Riker Hill

"We always warn our dates that we might not show up. They have to play second string to a dinosaur." - Paul Olsen, from a 1970 Life article

There is plenty to admire in the story of how Paul Olsen rescued the Riker Hill Fossil Site. Located in northern New Jersey, the abandoned quarry drew the teenagers' attention in 1968 when some dinosaur trackways were discovered. Their curiosity ignited, Olsen and his friend Tony Lessa made it their mission to study the quarry's contents.

Soon enough, it became apparent that the site's natural treasures needed protection. Folks were removing fossils, and like so many big holes in the ground, the quarry was being used as a dumping ground. Olsen began a long campaign to rescue the site, pleading the case to authorities local and national, including writing to President Nixon. Eventually, the effort paid off and half of the quarry was donated to the local park authority by the company who owned it, Walter Kidde & Company. A year later, in 1971, the site was granted National Natural Landmark status, mostly an honorary designation - had Kidde not been convinced to donate the land, the site still wouldn't have been protected from development.

Today, Olsen is a paleontologist and professor at Columbia University and an authority on fossil trackways. This is a great case study for how dinosaurs can ignite an interest in science, as UK science minister David Willetts is banking on. I wish someone would have put this article in my hands when I was thirteen and slapped me upside the head. Maybe I would have wasted a lot less time as a teenager. And I would have received a crash course in bureaucracy, as well. Coming through the government agency pinball machine with his sanity intact may be Olsen's greatest accomplishment. I'm especially amazed that he didn't just smile for the camera when Nixon gave him a special commendation for his efforts, but kept asking for protected status.

I haven't been able to find out what Lessa went on to do, but I hope it's awesome and I hope he's doing it while tooling around in this car.


Photo from Life Magazine

More: National Archives, Life Magazine

Vintage Dinosaur Art: Tricia Zimic

Before I get to this week's bit of paleoartistic tomfoolery, I have a bit of a preamble. It's been kind of a weird week, to be honest. The PepsiCo/ ScienceBlogs thing took me by surprise, and caused me to really think about what I value in the science blogosphere. And the outpouring of support for the writers was tremendously heartening. Even more heartening was to see science writers banding together and standing up for their colleagues, no matter who their respective employers were. I can't help but think that it's a stronger community for it.

It made me seriously consider what I contribute, and how I can contribute more. Well, maybe not more, per se. I do still have a day job to answer to. Maybe what I really want to do is improve the value of my contributions. Improving my writing here is an ongoing process and hasn't changed. One thing I can change is my approach to Twitter: it was, after all, an important venue where writers discussed the PepsiCo shenanigans. I like Twitter, but until this week, I didn't recognize its value. So I've stepped up my game. I'm thinking of it as an extension of LITC, which will help me share things I find interesting but just don't have time to write about here. If you're a tweeter, my handle is @anatotitan.

What better way to decompress than with some dinosaur jokes? That's the mission of The Dinosaur Princess, published in 1989. Tricia Zimic's amazing cover art classed this title up quite a bit. The jokes are pretty corny. Big surprise, huh? I expected subtle, XKCD level science humor. The interior drawings are pretty cartoony and not terribly interesting, but the cover made this book impossible to put back on the Goodwill shelf.



The little monkeys are stickers placed by the previous owner. I usually leave such reminders of a book's history where they are. Removing them will probably rip the cover, and I'm sure that the little scamp had a solid reason for sticking them where they are.

A Not So Venomous Villain?

Several months ago, a team of paleontologists led by Enpu Gong published a study of the small theropod Sinornithosaurus in which they put forth the idea that it may have been venomous. It was a bold conjecture begging to be examined by other paleontologists. The trio of Federico A. Gianechini, Federico L. Agnolín and Martín D. Ezcurra have done just that.


Sinornithosaurus by funkmonk, via Wikimedia Commons

Their conclusion, published in the German journal Paläontologische Zeitschrift, is that there is scant evidence that Sinornithosaurus was venomous, and the original evidence presented was mistaken. What Gong et al. believed to be an elongated teeth, they say, was a result of the tooth being pulled out of its socket postmortem. They say that the grooves along the jaw that were posited as being a venom delivery system are common in theropods, and that there is no evidence that the skull housed a venom gland. They don't believe that the skull of Sinornithosaurus is particularly out of line with its dromaeosaur kin at all.

These findings echo the initial opinion of University of Maryland paleontologist Thomas Holtz, Jr. after the Gong paper came out.

In the same issue of Paläontologische Zeitschrift, Gong and his coauthors write a strongly worded defense of their research, refuting Gianechini et al. point by point. It's unfortunately not available in abstract. On the first page jpg provided by SpringerLink database they write that they wonder "if the authors have ever examined the actual material."

I have a feeling that Sinornithosaurus is going to be a bit of a paleontological hot potato. That is, if enough paleontologists find this field of inquiry compelling. We'll probably never know for sure. Unless, of course, one is captured on a mist-enshrouded, uncharted island somewhere in the Pacific and bites some poor so and so.

The Pepsico Controversy

Many of the science blogs I follow are hosted by ScienceBlogs - stalwart, dependable blogs like Laelaps, Tetrapod Zoology, and Pharyngula. It's a great place to keep abreast of science news and get the perspectives of a number of science writers, working scientists, and academics. Many of the blogs at SB are clearly labors of love, yet also reflect a high degree of professionalism. They set a standard I hold myself to here at LITC, with admittedly varied success.

It's pretty disappointing that Seed Media Group, who runs ScienceBlogs, has seen fit to give Pepsico space to write about "the science behind the food industry’s role in addressing global public health challenges." The same description admits that the blog is "an extension of PepsiCo’s own Food Frontiers blog." I'm not going to post a link to it. You can find it if you want to. It comes with the typical disclaimers about conflicts of interest, which are hollow.

I don't think I'm speaking too rashly when I say that it's outrageous. A company that pumps out millions of calories of junk food a year - that's a conservative estimate - has no business sharing space with honest-to-gosh science blogs. Science, after all, is the pursuit of the bare truth. And those truths don't always square with corporate interests. They certainly don't square with those of a junk food corporation.

So I support Scicurious for taking a hiatus, or David Dobbs and Brian Switek from Laelaps for jumping ship altogether. And I support all of those who haven't made such moves, and are surely trying to change Seed's mind.

It's hardly a shocking move on Pepsico's part. They'll adapt as needed to sustain themselves, and advertising means more than billboards and TV spots these days. They clearly saw this as a way to put their name in front of more eyeballs and, perhaps, garner an air of scientific legitimacy from the average reader who stumbles upon the blog by googling "artificial sweetener." Pepsico is just jumping on an opportunity. You can't try a cheetah for murdering an antelope.

But that antelope would rightfully be called foolish for walking up to the cheetah and laying down. The desperation for money in a shrinking economy that drove Pepsico's decision is surely what led Seed to theirs. It probably was not arrived at with any great enthusiasm. Hopefully they see now that it's no solution at all.

UPDATED 2:42 PM: Switek is gone and will announce Laelaps' new home soon, likely via Twitter.

UPDATED 7/8/10 1:30PM: As David Tana wrote today and PZ Myers announced at Pharyngula, Pepsico has slunk off to go back to blogging on its own server space. Saith PZ, "I agree that scientists in industry must be part of the discussion. However, putting that discussion in the framework of an industry-sponsored infomercial compromises it — there are just too many constraints on what could be said."

It's true: scientists aren't automatically tarnished because they work in industry. After all, shareholders aren't going to stand for rotten or distorted results any more than the public is. The issue here is that it's an improper forum, and let's be honest: those shareholders' concern isn't honest writing on ScienceBlogs. Is there going to be a single scientific paper that utterly obliterates Pepsico? Probably not. But corporations have a pretty awful track record with science.

It's not a new battle, it's not ending soon, and this probably won't change the game. But it's heartening to know that concerned writers were able to change the mind of their management, and that now Seed is going to have to be more open about its methods of bringing in money. PZ seems pretty optimistic about it, and I think rightly so. He writes that he doesn't believe "that PepsiCo in this case was interested in a genuine dialog..." It would be great if this controversy did result in a greater awareness among SB readership about the rough waters all forms of media are facing, and they can be part of a genuine dialog about better ways forward. It's just a shame that it's cost SB a fair number of good writers.

I Love Wild Turkeys

Photo by Lucycat, via Flickr.

I really do love wild turkeys. They're one of my favorite birds. Whenever I have the good fortune to run across a group of them in a field, I can't help but see a bit of the Mesozoic in their behavior. For the briefest of moments, I forget myself and I don't just see one distinct species in its particular time and place. I see nature's continuity, which scoffs at our attempts to name and classify the organisms with whom we share the world. It's life, doing what it does, across the eons.

But I probably don't love wild turkeys as much as Paul Vasquez.



I like rainbows, too. Again, not as much as he does.

Chip Kidd

I can't help but dig it when two of my big obsessions are smashed together. I design book covers all day, and today I learned that a guy who is a legend in the profession, Chip Kidd, designed this:



Yep, the iconic Jurassic Park cover, which then became the basis for the movie's JP logo. "The trick there was figuring out how to show a dinosaur without actually showing one, and the answer was to do a sort of X-ray silhouette of a dino-skeleton. The producers of the movie obviously agreed, because they bought it and ran with it." Don't know how that little factoid eluded me this long.

Dinosaur Pimpin' Ain't Easy

Image from Big Red Bat Cave

Jessica, the same coworker who delivered the poster I posted about last week, tipped me off to this nifty little bugger. I think it's a miniature of a dinosaur pimp*. It's apparently connected to an RPG which takes place in the fantastical realm of Glorantha, which has been used for a variety of games. Its name is Hugg'e Brrr, and he's a "Trachodon mage from Dragon Pass." He's a modified version of the Nanotyrannus miniature (Item #K-11) made by Copperstone Castings, a company who wisely manufactures such things. They have a few other dinosaur miniatures at the above link. I especially like the Oviraptor greedily clutching a huge egg to his chest.

I cannot stress how heartily I endorse this.

A few other bits and bobs:

• Matt Martyniuk's adorable furry Leaellynasaura demands your attention.
• At Chinleana, Bill Parker has shared some photos of his Independence Day weekend amidst the gorgeousness of the Chinle Formation
• The most recent episode of BBC's Material World takes a field trip to the Royal Society's 35oth anniversary "See Further" exhibition. Thumbs up for mentioning the model pterosaurs, thumbs down for totally neglecting to interview any of the Portsmouth University crew responsible. Come on, Quentin.

*There's a band called Dinosaur Pimp, incidentally. But I don't recommend going to their website, unless sites that play gunshot wavs when they load, thus waking up your peacefully slumbering significant other, are your thing. Freakin' jabronis.

Vintage Dinosaur Art: E. Boyd Smith

Elmer Boyd Smith was a children's book author and illustrator who covered a lot of ground - from fanciful nursery rhymes to Bible stories to history to nature. He got his start in publishing around the turn of the last century, after spending time in Europe studying art.

Among these was the title So Long Ago, which was published in 1944, a year after Boyd's death. The illustrations are remarkable, vibrant compositions of worlds teeming with prehistoric life. Unlike other illustrators, Boyd wasn't content to ape the work of Knight; he went wild, imagining almost comical scenarios, like the first one below, in which an unruly pack of theropods tries to assail a sauropod.

You'll also notice two human characters nearly lost in the shuffle, which I assume to be the narrators of the story, Dr. Peter and Bobby Reed. I was bummed out to find that Google Books doesn't have a single of Boyd's books available to preview. Just means I'll have to hunt them down, one by one.

This prehistoric sea-life illustration drives me nuts. I could stare at it for hours.



These deserve to be framed. Heaping spoonfuls of gratitude go to Norman Felchle for contributing these illustrations and many more to the Vintage Dinosaur Art pool. I'll be featuring more of his contributions on future posts.

More E. Boyd Smith: Von Shollywood featured this title last year, and has a scan of the dust jacket. Artnet features a few pieces from his European days. Thanks to a comment on a recent Tet Zoo post, I was able to find these pictures. Or just buy this print for my buddy Zack, who is a huge fan of the Prose Edda.

Mesozoic Megadeth

It's taken thirteen years, but paleontologists have now published a full description of the sprawling system of bonebeds discovered in 1997 near Hilda, Alberta. This new paper, published in New Perspectives on Horned Dinosaurs, puts forth the idea that sudden flooding brought on by a massive storm is the likely culprit, rather than the evergreen "river crossing" scenario. In the late Cretaceous, the area was a coastal floodplain, where lead author David Eberth of the Royal Tyrrell Museum says that Centrosaurus likely gathered in huge herds. When a storm hit, the flooding occurred too quickly over too large an area for them to escape.

Once the flood waters receded, the land would be littered with carcasses. After the scavengers had their way, the bones would be left to be covered by subsequent floods, fossilize, and eventually be exposed and discovered.

Drowning Centrosaurs by Michael Skrepnick, from the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Natural History

Scenes like this have always captured my imagination. It would have been an awesome sight to be sit on a low ridge and look out over hundreds of acres of Centrosaurus, the two species apertus and brinkmani differentiated by horn shape and perhaps coloration. But the imagination gets a little shaky when asked to picture those same dinosaurs desperately trying to find safety amid the chaos of a storm. Or to picture the reeking smorgasbord presented to local Albertasaurus, Gorgosaurus, and Troodon. Maybe some Hesperonychus would be hanging back, darting in for their share. Or maybe they wouldn't need to: there would be enough ceratopsian flesh to go around, and then some.

If I only had the money to commission that scene...

Don Lessem's Ultimate Dino-Pedia

I lucked out today when one of my coworkers showed up at my cubicle with a gift. She'd been at the American Library Association meeting over the weekend and at the National Geographic Booth, picked up a promotional poster for the National Geographic Kids Ultimate Dinopedia. Written by dino-lit stalwart Don Lessem, it will be released on October 12, 2010.



The book features the work of Franco Tempesta, whose bold, colorful illustrations will appeal to kids. You can definitely see an affinity to Luis Rey, especially in the Pteranodons in this gallery.

Now I have to decide which side of the poster to display. The front features the book cover, but I think I'm leaning toward the flip side, which is a big chart of size comparisons of different dinosaurs to the average human. I imagine I share this minor dilemma with a bunch of little kids who just had a parent return from a business trip.