2001 Earthquake Research Speeded
by Networking Researchers and engineers from New York to California are forming a collaborative network via the Internet to speed the design of structures that minimize earthquake damage and loss of life. The National Science Foundation (NSF) has announced 11 awards totaling $45 million to fund shake tables, centrifuges and other experimental equipment that can be shared across the nation to study earthquake effects. ... more . . . New Predatory Dog-Sized Dinosaur Unearthed on Madagascar January 24, 2001 Fossilized remains of a bizarre, dog-sized predatory dinosaur were recently recovered on the island of Madagascar. The discovery, funded in part by the National Science Foundation (NSF), was announced this week in the journal Nature by a team of researchers led by paleontologist Scott Sampson of the University of Utah. Matthew Carrano and Catherine Forster from the State University of New York at Stony Brook co-authored the paper. These fossils, which date to the Late Cretaceous period (about 65-70 million years ago), represent a dinosaur new to science, dubbed Masiakasaurus knopfleri. Masiakasaurus was relatively small, as dinosaurs go, with a total body length of 1.6-2.0 meters, much of which consisted of its long neck and tail. The total mass of this small carnivore would have been approximately 35 kilograms (80 lbs.), roughly that of a German Shepherd dog....more...
2000
"This creature is not something that, if it were alive today, people would be running from," said crocodile expert Gregory Buckley of Roosevelt University, Illinois. "It's something very different from the crocodiles we see now." Simosuchus clarki had a short, blunt snout and clove-shaped teeth with multiple points that are usually associated with plant eating animals like iguanas and herbivorous dinosaurs. Such teeth have never before been seen in a fossil crocodile or living crocodile, which have teeth with a single point used to impale animal prey. "The discovery of this amazing fossil points out the incredible ability of life to fill available environmental niches," said Rich Lane, director of NSF's geology and paleontology program, which funded the research. "Humans have only begun to document and understand the biological complexity that existed in ancient geological times." Buckley's team included David Krause of the State University of New York
at Stony Brook, Christopher Brochu of the Field Museum of Natural History
in Chicago and Diego Pol of the American Museum of Natural History in
New York.
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