Brontosaurus is back!
Scientists restore the good name of Brontosaurus
By Will Dunham
Reuters, Tuesday, April 7, 2015
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Paleontologists are restoring the good name of Brontosaurus more than a century after it was deemed scientifically invalid and the famous dinosaur was reclassified as another genus called Apatosaurus.
They unveiled on Tuesday an exhaustive analysis of Brontosaurus remains, first unearthed in the 1870s, and those of closely related dinosaurs, determining that the immense, long-necked plant-eater was not an Apatosaurus and deserved its old name back.
Paleontologist Emanuel Tschopp of Portugal’s Universidade Nova de Lisboa cited important anatomical differences including Apatosaurus possessing a wider neck than Brontosaurus and being even more massively built.
“The differences between Apatosaurus and Brontosaurus are numerous enough to revive Brontosaurus as a separate genus from Apatosaurus,” Tschopp said.
Brontosaurus, which lived in North America around 150 million years ago in the Jurassic Period, was about 72 feet (22 meters) long and weighed about 40 tons.
“Brontosaurus and T. rex are the two most popular dinosaur names ever,” said Universidade Nova de Lisboa paleontologist Octávio Mateus. “Even 112 years after paleontologists considered it invalid, the name Brontosaurus still echoes in the popular culture. It was indeed a very cool dinosaur name.”
CONTINUED...
http://newsdaily.com/2015/04/scientists-restore-the-good-name-of-brontosaurus/
PeerJ article: https://peerj.com/articles/857/
Now if only we could restore Pluto to planethood...
= new reply since forum marked as read
Now aliens, they might be reeeeeeeeeally big. Big. Big. Big.
EXCERPT...
University of Barcelona cosmologist Fergus Simpson has been thinking deeply about alien size. He recently published a paper entitled "The Nature of Inhabited Planets And Their Inhabitants."
He relies on a mathematical model that says other planets conserve energy just like we do. "Throughout the animal kingdom, species which are physically larger invariably possess a lower population density, possibly due to their enhanced energy demands," he says.
Bigger beings consume more and release more energy than do smaller beings.
Earth, he says, "constitutes a simple random sample amongst inhabited planets." We have more smaller beings than larger ones. He doesn't believe, however, that Earth is a fair sample. Instead, he says that "most inhabited planets are likely to be closer in size to Mars than the Earth."
If that is true, then "since population density is widely observed to decline with increasing body mass, we conclude that most intelligent species are expected to exceed 300kg." Yes, that would be 650 pounds.
CONTINUED...
This alien has a big body, but a small head.
That's more like my self-portrait, though, dinosaur dat I am.
ROFLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!
New Horizons: Navigating to Pluto
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/new-horizons-navigating-to-pluto-040320154/
Have you heard anything new from Ceres, starroute? There were the fascinating pictures with the white protrusions that are all but forgotten now.
I can no longer find the GIF that showed the spots as they moved with the planetoid's rotation. I remember -- perhaps mistakenly -- that the white portion seemed to remain as they followed past the terminator, before going completely to the far side. I'll post if I can find the thing.
Not talking about truth, but the fundamental approach to knowledge, specifically in its sharing is truly democratic. Guess they've found there's more money to be made by limiting its distribution and then selling what's in short supply.
My guess is that the bright thing is a frozen volcanic eruption of subsurface ice. Once the gusher breaks through the crater basin, it freezes as it starts to shoot up.
Probably something else, as things that far out from the sun don't get all that hot -- unless one face stares at the sun for extended periods. Ceres spins.
The Fundies may yet soil their undies. Can't wait to see more images.
A comparison shows dinosaur skulls used in the study to classify Diplodocidae dinosaurs, including the Apatosaurus and the disputed Brontosaurus. (Emanuel Tschopp et. al, PeerJ)
Brontosaurus and Apatosaurus, and all the sauropods, are beautiful.
PS: You are most welcome, Change has come!
PPS: I think I see where my severe overbite comes from -- check out "E."
They become a real nuisance in late fall when they discover and devour the budding illicit marijuana plots in the hills, then wander down and rampage lethargically through the local farmers markets. They've grown extremely fond of the baked goods. They favor the sticky buns and raisin bread in particular. After consuming all the pot and baked goods they fall over in the streets and slumber. That's when men wearing dark glasses fly in with their helicopters and relocate them far back in the hills, only to have the event repeat itself the following year.
The pot farmers want the pesky Brontosaurus removed from the endangered species list and the baker is spearheading the movement.
I did not take this photo but I witnessed the event. The photograph is not photoshopped.
they all look the same to me.
It was Beauty killed the Beast.
Set it in my window! I wanna see my car tip over!
They liked to play together. 
❤
That top o' the food chain predator evolved into today's GOP bird-brain mindset.
As for the domestication of cats, they guard us from the ungnome.
Brontosaurus and stegosaurus are just cuter, that's all....
But how was I to know, tyrannosaurus would become such a comedian?
Poets are the unrecognized rulers of the universe.
Then, again, you knew that, Spitfire of ATJ.
Not the Fred Flintstone John Goodman with the Wilma and Betty thing. Gosh, though, now come to think of it! Wow.
THAT's IT!!!!!!!! Exactly. Precisely. Perfectly. Even the color.
Thank you, Spitfire of ATJ.
As a second grader, I owned a blue T-rex. It looked something like this:
If anyone reading lost a blue T-rex at Stottlemyer School about 1964, I still owe you a T-rex.
As for Pluto, if they put Pluto back as a planet, all my old astrology books would be vindicated. WooWoo!
Through time and space.
EXCERPT...
“Due to increasing interest and the number of submissions we’re getting, it was clear we needed to extend this public outreach activity,” said Jim Green, director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. “This campaign not only reveals the public’s excitement about the mission, but helps the team, which will not have time to come up with names during the flyby, to have a ready-made library of names in advance to officially submit to the IAU.”
CONTINUED...
http://www.nasa.gov/press/2015/april/nasa-extends-campaign-for-public-to-name-features-on-pluto/
All are connected.
I never used that other name. So, it is way cool that this has finally happened.
K & R.
You can't bear to say things that aren't. Like a Turning Point in a movie -- the good ones. Naming things by their proper names is a step toward Justice.
Like when referring to pretzeldent Smirko McCokespoon as "President George W Bush." Couldn't utter it, even in a business environment where the agenda including mention of the governor or Texas. Barfed at the thought of the Big Lie.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Precision and concision. That's the game.[/center][/font][hr]
LOLOLOLOLOLOL from the Triassic through the Cretaceous! Thank you G_j! LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!!!!!!!
Plus that's MY theory, too. Just because someone else said it first doesn't mean it isn't true. Ahem. Cough.
Television has never known, nor will it ever know again; yay, nor humanity has ever known, nor will ever know again; a moment in our time passing through that particular point of purity, peace, and perfection. The world made sense -- as in that it is both a comedy and a tragedy and it's a blessing and a privilege (not curse and sentence) to be part of it.
In fact, if that moment with Miss Elk didn't enlighten every viewer, we may be beyond the reach of the flame of wisdom, were it not for Mr. Tony Orlando, who once said on network television:
At which point, my mind became clear and it was as if I, for that one brief instant, was one with -- and transparent to -- the great Beyond-ish. And we hope for Others to Visit who are Good, rather than Ones who are closer to what we -- as in humanity -- Deserve.
luckily the ripples travel far, even through time.
Humor is health, like inner jogging. It's also a glimpse of a clarity into who we are. There are Zen moments, that was one. I never would have thought of it.
New Horizons: Pluto lander would be 'spectacular' next mission
by Hannah Osborne
International Business Times, April 8, 2015 17:32 BST
A Pluto lander would be a "spectacular" next mission after New Horizons, as the planet could potentially be used as an observatory, an expert has said.
Alan Stern, principal investigator of the New Horizons mission, spoke to IBTimes UK as the team gears up for the closest ever encounter with Pluto in July.
Over the coming weeks, Stern said the team will be making their final preparations: "April is a very busy time for us," he said. "We have the first observations from a number of instruments on board. We're doing a lot of navigation to home in on Pluto. We're planning a homing burn, meaning an engine trajectory correction in May.
"We're also conducting the last few mission simulations to train our team and prepare for the encounter. There are three of them in April and they're all very important."
New Horizons is just two months away from its flyby of Pluto, having launched in January 2006. At time of writing, it was 115 million kilometres (71 million miles) from the dwarf planet.
CONTINUED...
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/new-horizons-pluto-lander-would-be-spectacular-next-mission-1495456
A mere ruse by the Brontosuarial Industrial Complex to sell even more chicken bones to an unsuspecting public.
(This is how I fashionably advertise my half-witted (though trendy) skepticism and cynicism-- it's really the In Thing these days)
