Birds
Tianyulong: An Unexpectedly Fuzzy Dinosaur
Over the past decade so many feathered dinosaurs have been discovered that it almost comes as no surprise when a new one is announced. What paleontologists did not expect, however, was to find "feathers" on a dinosaur that should not have had them. In a paper published this week in Nature paleontol...
March 20, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
Picture of the Week -- Great Egret
Voting continues for the Reader's Choice in Smithsonian magazine's 6th Annual Photo Contest. This photo, A Great Egret fishing in shallow waters, a finalist in the Natural World category, was taken by Dan Holland in Reelfoot Lake State Park in Tennessee back in July 2007. You can almost hear the sp...
March 20, 2009 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Book Review: How to Build a Dinosaur
When the film adaptation of the science fiction novel Jurassic Park premiered in the summer of 1993, scientists and the public alike wondered if it was possible to bring dinosaurs back from the dead. It was a tantalizing prospect, but the general consensus was that even if dinosaur DNA could be rec...
March 19, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
Naming a New Species
Smithsonian naturalist Brian Schmidt gave a new species of African bird an interesting scientific name
March 2009 |
By Joseph Caputo
Can Wind Power Be Wildlife Friendly
New research aims to stop turbines from killing bats and birds
February 27, 2009 |
By Joseph Caputo
Which Dinosaur Would You Clone?
When the film adaptation of Jurassic Park came out in 1993 the idea that scientists may one day be able to clone dinosaurs had everybody talking. It is still more science fiction than science fact (check out The Science of Jurassic Park and the Lost World), but suppose for a moment that there was s...
February 25, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
Book Review: Feathered Dinosaurs
When paleo-artist Gregory S. Paul published Predatory Dinosaurs of the World in 1989, the idea that many theropod dinosaurs might have been covered in feathers was still controversial. The hypothesis that birds evolved from small, predatory dinosaurs was still being hotly debated, and it would be a...
February 23, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
Dispatch from AAAS--the Greater Sage Grouse Fembot
This weekend, blog overseer Laura and I are writing from the AAAS Annual Meeting in Chicago. It's difficult to get birds to act on cue for an experiment, especially out in the wild. The solution for University of California, Davis researcher Gail Patricelli, who was studying courtship displays and ...
February 14, 2009 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Ornithological Data From Your Own Backyard
It's time to fill up the birdfeeders, pull out the field guide, and polish your binocular lenses. This weekend (February 13 to 16) is the Great Backyard Bird Count, by far the easiest and most pleasant way to participate in the scientific process. All you have to do is spend at least 15 minutes ide...
February 12, 2009 |
By Laura Helmuth
Darwin and the Dinosaurs
Today marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, whose book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection forever changed our understanding of the natural world. Although his father wanted him to become a surgeon or a clergyman, as a young man Darwin was more intent on col...
February 12, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
Picture of the Week — Emperor Penguins
Can cuteness save the Emperor penguin? These adorable birds received plenty of attention when the documentary March of the Penguins was released in 2005, but this week came a study in PNAS that predicts the population could be near extinction by the end of the century. The cause is a familiar one—c...
January 30, 2009 |
By Sarah Zielinski
The Perils of Bird-Plane Collisions
When airlines want to investigate dangerous bird strikes against planes, they turn to the head of the Smithsonian’s Feather Identification Lab
January 16, 2009 |
By Sarah Zielinski
What Happens When You Remove the Cats From a Rabbit-Laden Island?
Australians of European descent might be forgiven for thinking they could turn the continent into another Europe. Admittedly, there are regions that appear familiar to residents of the northern hemisphere. The rolling fields just west of the Blue Mountains, a bit more than an hour from Sydney, for ...
January 13, 2009 |
By Sarah Zielinski
A Giant Winged Platypus?
Announcements of new fossil discoveries are always exciting, and remains found from a site in eastern Shandong Province in China are no exception. Among the recovered fossils is part of the six-feet-wide skull of a horned dinosaur like Styracosaurus as well as bones of other dinosaur types seen fro...
January 02, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
Wild Goose Chase
How one man's obsession saved an "extinct" species
January 02, 2009 |
By Rob R. Dunn
The Spotted Owl's New Nemesis
An battle between environmentalists and loggers left much of the owl's habitat protected. Now the spotted owl faces a new threat
January 2009 |
By Craig Welch
Taking a Closer Look at Archaeopteryx
Ever since the first skeleton was found in 1861, the remains of the feathered dinosaur (and earliest known bird) Archaeopteryx have been highly prized for their potential to shed light on the origin of birds. There are about eight specimens presently known, many of which possess feather impressions...
December 17, 2008 |
By Brian Switek
Dinosaur Death Trap
About 90 million years ago, in what is now Mongolia, the ground collapsed beneath a group of immature Sinornithomimus that had been walking on the edge of a drying lake bed. The ostrich-like dinosaurs struggled to free themselves, clawing at the thick mud and calling out in desperation, but to no a...
December 04, 2008 |
By Brian Switek
Annual Dinosaur Dissection Day
According to paleontological lore, the 19th century naturalist T.H. Huxley was carving a goose for a holiday feast when he noticed something peculiar. The anatomy of the cooked bird was very similar to that of some dinosaurs, and soon afterwards Huxley proposed that dinosaurs were the animals from ...
November 27, 2008 |
By Brian Switek
T. Rex: The other white meat?
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! The Smithsonian staff will be taking the day off tomorrow to gather with family and eat our preferred turkey variant (turkey, tofurkey, turducken, etc.).So, with food on everyone’s minds, now seemed as good a time as any to address the inevitable question: What did din...
November 26, 2008 |
By Mark Strauss
