Scholars
Leading intellectuals in the fields of history, philosophy and science
The Great Triceratops Debate Continues
What is Nedoceratops hatcheri? That depends on whom you ask.For over 120 years the problematic skull of this horned dinosaur has been bounced around the literature under different names and attributions. While it was originally described as a distinct genus, Diceratops, some paleontologists later ...
January 31, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
Edgar Allan Poe and the World of Astronomy
I've read my share of short stories by Edgar Allan Poe, but I was nonetheless intrigued by a caption in an article in the latest Smithsonian special issue, Mysteries of the Universe. It read: "The hollow Earth theory inspired authors from Edgar Rice Burroughs to Edgar Allan Poe." I knew that Poe, l...
January 19, 2011 |
By Sarah Zielinski
The Tangled History of Connecticut's Anchisaurus
East Coast dinosaurs are relatively rare finds, often because the geological formations in which they rest have been built over. Dinosaurs surely remain to be found under parking lots, housing developments and city streets, and one of the now-lost dinosaur quarries is located in Manchester, Connec...
January 13, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
Finding Science in the Art of Arcimboldo
On a recent trip to the National Gallery of Art, I stopped in to see the Arcimboldo exhibit, which we feature in the magazine this month. When I saw the images in print, I had been fascinated by their weirdness—the artist made faces and heads out of compilations of images of fruit, flowers, books o...
January 07, 2011 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Looking Forward to the International Year of Chemistry
The United Nations has dubbed 2011 the International Year of Chemistry, with the unifying theme "Chemistry—our life, our future."The goals of IYC2011 are to increase the public appreciation of chemistry in meeting world needs, to encourage interest in chemistry among young people, and to generate...
December 30, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
"Capitalsaurus," A D.C. Dinosaur
When I think of North American dinosaurs, my mind immediately jumps to the impressive giants like Diplodocus and Tyrannosaurus scattered in rock formations around the West. But there were East Coast dinosaurs, too. One of them, an enigmatic creature discovered at the close of the 19th century, even...
December 28, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Top Dinosaur Books of 2010
Another year, another spate of dinosaur books. The following is a brief review of the major dinosaur and dinosaur-related books I reported on during the past year (plus one extra that I have not yet reviewed but that no "best of 2010 dinosaur books" list could be without):Barnum Brown: The Man Who ...
December 27, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Juravenator: Germany's Other Feathered Dinosaur
In 1861, as debates about evolution were brewing among naturalists, two important skeletons were discovered from the Late Jurassic limestone quarries of Germany. Both would be relevant to ideas about how birds evolved. Although not recognized as such until the late 20th century, Archaeopteryx was t...
December 17, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
What Do We Know About Spinosaurs?
When I was a kid, Spinosaurus was one of my favorite dinosaurs. There was something so wonderfully odd about a massive predator with a sail on its back, but the trouble was that no one had a good idea what this animal looked like.Spinosaurs have been known to paleontologists since 1820. The troubl...
December 14, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Caroline Herschel: Assistant or Astronomer?
After a recent visit to the National Air and Space Museum's "Explore the Universe" exhibit, a local astronomy post-doc, Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, wrote the following about one of the displays:magine my dismay when I got to the section about Caroline and William Herschel, a sister-brother team of a...
December 08, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Thomas Henry Huxley and the Dinobirds
Evolution never got much time in my elementary school science classes. When the topic came up, inevitably near the end of the term, the standard, pre-packaged historical overview came along with it. Charles Darwin was the first person to come up with the idea of evolution, and, despite the ravings ...
December 07, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
A "Perverted" View of Bird Evolution
Among the many recurring themes on this blog, the evolution of birds from feathered maniraptoran dinosaurs is probably the most prevalent. Hardly a month goes by without a new study relevant to this major evolutionary transition, and as paleontologists discover more they continue to find that many ...
November 30, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Rare Science Books up for Auction Next Week
Are you having difficulty figuring out what to buy that special someone? Do you have $600,000 to $800,000 on hand? Well, then you can bid on a first edition of Galileo's Sidereus nuncius (Starry Messenger), which is just one lot in next week's auction "Beautiful Evidence: The Library of Edward Tuft...
November 22, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Brontosaurus - Out With the Old Skull, In With the New Skull
The rise and fall of "Brontosaurus" is one of my most favorite stories in all of paleontology. Fossil discoveries, academic arguments, evolutionary scenarios, museum politics and public perception all played into the long-running debate about a dinosaur that only ever existed in our imagination, ye...
November 08, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Replace the Kilogram!
Here's an easy question: What is a kilogram?A. 1000 gramsB. a standard unit of mass (often ignored in the United States)C. a platinum-iridium cylinder kept in a vault in Sèvres, FranceD. all of the aboveThe answer is D, of course. And that's a problem for the scientists in charge of the science of ...
November 03, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
The Georgian Planet: A Case of Clever Marketing
On March 31, 1781, William Herschel, a German musician and composer, looked through a homemade 7-foot-long telescope in his back garden in Bath, England and saw something odd. He thought it was a comet, but it didn't act quite like other comets. And when scientists of the time calculated the object...
October 26, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
The Anatomy of Renaissance Art
The Renaissance may be best known for its artworks: Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel and “David,” and Da Vinci’s "Mona Lisa" and "Vitruvian Man" have without a doubt shaped the course of art history. But a new exhibit at the National Gallery of Art, “The Body Inside and Out: Anatomical Literature and ...
October 18, 2010 |
By Jess Righthand
Julia Child and the Primordial Soup
Scientists don't yet know how life began here on Earth. Mineralogist Bob Hazen, who is profiled in the October issue of Smithsonian, thinks that rocks were key to the development of life. Reporter Helen Fields wrote:It’s the complexity of the hydrothermal vent environment—gushing hot water mixing w...
September 22, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Stegosaurus Week: Playing the Stegosaur Name Game
Measuring diversity in the fossil record can be a tricky task. Short of inventing time travel, there will be always be some uncertainty about how many species of dinosaur existed at any one place and time, and as we learn more about the fossil record it may turn out that what we once thought to be ...
September 17, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Stegosaurus Week: Tracking Cryptic Stegosaurs
The first trace of the plated, spiky stegosaurian dinosaurs was found in Early Cretaceous rock near Grahamstown, South Africa. Uncovered by W. G. Atherstone and A. G. Bain in 1845, the dinosaur was represented by a partial skull and several limb bones. The naturalists felt unqualified to study the...
September 15, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
