Posted on 08/13/2003 9:02:05 PM PDT by nwrep
2 hours, 55 minutes ago
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By RAMOLA TALWAR BADAM, Associated Press Writer
BOMBAY, India - U.S. and Indian scientists said Wednesday they have discovered a new carnivorous dinosaur species in India after finding bones in the western part of the country.
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The new dinosaur species was named Rajasaurus narmadensis, or "Regal reptile from the Narmada," after the Narmada River region where the bones were found.
The dinosaurs were between 25-30 feet long, had a horn above their skulls, were relatively heavy and walked on two legs, scientists said. They preyed on long-necked herbivorous dinosaurs on the Indian subcontinent during the Cretaceous Period at the end of the dinosaur age, 65 million years ago.
"It's fabulous to be able to see this dinosaur which lived as the age of dinosaurs came to a close," said Paul Sereno, a paleontologist at the University of Chicago. "It was a significant predator that was related to species on continental Africa, Madagascar and South America."
Working with Indian scientists, Sereno and paleontologist Jeff Wilson of the University of Michigan reconstructed the dinosaur skull in a project funded partly by the National Geographic (news - web sites) Society.
A model of the assembled skull was presented Wednesday by the American scientists to their counterparts from Punjab University in northern India and the Geological Survey of India during a Bombay news conference.
Scientists said they hope the discovery will help explain the extinction of the dinosaurs and the shifting of the continents how India separated from Africa, Madagascar, Australia and Antarctica and collided with Asia.
The dinosaur bones were discovered during the past 18 years by Indian scientists Suresh Srivastava of the Geological Survey of India and Ashok Sahni, a paleontologist at Punjab University.
When the bones were examined, "we realized we had a partial skeleton of an undiscovered species," Sereno said.
The scientists said they believe the Rajasaurus roamed the Southern Hemisphere land masses of present-day Madagascar, Africa and South America.
"People don't realize dinosaurs are the only large-bodied animal that lived, evolved and died at a time when all continents were united," Sereno said.
The cause of the dinosaurs' extinction is still debated by scientists. The Rajasaurus discovery may provide crucial clues, Sereno said.
India has seen quite a few paleontological discoveries recently.
In 1997, villagers discovered about 300 fossilized dinosaur eggs in Pisdura, 440 miles northeast of Bombay, that Indian scientists said were laid by four-legged, long-necked vegetarian creatures.
Indian scientists said the dinosaur embryos in the eggs may have suffocated during volcanic eruptions.
Ah, yes! I think you made the distinction wonderfully clear earlier on this thread.
Indeed, but we have many ways to observe. We are not limited to telescopes.
Since science requires that SOMETHING be present in order for something to happen
I can think of at least three ways to interpret this statement; would you clarify this?
then the theory that NOTHING existed and brought forth SOMETHING is not scientific
According to any Big Bang model I know of, there never was such a "time when nothing existed". All you are shredding is your own misconceptions regarding the Big Bang.
nor is it observable.
You are mistaken if you believe that a thing must be directly observable in order to be accessible to scientific inquiry. The criterion for science is whether a model makes testable predictions. This the Big Bang does very well. It has survived more rigorous and quantitative observational tests than all but perhaps four or five models ever devised by mankind.
No.
You obviously define virtue as not pointing out your failures to comply with your agreement.
The field is decreased inside the shell (on the surface of "B," for instance) and increased outside it. The total energy decrease in the combined gravitational fields should equal the e=mc2 equivalent of S.
I suppose. Phys can check me.
Physicist, based on your post here, AndrewC has proposed the following Stump-the-Dummies game:
1) Your link gives me pause. Suppose you have 2 masses A and B separated by some distance R1. Is there a non-zero gravitational field between them?Your comments are appreciated.(Answer: Yes.)
2) Okay then, what happens to that field when a thin spherical shell of R0 < R1 with mass S is placed around "B"?
(Answer given above.)
I'm not sure, but this looks like a baseless allegation.
I blew that part. Adding more mass adds more total gravitational energy. The increase outside beats the decrease inside.
That might be because you are forgetting post 1039.
Well, then goodbye, I don't mean to bore you. I find you highly entertaining.
I confuse myself here with faulty terminology. I should say "gravitational field strength," as this is being equated to negative mass/energy.
When? Where?
Judging by past experiences with AndrewC, either he believes that he can lawyer established physics into some trivial logical inconsistency that somehow escaped many of the greatest minds in the history of the human race, or he's playing the child's game of iteratively asking, "but why", heedless of the answers he may be given, in hope either of angering the other party, or eventually declaring victory as the last man standing.
At this point, I'm expecting you still to be pinging me to this thread in October. ;^)
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