—they also sustain bending stresses that result when weight isn't precisely centered on the bone's cross section.
Incorporating stresses from bone curves put the bone under about 1.4 times more stress than it would experience if the bones were considered to be simple straight beams, the researchers report online today in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface. The strategy might be especially useful in reconstructing animals that are extinct, such as dinosaurs. Overestimating the strength of a dinosaur's leg bones by ignoring the effects of bone curvature may, in turn, mean overestimating how much weight those bones could have supported. Turns out, large dinos like Tyrannosaurus rex and the lumbering sauropods might have been somewhat slimmer than previously believed. http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/11/scienceshot-curves-are-tough-on-.html |
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The above information is intended to be a resource for educators and can be used freely, so long as I am credited and you are not selling it in any way. Handing it out to students of any age as is or in an edited form is acceptable and encouraged, just include the link to this webpage and identify it as your source. If you post it on your website, be it personal or school affiliated, it must also be credited to me and grant people identical terms of use. Thank you for your cooperation and please email me with any questions at bycaitlin@gmail.com. License terms can be found here http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/