Mesozoic Miscellany #10

Newsworthiness
A new Boneyard came out this week at The History of Geology. If you haven't checked it out yet, head over there. David Bressan did a great job putting it together. Zach at When Pigs Fly Returns is up next, on January 4. Send in your submissions!

The Science-Arts Friendfeed, managed by Glendon Mellow, hit 100 sites this week, and if you're not following it yet, you really ought to. It's easy to check out on Friendfeed, or just add the feed to the reader of your choice, the way I done did it.

Trish Arnold wrote about a couple of John McLauglin books this week, The Synapsida and The Tree of Animal Life at her Obligatory Art Blog. If you like my Vintage Dinosaur Art posts, you will definitely get a lot of joy out of Trish's posts.

Speaking of synapsids, a very complete Dimetrodon was discovered in Texas, and Brian Switek wrote about it at Dinosaur Tracking.

Project Dryptosaurus has been featuring interviews with paleoartists of various disciplines, including this one with sculptor Tyler Keillor.

Saurian waxed rhapsodical about the splendid complexity of Tyrannosaurs.

Head over to Palaeoblog and say hello to the new ceratopsian from Korea, Koreaceratops. The presence of really tall neural spines on the tale leads the authors to propose an aquatic lifestyle for the little guy.

Tamara Fletcher discussed early Cretaceous pterosaurs in Australia as well as her experiences as a young researcher in a guest post at Dave Hone's Archosaur Musings.

Not dinosaurs, not even paleontology, but the current controversy happening within the American Anthropological Association deserves a little of your attention. It all stems from the AAA's excising of the word "science" from their long range plan, which has made researchers in anthropology's scientific disciplines feel excluded by cultural anthropologists. Daniel Lende's post at Neuroanthropology is a good home base to learn about the issue, as he's pulled together a whole lot of posts and provides a good summary of what anthropologists are writing.

Twit Picks
Stuff I've tweeted in the last week or so:

• Andy Farke examines the nomenclatural problems of the Shiny Digital Future
• David Maas speedpaints a plateosaurus bust
• The giant storks of Flores
• Chinleana: Surprise! Scientists now say that Crocodiles are not "Living Fossils".
• Forgotten Dinosaurs of the “Lost Continent” Part 1 from A Central Coast Paleontologist
• Let's Listen to "Dinosaur Rock"!

Tumblin'
Cloud415 shared this illustration by SkinnyAndy, called "Xylosaurus." It's pretty darling.


Paleoart of the Week
This was so easy. I had to go with Brian Engh's exploration of sauropod display structures.


Illustration copyright Brian Engh, used with his permission.

Included with the final piece, which features two Sauroposiedon displaying to each other with inflatable sacs on their necks, is a correspondence with paleontologist Matt Wedel of SV-POW!, who encourages him to think boldly. Head over to Brian's blog to read more; Wedel also posted about it. Engh's work was also prominently featured in Tor Burton's new overview of the spinosaurs, published by PalArch this week.

Outrageously Off-Topic Indulgence
I suppose this isn't so terribly off-topic, as it has a science theme to it. I'm a DEVO fan from way back, and this year they released a brilliant record called Something for Everybody (okay, except for "Cameo." How "Knock Boots" didn't make the cut but "Cameo" did, I'll never know). The song "No Place Like Home" is a scientific/ humanistic anthem if ever there was one. Here's a fan video of the song.