bone head dinosaur diversity * using elephants to study...
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Reconstruction of the new pachycephalosaurid dinosaurAcrotholus audeti. © Julius Csotonyi.
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Bone Head Dinosaur Diversity * Using Elephants to StudyDinosaur Metabolism * Hairy Bat Tongues Lap Liquid *Compound Eye Camera * Bone Worm Devours WhaleSkeletons * Seeing Faster than the Eye can FollowSaturday, May 11, 2013 | Categories: Episodes
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Today, the animal world amazes, inspires, frightens and delights us. First up:new insights into small dinosaurs from a big bone, and experiments onelephants educate us about dinosaur exercise. Plus, a look at how a hairytongue helps bats lap liquid, how an insect eye has inspired a new kind of compound camera,how a tiny worm can devour a whole whale carcass, and how our brains help us see faster thanthe eye can follow.
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Bone Head Dinosaur Diversity
The discovery of a new species ofPachycephalosaurus in Alberta may shed newlight on the diversity of small dinosaurs. Thisparticular fossil is the heavy, remarkably thickskull dome of this dogsized herbivore, whichis thought by some paleontologists to havebeen used in headbutting competitions fordominance or mates. But because this skull isso substantial, it is well preserved in the fossilrecord, and we know of more than a dozenother species from this group of herbivores. This is an unusually large diversity of smalldinosaurs, as the fossil record generally ispoor in small animals. Dr. David Evans,Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology at theRoyal Ontario Museum in Toronto, thinks that the diversity of Pachycephalosaurus might suggestthere were more small dinosaurs than the fossil record would indicate.
Related Links
Paper in Nature CommunicationsRoyal Ontario Museum releaseDr David Evans
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Dr. Rowe's Elephant Experiments
Video courtesy Brown University
CBC story
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Using Elephants to Study Dinosaur Metabolism
Dr. Mike Rowe, formerly at Indiana StateUniversity in Terre Haute, Indiana, wanted totest the question of whether dinosaurs werecoldblooded, like modern reptiles, or warmblooded, like modern mammals. And heapproached the question by asking whetherbeing coldblooded or warmblooded wouldmake a difference to how a really big dinosaurwould handle the heat. For his study, hechose to look at Edmontosaurus a dinosaurthat was about the size of an elephant, andwas believed to migrate long distances. In theabsence of an actual dinosaur, he used anactual elephant to do his experiment. What hefound was that it made little difference to theanimal's thermal regulation whether it was cold or warm blooded if it exercised during the day, itwould quickly overheat, either way. Although he did not settle the question of the dinosaur'sphysiology, he did conclude that Edmontosaurus likely migrated at night, in order to cope with theoverheating problem.
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Paper in The Journal of Experimental BiologyJEB news storyLaelaps blog about the studyScience Now story
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Hairy Bat Tongues Lap Liquid
Dr. Cally Harper, a biomechanist at BrownUniversity in Providence, Rhode Island, hasdiscovered a unique adaptation in nectarfeeding bats that allows them to slurp upnectar with high efficiency. The bats hoverlike hummingbirds at flowers to lap nectar, andthis is so energetically expensive thatdawdling would be disadvantageous. Thebats have developed erectile hairlikestructures on their tongue, which spring erectwhen the bats extend their tongues, increasingthe surface area of their tongue tip, andallowing them to capture more liquid than they would be able to otherwise. This happens in under40 milliseconds, and suggests new ideas for biomimetic medical devices that might copy the bat'stechnique.
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Paper in PNASBrown University releaseNational Geographic storyScientific American story
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Compound Eye camera and model. Courtesy J.Rogers/University of Illinois
The lower end of this worm attaches to a whale bone. Greg Rouse
Compound Eye Camera
The compound eye of an insect operates verydifferently from the vertebrate eye. It hashundreds or thousands of individual lenses,each focusing on its own photoreceptor. Compound eyes can be very sensitive tomotion, have a very wide field of view, anddon't need focusing they have near infinitedepth of field. Dr. John Rogers, a professorof Materials Science and Engineering at theUniversity of Illinois at UrbanaChampagne,and his colleagues, have developed anelectronic camera based on the insect'scompound eye.
Related Links
Paper in NatureUniversity of Illinois releaseRogers research groupNature NewsNot Exactly Rocket Science blogPopular Science story
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Bone Worm Devours Whale Skeletons
In 2002, an unusual deep sea worm was firstdiscovered by researchers scouring theMonterrey Canyon off California. What makesthis small worm unusual is that it has nomouth and no gut, yet feasts on the bones ofwhales and fish on the ocean floor. Themechanism by which it is able to feedremained unclear until a new study by Dr.Martin Tresguerres, a Marine Biologist fromThe Scripps Institution of Oceanography at theUniversity of California, San Diego. The wormattaches itself to the bone, then secretes apowerful acid in order to drill or bore into thesurface. This allows the worm to gain accessto the nutritious materials inside the bone,including collagen and lipids. It is thought thatbacteria living symbiotically within the wormmay help absorb the bone nutrients, thenmetabolize them into other organiccompounds that the worm can then digest. Over time, this process helps break down thebones.
Related Links
Paper in Proceedings of the Royal Society:BScripps Institution Of Oceanography
release Dr. Martin TresguerresUT San Diego news story
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Seeing Faster than the Eye can Follow
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One of the remarkable abilities of the humanbrain is its ability to track objects moving quiteliterally faster than the eye can follow. Thetime it takes for images rendered on the retinato reach our perception can be as long as atenth of a second, and for fast moving objects,like baseballs or hockey pucks, this meansthat our brains are way behind the object. Thebrain accommodates this by calculating wherethe speeding object is going to be, andpresenting this as our perception in otherwords, showing us a reality we can't actuallysee. Dr. Gerrit Maus, a postdoctoral scholarin Psychology at the University of California,Berkeley, has been studying thisphenomenon, using an illusion called the"flashdrag" effect, and brain imaging techniques, to show where and how the brain constructs thisperception.
Related Links
Paper in NeuronUniversity of California, Berkeley releaseDr. Gerrit MausLiveScience story
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