Penny Higgins - Storyteller • Artist • Scientist
Combining Science and Joyful Creativity
Instructor Assigned Paper 1 – Jan 19
What’s it about?
In order to have the science of vertebrate paleontology, we have to have the fossilization of bones. The authors use experimental methods to examine what happens early in the process of fossilization and understand the role of bacteria in the preservation of bone.Continue reading “The Beginning of Bone Fossilization – #UREES270 – 2018”
What’s it about?
This paper is an effort to summarize the similarities of life history among all mammals. Life history includes things like age of maturity, the time between litters, and the overall size of the animals.Continue reading “Life History of Carnivores: Comparing Across Size and Ecology – #365papers – 2018 – 19”
What’s it about?
This paper explores the order in which teeth come in for two major mammal groups: the insectivores and the carnivores. In early terrestrial vertebrates, teeth come in from front to back, or from the snout to the back of the jaw. In some mammals this is still the case, but not all.Continue reading “When Does a Puppy’s Teeth Come In? – #365papers – 2018 – 18”
What’s it about?
Using CT scanning techniques, the authors were able to pull apart all the bones of a sauropodomorph dinosaur called Massospondylus. The sauropodomorphs are a group of dinosaurs that include all the sauropods (the ‘long necks’ if you’re a fan of The Land Before Time), and their more primitive ancestors.
By examining all the bones of the skull one at a time, the authors were able to better understand the actual relationships between Massospondylus and other primitive sauropodomorphs. Continue reading “Better Specimens, Better Techniques, Better Understanding of the Sauropodomorpha – #365papers – 2018 – 17”
“Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it.” — Kruger and Dunning, 1999
What’s it about?
This paper is the basis of what is now called the Dunning-Kruger Effect. This is the phenomenon where people tend to grossly overestimate their abilities, especially when they are objectively incompetent at a particular task. Conversely, people of high competence tend to underestimate their ability.Continue reading “When You Don’t Know That You Don’t Know – #365papers – 2018 – 16”
What’s it about?
Here, the authors compare values of carbon and oxygen isotopes from multiple species (herbivores and carnivores) from a single site to understand how these isotopes reflect environmental variables like annual precipitation and temperature, and how all the animals interacted with each other and the environment. Understandings gathered from the isotopic results were compared to what is known from modern, living animals and to the results from climate models.Continue reading “Isotopes and Interpretations: Are We Getting it Right? – #365papers – 2018 – 15”
What’s it about?
A fossilized bird (as yet unidentified except to know it’s an enantiornithine bird) was found to have well-preserved structures in its eye, especially a fossilized retina. Using various methods (including scanning electron microscopy and specialized light microscope techniques) the authors were able to not only identify rods and cones in the retina, but were also able to determine that this bird was able to see in color.Continue reading “Color Vision in Cretaceous Birds – #365papers – 2018 – 14”
What’s it about?
Modern birds are known for having a system of air sacs throughout their bones, allowing birds to circulate air through their bodies in one direction (rather than air simply going in and out of the lungs as breathing works in mammals). This unidirectional flow of air allows birds to maximize the amount of oxygen extracted from the air they breathe.
In birds, the air sacs are openings in bones that are all connected to the lungs. There are air sacs in vertebrae and wing bones among other places. Many other animals have hollow places in bones that are not associated with air sacs. These openings served to lighten the weight of the bones.
The authors show that there are structures in the bone surrounding the open spaces that distinguish air sacs from other openings.Continue reading “When the Structure of Bones Tell You How Animals Breathed – #365papers – 2018 – 13”
What’s it about?
This paper is about the use of syncrotron radiation to make images of the inside of the fossilized skull of a marine reptile. Using contrasts in density, the authors were able to distinguish between bones of the skull and originally empty places where the brain, nerves, and blood vessels would have gone. Continue reading “Inside the Heads of Extinct Marine Reptiles – #365papers – 2018 – 12”
What’s it about?
The phrase ‘carnivore guild’ refers to the ecological roles of carnivores (animals that feed on other vertebrates) in a particular region. In most modern areas where many carnivorous mammals co-exist, some are hypercarnivores (like cats), some are mesocarnivores (like dogs), and some are hypocarnivores (like armadillos). These last two groups (meso- and hypocarnivores) would be more loosely categorized as omnivores, with hypocarnivores only very rarely consuming other vertebrates, despite having the capability of doing so more often.
In this paper, the authors compare modern mammalian carnivore guilds with the extinct marsupial carnivore guild of ancient South America, to see if the general proportions of hyper-, meso-, and hypocarnivores are about the same. They find that the South American carnivore guild is substantially different from modern guilds.Continue reading “Carnivore Guilds: Are They the Same Everywhere? – #365papers – 2018 – 11”
Penny Higgins - Storyteller • Artist • Scientist