Free Republic

At the Weather Channel, the heavy snow and bitter cold that swept the Northeast this winter was cause for celebration as its wall-to-wall coverage helped lift ratings to their highest level in years. But none of that mattered in the spring, when Verizon Fios dropped the channel from its offerings to more than 5 million subscribers. In a letter to customers, Verizon said that people want to get their reports from the Internet and apps on their phones these days, not TV.

On the edge of the solar system, the dwarf planet Pluto, which knows what it feels like to be banished from an exclusive club, may be cheering for the brontosaurus. While the long-necked dinosaur's name may be known by legions of fans and even made it on to a postage stamp in the 1980s, most paleontologists would be quick to correct people that the brontosaurus is not a dinosaur. But the iconic dinosaur name may finally be reinstated more than a century after researchers found the long-necked brontosaurus and apatosaurus likely belonged to the same genus, according to an analysis...

A new out-of-this-world theory links mass extinctions with exotic astrophysics and galactic architecture Every once in a great while, something almost unspeakable happens to Earth. Some terrible force reaches out and tears the tree of life limb from limb. In a geological instant, countless creatures perish and entire lineages simply cease to exist. The most famous of these mass extinctions happened about 66 million years ago, when the dinosaurs died out in the planet-wide environmental disruption that followed a mountain-sized space rock walloping Earth. We can still see the scar from the impact today as a nearly 200-kilometer-wide crater in...

A New York City law firm says it has filed a class action lawsuit accusing the Syracuse-based Dinosaur Bar-B-Que chain of failing to pay its tipped workers fair wages. The suit claims Dinosaur failed to properly use the "tipped credit" provision in federal law, which requires employers to make up the difference between tips and pay to meet minimum wage standard....The suit also claims Dinosaur failed to properly pay overtime wages, "misappropriated" tips belonging to the tipped workers, wrongly required tipped workers to share tips with managers for large events and failed to properly pay workers for shifts exceeding 10...

Sometimes we make that first dash into the ocean on summer vacation and happily announce, "It's warm as bathwater." But a new study based on ancient sediments collected off South America indicates that the tropical Atlantic Ocean really did hit temperatures as high as 107 degrees Fahrenheit back when dinosaurs ruled. The finding, reported Friday by researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution during the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, also estimates that carbon dioxide made up as much as six times more of the atmosphere at that time than it does today.

Maine Crater Related to Dino-Killer Asteroid? By Larry O'Hanlon, Discovery News April 3, 2003 — The evidence is still skimpy, but there is a chance that the dino killer asteroid was not alone when it walloped the Earth 65 million years ago. A possible second crater, at least as big or bigger than the famous Chicxulub crater off Mexico's Yucatan peninsula, may have been created by a second hit moments after Chicxulub and off the coast of Maine. "It probably is a crater, but we really don't have age data," said marine geologist Dallas Abbott Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia...

Nanuqsaurus hoglundi was the big little dinosaur find that nearly got left behind. Classified in a March study, the hobbit T. rex, barely two-thirds the size of its more famous relative, roamed the Arctic some 70 million years ago. It's the only tyrannosaur ever found outside temperate latitudes, rewriting our understanding of the animals' diversity... In 2006, Fiorillo's team was above the Arctic Circle, on Alaska's North Slope. The polar season for fieldwork is brief, and they were busy excavating horned dinosaurs. But they also noticed a few interesting-looking, basketball-size rocks lying around the site. Fiorillo set them aside, thinking...

Paleontologists working in southern Montana unearthed a 3-inch beaked skull with pointed cheeks, which they believe is the oldest definitive evidence of a horned dinosaur in North America. Though small, the skull helps fill gaps in the evolutionary history of horned creatures on this continent... Fossil remains of horned dinosaurs, called neoceratopsian, have been found throughout North America, but the fossil record of these creatures is incredibly limited further back in time. That's been a hang-up for paleontologists because the late Early Cretaceous period (roughly 113 to 105 million years ago) was a time of important diversification for horned dinosaurs....

A definitive geological timeline shows that a series of massive volcanic explosions 66 million years ago spewed enormous amounts of climate-altering gases into the atmosphere immediately before and during the extinction event that claimed Earth's non-avian dinosaurs, according to new research from Princeton University. A primeval volcanic range in western India known as the Deccan Traps, which were once three times larger than France, began its main phase of eruptions roughly 250,000 years before the Cretaceous-Paleogene, or K-Pg, extinction event, the researchers report in the journal Science. For the next 750,000 years, the volcanoes unleashed more than 1.1 million cubic...

Palaeontologists have discovered what they are calling the "Jimmy Durante" of dinosaurs, a type of hadrosaur with a distinctive nasal profile. Named Rhinorex condrupus, the fossil was found by researchers from North Carolina State University and Brigham Young University, and lived in what is now Utah approximately 75 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous period. According to National Geographic, the date places the creature in the middle of a major dinosaur radiation, the process by which species adapt to new ecological niches. Rhinorex, which translates roughly into "King Nose", was a plant-eater and a close relative of other Cretaceous...

The earliest known ancestor of modern-day birds took to the skies by gliding from trees using primitive feathered wings on their arms and legs, according to new research by a University of Calgary paleontologist. In a paper published in the journal Paleobiology, Department of Biological Sciences PhD student Nick Longrich challenges the idea that birds began flying by taking off from the ground while running and shows that the dinosaur-like bird Archaeopteryx soared using wing-like feathers on all of its limbs. "The discussions about the origins of avian flight have been dominated by the so-called 'ground up' and 'trees down'...

To keep this all in one daily thread, here are links to two articles in the York Daily Record (with excerpts from each), which has been doing a great job of reporting on the trial: Forrest cross-examination a rambling wonder. About the time that Richard Thompson, head law guy at the Thomas More center and chief defender of the Dover Area School Board, started his third year of cross-examination of philosopher Barbara Forrest, it was easy to imagine that at that moment, everyone in the courtroom, including Forrest, who doesn’t believe in God, was violating the separation of church and...

Fossil hunters in China have discovered what may be one of the weirdest prehistoric species ever seen -- a four-winged dinosaur that apparently glided from tree to tree. The 128-million-year-old animal -- called Microraptor gui, in honor of Chinese paleontologist Gu Zhiwei -- was about 2 1/2 feet long and had two sets of feathered wings, with one set on its forelimbs and the other on its hind legs. Exactly where the creature fits into the evolution of birds and dinosaurs is not clear. But researchers speculated that it developed around the same time as or even later than...

The 95-million-year-old remains confirm a long-held theory: that this is the first-known swimming dinosaur. Scientists say the beast had flat, paddle-like feet and nostrils on top of its crocodilian head that would allow it to submerge with ease. The research is published in the journal Science. Lead author Nizar Ibrahim, a palaeontologist from the University of Chicago, said: "It is a really bizarre dinosaur - there's no real blueprint for it.

Sir Mick Jagger has a new animal named after him. Scientists have named an extinct swamp-dwelling creature that lived 19 million years ago in Africa after the Rolling Stones frontman, in honor of a trait they both share—their supersized lips. "We gave it the scientific name Jaggermeryx naida, which translates to 'Jagger's water nymph,'" said study co-author Ellen Miller of Wake Forest University. The animal's fossilized jaw bones suggest it was roughly the size of a small deer and akin to a cross between a slender hippo and a long-legged pig. Researchers uncovered the fossils—consisting of multiple jawbone fragments—amid the...

Scientists have discovered the fossilized remains of a new long-necked, long-tailed dinosaur that has taken the crown for largest terrestrial animal with a body mass that can be accurately determined. Measurements of bones from its hind leg and foreleg revealed that the animal was 65 tons, and still growing when it died in the Patagonian hills of Argentina about 77 million years ago. “To put this in perspective, an African elephant is about five tons, T. rex is eight tons, Diplodocus is 18 tons, and a Boeing 737 is around 50 tons,” said study author and paleontologist Kenneth Lacovara at...

Scientists have unearthed the skeleton of a previously unknown, massive dinosaur species that may be the largest land animal ever found.The specimen named Dreadnoughtus schrani is exceptionally complete, with about 70 percent of its bones recovered. Scientists believe the creature, which lived about 77 million years ago, measured 85 feet (26 meters) long and weighed about 65 tons, heavier than a Boeing 737.

Did Angkor really see a dinosaur? Jonathan O’Brien and Shaun Doyle The September 2007 Creation magazine back page feature article ‘Angkor saw a Stegosaur?’ showed a stone carving on a temple of Angkor, Cambodia, (a. 1200 AD), depicting what looks like an artistic impression of a stegosaurian-type dinosaur.1 As such evidence clearly supports the biblical view of dinosaurs, it naturally provoked the ire of vocal atheists. Here are their objections: “If it is a dinosaur, they carved it from fossils” The plates along the back of the animal are unlike all the other decorative designs in the temple walls. One...

Based on its huge thigh bones, it was 40m (130ft) long and 20m (65ft) tall. Weighing in at 77 tonnes, it was as heavy as 14 African elephants, and seven tonnes heavier than the previous record holder, Argentinosaurus. Scientists believe it is a new species of titanosaur - an enormous herbivore dating from the Late Cretaceous period. A local farm worker first stumbled on the remains in the desert near La Flecha, about 250km (135 miles) west of Trelew, Patagonia.