http://www.paleoportal.org Interesting news from the world of Paleontology 2006 PaleoPortal.org en-us Andy Farke <tapestrywebmaster@lists.berkeley.edu> Fri, 16 May 2008 21:00:03 PDT Reuters - Scraps of protein from the bones of a 68 million-year-old dinosaur and a mastodon carcass confirm their places in the family tree of life on Earth, researchers reported on Thursday. http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/fossils/*http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080424/sc_nm/dinosaurs_elephants_dc Thu, 24 Apr 2008 21:04:43 GMT nm/20080424/dinosaurs_elephants_dc Thanks to a new calibration of the versatile argon-argon dating technique, geochronologists have established a more precise date for the dinosaur die-off at the end of the Cretaceous period: 65.95 million years ago, give or take 40,000 years. This improves on the previous date of 65.5 million years plus or minus 300,000 years, but more importantly, brings argon-argon dating into agreement with other dating methods. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080424140400.htm Thu, 24 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EDT http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080424140400.htm While waiting for colleagues at a small natural history museum in the state of Chiapas, Mexico last year, Cornell paleontologist Greg Dietl chanced upon a discovery that has helped rewrite the evolutionary history of crabs and the shelled mollusks upon which they preyed. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080422171449.htm Wed, 23 Apr 2008 20:00:00 EDT http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080422171449.htm Thanks to a new calibration of the versatile argon-argon dating technique, geochronologists have established a more precise date for the dinosaur die-off at the end of the Cretaceous period: 65.95 million years ago, give or take 40,000 years. This improves on the previous date of 65.5 million years plus or minus 300,000 years, but more importantly, brings argon-argon dating into agreement with other dating methods. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080424140400.htm Mon, 28 Apr 2008 08:00:00 EDT http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080424140400.htm Similarities between half-billion-year-old and recent food webs point to deep principles underpinning the structure of ecological relationships, as shown by researchers from the Santa Fe Institute, Microsoft Research Cambridge and elsewhere. Analyses of food-web data suggest that most, but not all, aspects of the trophic structure of modern ecosystems were in place over a half-billion years ago. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080428200309.htm Thu, 01 May 2008 14:00:00 EDT http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080428200309.htm Paleontologists have long been perplexed by dinosaur fossils with missing pieces -- sets of teeth without a jaw bone, bones that are pitted and grooved, even bones that are half gone. Now a Brigham Young University study identifies a culprit: ancient insects that munched on dinosaur bones. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080505221645.htm Tue, 06 May 2008 14:00:00 EDT http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080505221645.htm The asteroid presumed to have wiped out the dinosaurs struck the Earth with such force that carbon deep in the Earth's crust liquefied, rocketed skyward, and formed tiny airborne beads that blanketed the planet, say scientists from the US, UK, Italy, and New Zealand in this month's Geology. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080505120702.htm Mon, 05 May 2008 17:00:00 EDT http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080505120702.htm