Scientific American

Oldest Dinosaur Embryo Fossils Discovered in China

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 09:15:00 EST

From Nature magazine

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How Did Dinosaurs Have Sex? [Excerpt]

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 07:00:00 EST

Adapted from My Beloved Brontosaurus: On the Road with Old Bones, New Science, and Our Favorite Dinosaurs , by Brian Switek, by arrangement with Scientific American/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC . Copyright © 2013 by Brian Switek

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Triassic Extinction Tied to Massive Lava Spills

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 17:00:00 EST

The mass extinction that wiped out many species at the end of the Triassic period some 200 million years ago made way for the dinosaurs' domination of Earth for the next 135 million years. Now, researchers have determined the timing of a possible trigger for that Triassic extinction event with unprecedented precision.

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What Color Were Dinosaurs? [Video]

Sat, 16 Mar 2013 07:00:00 EST

Dinosaurs died out some 65 million years ago, so how could we possibly determine the color of their skin--or feathers? As Scientific American 's Eric R. Olson explains, new fossil evidence is pointing the way. Episode written by Kate Wong.

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First Birds Might Have Flown on 4 Wings

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 17:00:00 EST

Instead of two wings, the first birds might have used four feathered limbs to stay aloft, according to research published today in Science .

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Shoo Away Asteroids with a Coat of Paint

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 23:15:08 EST

Since that meteor streaked through Russian skies on February 15th a lot of people have been thinking about asteroid defense.

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How to Eat Triceratops

Thu, 25 Oct 2012 11:00:00 EST

By Matt Kaplan of Nature magazine

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Dinos' DNA Demise: Genetic Material Has a 521-Year Half-Life

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 12:15:00 EST

From Nature magazine

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Did the Reign of Dinosaurs Begin, as Well as End, with a Meteorite Strike?

Mon, 17 Sep 2012 12:00:00 EST

STOCKTON, N.J.-- A huge meteorite strike may have helped the dinosaurs rise as well as fall. That's what a small crew of mud-spattered researchers who drilled down hundreds of feet in New Jersey this summer wanted to discover.

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Science and Archaeopteryx Overcome Creationism in South Korea

Thu, 06 Sep 2012 17:55:00 EST

From Nature magazine

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Ancient DNA Research Revolutionizes Scientists Understanding of Extinct Animals (preview)

Fri, 20 Jul 2012 07:00:00 EST

For more than 150 years scientists have primarily relied on fossilized bones and teeth to reconstruct creatures from deep time. Skeletons divulge the sizes and shapes of long-ago animals; muscle markings on bones indicate how brawny the creatures were and how they may have moved; tooth shape and wear attest to the kinds of food eaten. All in all, researchers have managed to extract extraordinary quantities of information from these hard parts. On rare occasions, they have chanced on exquisitely preserved mummies and frozen carcasses that have allowed them to add more detail to their reconstructions, such as the length of the fur, the shape of the ears, the specific contents of an animal's last supper. Yet for all that scientists have been able to deduce about the physical characteristics of life-forms from past eras, we know very little about the physiological processes that sustained them.

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Nonprofit Wants to Launch Asteroid-Spotter

Mon, 02 Jul 2012 15:18:08 EST

Are we smarter than the dinosaurs? Specifically, are we clever enough to avoid their fate? If we don’t want to be blown away by an asteroid, it would help to know what’s out there. That’s the idea behind the Sentinel mission .

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Dinosaurs Might Have Had Warm-Blooded Animals' Fast Metabolism

Wed, 27 Jun 2012 18:00:00 EST

From Nature magazine

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Lasers Help Weigh Dinosaurs

Wed, 06 Jun 2012 23:32:08 EST

Some dinosaurs were really huge. And now we may have a better way to estimate just how heavy these giants were. Researchers have developed a method to weigh dinosaurs, based on laser scans of their skeletons. The study is in the journal Biology Letters . [W. I. Sellers et al.," Minimum convex hull mass estimations of complete mounted skeletons "]

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Baby Boom: Did Retained Juvenile Traits Help Birds Outlive Dinosaurs?

Thu, 31 May 2012 00:00:00 EST

Birds are the only dinosaurs that have survived into modern times. Why is that? Of all the dinosaur species, how did they manage to make it through the catastrophic events of 65 million years ago, whereas all their fellow dinos perished? A new study, published May 27 in Nature , hints at an evolutionary phenomenon that may have played to birds' advantage: They are, it seems, baby dinosaurs whose biology prevents them from ever growing up. ( Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group.)

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