1.
Genus
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A genus is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms in biology. In the hierarchy of classification, genus comes above species. In binomial nomenclature, the name forms the first part of the binomial species name for each species within the genus. Felis catus and Felis silvestris are two species within the genus Felis, Felis is a genus within the family Felidae. The composition of a genus is determined by a taxonomist, the standards for genus classification are not strictly codified, so different authorities often produce different classifications for genera. Moreover, genera should be composed of units of the same kind as other genera. The term comes from the Latin genus, a noun form cognate with gignere, linnaeus popularized its use in his 1753 Species Plantarum, but the French botanist Joseph Pitton de Tournefort is considered the founder of the modern concept of genera. The scientific name of a genus may be called the name or generic epithet. It plays a role in binomial nomenclature, the system of naming organisms. The rules for the names of organisms are laid down in the Nomenclature Codes. The standard way of scientifically describing species and other lower-ranked taxa is by binomial nomenclature, the generic name forms its first half. For example, the gray wolfs binomial name is Canis lupus, with Canis being the name shared by the wolfs close relatives. The specific name is written in lower-case and may be followed by names in zoology or a variety of infraspecific names in botany. Especially with these names, when the generic name is known from context. Because animals are typically only grouped within subspecies, it is written as a trinomen with a third name. Dog breeds, meanwhile, are not scientifically distinguished, there are several divisions of plant species and therefore their infraspecific names generally include contractions explaining the relation. For example, the genus Hibiscus includes hundreds of other species apart from the Rose of Sharon or common garden hibiscus, Rose of Sharon doesnt have subspecies but has cultivars that carry desired traits, such as the bright white H. syriaca Diana. Hawaiian hibiscus, meanwhile, includes several separate species, since not all botanists agree on the divisions or names between species, it is common to specify the source of the name using author abbreviations
2.
Fossil
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Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals, plants, and other organisms from the remote past. The totality of fossils, both discovered and undiscovered, and their placement in fossiliferous rock formations and sedimentary layers is known as the fossil record. The study of fossils across geological time, how they were formed, such a preserved specimen is called a fossil if it is older than some minimum age, most often the arbitrary date of 10,000 years. The observation that fossils were associated with certain rock strata led early geologists to recognize a geological timescale in the 19th century. The development of dating techniques in the early 20th century allowed geologists to determine the numerical or absolute age of the various strata. Like extant organisms, fossils vary in size from microscopic, even single bacterial cells one micrometer in diameter, to gigantic, such as dinosaurs, Fossils may also consist of the marks left behind by the organism while it was alive, such as animal tracks or feces. These types of fossil are called trace fossils, as opposed to body fossils, finally, past life leaves some markers that cannot be seen but can be detected in the form of biochemical signals, these are known as chemofossils or biosignatures. The process of fossilization varies according to type and external conditions. Permineralization is a process of fossilization that occurs when an organism is buried, the empty spaces within an organism become filled with mineral-rich groundwater. Minerals precipitate from the groundwater, occupying the empty spaces and this process can occur in very small spaces, such as within the cell wall of a plant cell. Small scale permineralization can produce very detailed fossils, for permineralization to occur, the organism must become covered by sediment soon after death or soon after the initial decay process. The degree to which the remains are decayed when covered determines the later details of the fossil, some fossils consist only of skeletal remains or teeth, other fossils contain traces of skin, feathers or even soft tissues. This is a form of diagenesis, in some cases the original remains of the organism completely dissolve or are otherwise destroyed. The remaining organism-shaped hole in the rock is called an external mold, if this hole is later filled with other minerals, it is a cast. An endocast or internal mold is formed when sediments or minerals fill the cavity of an organism. This is a form of cast and mold formation. If the chemistry is right, the organism can act as a nucleus for the precipitation of minerals such as siderite, if this happens rapidly before significant decay to the organic tissue, very fine three-dimensional morphological detail can be preserved. Nodules from the Carboniferous Mazon Creek fossil beds of Illinois, USA, are among the best documented examples of such mineralization, replacement occurs when the shell, bone or other tissue is replaced with another mineral
3.
China
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China, officially the Peoples Republic of China, is a unitary sovereign state in East Asia and the worlds most populous country, with a population of over 1.381 billion. The state is governed by the Communist Party of China and its capital is Beijing, the countrys major urban areas include Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Hong Kong. China is a power and a major regional power within Asia. Chinas landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from forest steppes, the Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from much of South and Central Asia. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third and sixth longest in the world, respectively, Chinas coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometers long and is bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East China and South China seas. China emerged as one of the worlds earliest civilizations in the basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. For millennia, Chinas political system was based on hereditary monarchies known as dynasties, in 1912, the Republic of China replaced the last dynasty and ruled the Chinese mainland until 1949, when it was defeated by the communist Peoples Liberation Army in the Chinese Civil War. The Communist Party established the Peoples Republic of China in Beijing on 1 October 1949, both the ROC and PRC continue to claim to be the legitimate government of all China, though the latter has more recognition in the world and controls more territory. China had the largest economy in the world for much of the last two years, during which it has seen cycles of prosperity and decline. Since the introduction of reforms in 1978, China has become one of the worlds fastest-growing major economies. As of 2016, it is the worlds second-largest economy by nominal GDP, China is also the worlds largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods. China is a nuclear weapons state and has the worlds largest standing army. The PRC is a member of the United Nations, as it replaced the ROC as a permanent member of the U. N. Security Council in 1971. China is also a member of numerous formal and informal multilateral organizations, including the WTO, APEC, BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the BCIM, the English name China is first attested in Richard Edens 1555 translation of the 1516 journal of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa. The demonym, that is, the name for the people, Portuguese China is thought to derive from Persian Chīn, and perhaps ultimately from Sanskrit Cīna. Cīna was first used in early Hindu scripture, including the Mahābhārata, there are, however, other suggestions for the derivation of China. The official name of the state is the Peoples Republic of China. The shorter form is China Zhōngguó, from zhōng and guó and it was then applied to the area around Luoyi during the Eastern Zhou and then to Chinas Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state under the Qing
4.
National Geographic
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National Geographic is the official magazine of the National Geographic Society. It has been published continuously since its first issue in 1888 and it primarily contains articles about science, geography, history, and world culture. The magazine is known for its thick square-bound glossy format with a rectangular border. The magazine is published monthly, and additional map supplements are also included with subscriptions and it is available in a traditional printed edition and through an interactive online edition. On occasion, special editions of the magazine are issued and this includes a US circulation of 3.5 million. From the 1970s through about 2010 the magazine was printed in Corinth, Mississippi, the current Editor-in-Chief of the National Geographic Magazine is Susan Goldberg. Goldberg is also Editorial Director for National Geographic Partners, overseeing the print and she is responsible for News, Books, National Geographic Traveler magazine, National Geographic History magazine, Maps, and all digital content with the exception of National Geographic Kids. Goldberg reports to Declan Moore, CEO of National Geographic Partners, the first issue of National Geographic Magazine was published on September 22,1888, nine months after the Society was founded. The June 1985 cover portrait of the presumed to be 12-year-old Afghan girl Sharbat Gula, shot by photographer Steve McCurry, in the late 1990s, the magazine began publishing The Complete National Geographic, a digital compilation of all the past issues of the magazine. It was then sued over copyright of the magazine as a work in Greenberg v. National Geographic and other cases. The magazine eventually prevailed in the dispute, and in July 2009 it resumed publishing a compilation containing all issues through December 2008. The compilation was updated to make more recent issues available. National Geographic Kids, the version of the magazine, was launched in 1975 under the name National Geographic World. The January 2017 issue of National Geographic has a nine-year-old transgender girl on the cover, the magazine printed articles on Berlin, de-occupied Austria, the Soviet Union, and Communist China that deliberately downplayed politics to focus on culture. In its coverage of the Space Race, National Geographic focused on the scientific achievement while largely avoiding reference to the connection to nuclear arms buildup. There were also articles in the 1930s, 40s and 50s about the individual states and their resources. Many of these articles were written by longtime staff such as Frederick Simpich, there were also articles about biology and science topics. In later years articles became outspoken on issues such as issues, deforestation, chemical pollution, global warming
5.
Transitional fossil
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A transitional fossil is any fossilized remains of a life form that exhibits traits common to both an ancestral group and its derived descendant group. This is especially important where the descendant group is sharply differentiated by gross anatomy and these fossils serve as a reminder that taxonomic divisions are human constructs that have been imposed in hindsight on a continuum of variation. Because of the incompleteness of the record, there is usually no way to know exactly how close a transitional fossil is to the point of divergence. Therefore, it cannot be assumed that transitional fossils are direct ancestors of more recent groups, in 1859, when Charles Darwins On the Origin of Species was first published, the fossil record was poorly known. Indeed, Archaeopteryx was discovered just two later, in 1861, and represents a classic transitional form between dinosaurs and birds. Many more transitional fossils have been discovered since then, and there is now abundant evidence of how all classes of vertebrates are related, specific examples include humans and other primates, tetrapods and fish, and birds and dinosaurs. The term missing link has been used extensively in popular writings on evolution to refer to a perceived gap in the hominid evolutionary record. It is most commonly used to refer to any new transitional fossil finds, scientists, however, do not use the term, as it refers to a pre-evolutionary view of nature. Transitional forms are seen as falling between the groups in terms of anatomy, having a mixture of characteristics from inside and outside the newly branched clade. With the establishment of cladistics in the 1990s, relationships commonly came to be expressed in cladograms that illustrate the branching of the lineages in stick-like figures. The different so-called natural or monophyletic groups form nested units, while in traditional classification tetrapods and fish are seen as two different groups, phylogenetically tetrapods are considered a branch of fish. Thus, with there is no longer a transition between established groups, and the term transitional fossils is a misnomer. Differentiation occurs within groups, represented as branches in the cladogram, such early representatives of a group are usually termed basal taxa or sister taxa, depending on whether the fossil organism belongs to the daughter clade or not. A source of confusion is the notion that a transitional form between two different taxonomic groups must be an ancestor of one or both groups. The difficulty is exacerbated by the fact one of the goals of evolutionary taxonomy is to identify taxa that were ancestors of other taxa. However, it is almost impossible to be sure that any form represented in the record is a direct ancestor of any other. Archaeopteryx is a genus of theropod dinosaur closely related to the birds, similar in shape to a European magpie, with the largest individuals possibly attaining the size of a raven, Archaeopteryx could grow to about 0.5 metres in length. Despite its small size, broad wings, and inferred ability to fly or glide and these features make Archaeopteryx a clear candidate for a transitional fossil between dinosaurs and birds, making it important in the study both of dinosaurs and of the origin of birds
6.
Bird
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Birds, a subgroup of Reptiles, are the last living examples of Dinosaurs. Birds live worldwide and range in size from the 5 cm bee hummingbird to the 2.75 m ostrich. They rank as the class of tetrapods with the most living species, at ten thousand. Birds are the closest living relatives of crocodilians, the fossil record indicates that birds evolved from feathered ancestors within the theropod group of saurischian dinosaurs. True birds first appeared during the Cretaceous period, around 100 million years ago, Birds, especially those in the southern continents, survived this event and then migrated to other parts of the world while diversifying during periods of global cooling. Primitive bird-like dinosaurs that lie outside class Aves proper, in the broader group Avialae, have been found dating back to the mid-Jurassic period, around 170 million years ago. Birds have wings which are more or less developed depending on the species, the digestive and respiratory systems of birds are also uniquely adapted for flight. Some bird species of aquatic environments, particularly seabirds and some waterbirds, have evolved for swimming. Many species annually migrate great distances, Birds are social, communicating with visual signals, calls, and bird songs, and participating in such social behaviours as cooperative breeding and hunting, flocking, and mobbing of predators. The vast majority of species are socially monogamous, usually for one breeding season at a time, sometimes for years. Other species have breeding systems that are polygynous or, rarely, Birds produce offspring by laying eggs which are fertilised through sexual reproduction. They are usually laid in a nest and incubated by the parents, most birds have an extended period of parental care after hatching. Some birds, such as hens, lay eggs even when not fertilised, songbirds, parrots, and other species are popular as pets. Guano is harvested for use as a fertiliser, Birds prominently figure throughout human culture. About 120–130 species have become extinct due to human activity since the 17th century, human activity threatens about 1,200 bird species with extinction, though efforts are underway to protect them. Recreational birdwatching is an important part of the ecotourism industry, the first classification of birds was developed by Francis Willughby and John Ray in their 1676 volume Ornithologiae. Carl Linnaeus modified that work in 1758 to devise the taxonomic classification system currently in use, Birds are categorised as the biological class Aves in Linnaean taxonomy. Phylogenetic taxonomy places Aves in the dinosaur clade Theropoda, Aves and a sister group, the clade Crocodilia, contain the only living representatives of the reptile clade Archosauria
7.
Theropoda
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Theropoda or theropods are a group of saurischian dinosaurs. Theropods were ancestrally carnivorous, although a number of theropod groups evolved herbivory, omnivory, piscivory, in the Jurassic, birds evolved from small specialized coelurosaurian theropods, and are today represented by 10,000 living species. Theropods exhibit a range of diets, from insectivores to herbivores and carnivores. Strict carnivory has always considered the ancestral diet for theropods as a group. However, discoveries in the late 20th and early 21st centuries showed that a variety of diets existed even in more basal lineages, all early finds of theropod fossils showed them to be primarily carnivorous. For example, a Compsognathus longipes fossil was found with a lizard in its stomach, the first confirmed non-carnivorous fossil theropods found were the therizinosaurs, originally known as segnosaurs. First thought to be prosauropods, these enigmatic dinosaurs were later proven to be highly specialized, therizinosaurs possessed large abdomens for processing plant food, and small heads with beaks and leaf-shaped teeth. Further study of maniraptoran theropods and their relationships showed that therizinosaurs were not the early members of this group to abandon carnivory. Several other lineages of early maniraptors show adaptations for an omnivorous diet, oviraptorosaurs, ornithomimosaurs and advanced troodontids were likely omnivorous as well, and some early theropods appear to have specialized in catching fish. Diet is largely deduced by the morphology, tooth marks on bones of the prey. Some theropods, such as Baryonyx, Lourinhanosaurus, ornithomimosaurs, and birds, are known to use gastroliths, the majority of theropod teeth are blade-like, with serration on the edges, called ziphodont. Others are pachydont or phyllodont depending on the shape of the tooth or denticles, the morphology of the teeth is distinct enough to tell the major families apart, which indicate different diet strategies. The folds helped the teeth stay in place longer, especially as theropods evolved into larger sizes and had more force in their bite, Mesozoic theropods were also very diverse in terms of skin texture and covering. Feathers or feather-like structures are attested in most lineages of theropods, however, outside the coelurosaurs, feathers may have been confined to the young, smaller species, or limited parts of the animal. Many larger theropods had skin covered in small, bumpy scales, in some species, these were interspersed with larger scales with bony cores, or osteoderms. This type of skin is best known in the ceratosaur Carnotaurus, the coelurosaur lineages most distant from birds had feathers that were relatively short and composed of simple, possibly branching filaments. Simple filaments are also seen in therizinosaurs, which also possessed large, more fully feathered theropods, such as dromaeosaurs, usually retain scales only on the feet. Some species may have mixed feathers elsewhere on the body as well, scansoriopteryx preserved scales near the underside of the tail, and Juravenator may have been predominantly scaly with some simple filaments interspersed
8.
Dinosaur
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Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria that first appeared during the Triassic. Although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is the subject of active research and they became the dominant terrestrial vertebrates after the Triassic–Jurassic extinction event 201 million years ago. Their dominance continued through the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods and ended when the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event led to the extinction of most dinosaur groups 66 million years ago, until the late 20th century, all groups of dinosaurs were believed to be extinct. As such, birds were the dinosaur lineage to survive the mass extinction event. This article deals primarily with non-avian dinosaurs, Dinosaurs are a varied group of animals from taxonomic, morphological and ecological standpoints. Birds, at over 10,000 living species, are the most diverse group of vertebrates besides perciform fish, using fossil evidence, paleontologists have identified over 500 distinct genera and more than 1,000 different species of non-avian dinosaurs. Dinosaurs are represented on every continent by both extant species and fossil remains, while dinosaurs were ancestrally bipedal, many extinct groups included quadrupedal species, and some were able to shift between these stances. Elaborate display structures such as horns or crests are common to all dinosaur groups, evidence suggests that egg laying and nest building are additional traits shared by all dinosaurs.7 meters and heights of 18 meters and were the largest land animals of all time. Still, the idea that dinosaurs were uniformly gigantic is a misconception based in part on preservation bias, as large. Many dinosaurs were small, Xixianykus, for example, was only about 50 cm long. Through the first half of the 20th century, before birds were recognized to be dinosaurs, most of the community believed dinosaurs to have been sluggish. Most research conducted since the 1970s, however, has indicated that all dinosaurs were active animals with elevated metabolisms and numerous adaptations for social interaction. The large sizes of some groups, as well as their seemingly monstrous and fantastic nature, have ensured dinosaurs regular appearance in best-selling books and films. Persistent public enthusiasm for the animals has resulted in significant funding for dinosaur science, the term is derived from the Greek words δεινός and σαῦρος. Though the taxonomic name has often interpreted as a reference to dinosaurs teeth, claws. Instead, dinosaurs, like many forms of reptile sub-groups, did not exhibit characteristics which were traditionally regarded as reptilian. Under phylogenetic nomenclature, dinosaurs are usually defined as the group consisting of Triceratops, Neornithes, their most recent common ancestor, Birds are now recognized as being the sole surviving lineage of theropod dinosaurs. In traditional taxonomy, birds were considered a class that had evolved from dinosaurs
9.
Yanornis
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Yanornis is an extinct genus of fish-eating Early Cretaceous birds. Similarly, its scapula and coracoid had evolved the basic shape and layout as in modern birds and it was probably a more efficient flyer compared to enantiornithines, and especially compared to Confuciusornis and Archaeopteryx, which were only marginally able to perform upstrokes. To allow for the large flight muscles, the sternum of Yanornis was longer than it was wide. Several fossil specimens of Y. martini preserve the remains of fish in the stomach and crop and their fish-eating and associated adaptations show convergent evolution with the unrelated enantiornithine Longipteryx. One specimen preserved large amounts of supposed gastroliths in the gizzard region, large numbers of small gastroliths are usually associated with species that need to grind tough plant material, such as seeds, after swallowing them. This led some scientists to suggest that Yanornis was capable of switching, perhaps seasonally. However, later studies cast doubt on the diet-switching hypothesis, rather, the stones were spread throughout the body cavity in a front-to-back arrangement. This has been suggested to correspond closely with the intestines. In modern birds, sand is often swallowed accidentally during feeding, the cladogram below follows O’Connor et al.2013 phylogenetic analysis. The clade names are positioned based on their definitions, the genus name Yanornis is derived from the Ancient Chinese Yan dynasties, whose capital was at Chaoyang, and Ancient Greek ornis, bird. The species Y. martini was named for avian paleontologist Larry Martin, Yanornis gained notoriety when the front half of a fossil bird was combined with the tail of a Microraptor to make the paleontological forgery Archaeoraptor. Upon discovering this, the half was described as Archaeovolans repatriatus
10.
Dromaeosauridae
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Dromaeosauridae is a family of feathered theropod dinosaurs. They were small to medium-sized feathered carnivores that flourished in the Cretaceous Period, the name Dromaeosauridae means running lizards, from Greek dromeus meaning runner and sauros meaning lizard. They first appeared in the mid-Jurassic Period and survived until the end of the Cretaceous, existing for over 100 million years, until the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event. The presence of dromaeosaurids as early as the Middle Jurassic has been confirmed by the discovery of isolated fossil teeth, the distinctive dromaeosaurid body plan helped to rekindle theories that at least some dinosaurs may have been active, fast, and closely related to birds. Robert Bakkers illustration for John Ostroms 1969 monograph, showing the dromaeosaurid Deinonychus in a fast run, is among the most influential paleontological reconstructions in history. The dromaeosaurid body plan includes a large skull, serrated teeth, narrow snout. Dromaeosaurids, like most other theropods, had a moderately long S-curved neck, like other maniraptorans, they had long arms that could be folded against the body in some species, and relatively large hands with three long fingers ending in large claws. The dromaeosaurid hip structure featured a characteristically large pubic boot projecting beneath the base of the tail, dromaeosaurid feet bore a large, recurved claw on the second toe. Their tails were slender, with long, low, vertebrae lacking transverse process and it is now known that at least some, and probably all, dromaeosaurids were covered in feathers, including large, vaned, wing and tail feathers. Like other theropods, dromaeosaurids were bipedal, that is, they walked on their hind legs, the enlarged second toe bore an unusually large, curved, falciform claw, which is thought to have been used in capturing prey and climbing trees. This claw was especially blade-like in the large-bodied predatory eudromaeosaurs, one possible dromaeosaurid species, Balaur bondoc, also possessed a first toe which was highly modified in parallel with the second. Both the first and second toes on each foot of B. bondoc were held retracted. Most of the tail vertebrae bear bony, rod-like extensions, as well as bony tendons in some species. In his study of Deinonychus, Ostrom proposed that these features stiffened the tail so that it could only flex at the base, however, one well-preserved specimen of Velociraptor mongoliensis has an articulated tail skeleton that is curved horizontally in a long S-shape. This suggests that, in life, the tail could bend from side to side with a degree of flexibility. This may have used as an aerodynamic stabilizer and rudder during gliding or powered flight. Dromaeosaurids were small to medium-sized dinosaurs, ranging from about 0.7 metres in length to over 6 metres, large size appears to have evolved at least twice among dromaeosaurids, once among the dromaeosaurines Utahraptor and Achillobator, and again among the unenlagiines. A possible third lineage of giant dromaeosaurids is represented by isolated teeth found on the Isle of Wight, the teeth belong to an animal the size of the dromaeosaurine Utahraptor, but they appear to belong to velociraptorines, judging by the shape of the teeth
11.
Microraptor
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Microraptor was a genus of small, four-winged paravian dinosaurs. Numerous well-preserved fossil specimens have been recovered from Liaoning, China and they date from the early Cretaceous Jiufotang Formation,120 million years ago. Three species have been named, though further study has suggested that all of them represent variation in a single species, Cryptovolans, initially described as another four-winged dinosaur, is usually considered to be a synonym of Microraptor. Like Archaeopteryx, well-preserved fossils of Microraptor provide important evidence about the relationship between birds and dinosaurs. Microraptor had long pennaceous feathers that formed aerodynamic surfaces on the arms and tail and this led paleontologist Xu Xing in 2003 to describe the first specimen to preserve this feature as a four-winged dinosaur and to speculate that it may have glided using all four limbs for lift. Subsequent studies have suggested that Microraptor was capable of powered flight as well, with adult specimens ranging 42–83 centimetres long and with a weight estimated up to 1 kilogram, Microraptor was among the smallest known non-avian dinosaurs. Holtz estimated it longer at 90 centimetres, an even longer estimate, made by Benson et al. in 2012 found that Microraptor had a maximum length of 1.2 metres. Aside from their small size, Microraptor were among the first non-avialan dinosaurs discovered with the impressions of feathers. Seven specimens of M. zhaoianus have been described in detail, unusual even among early birds and feathered dinosaurs, Microraptor is one of the few known bird precursors to sport long flight feathers on the legs as well as the wings. Their bodies had a covering of feathers, with a diamond-shaped fan on the end of the tail. Xu et al. compared the longer plumes on Microraptors head to those of the Philippine eagle, bands of dark and light present on some specimens may indicate color patterns present in life, though at least some individuals almost certainly possessed an iridescent black coloration. Microraptor is particularly similar to the basal troodontid Sinovenator, in their 2002 description of two M. zhaoianus specimens, Hwang et al. In March 2012, Quanguo Li et al. determined the plumage coloration of Microraptor based on the new specimen BMNHC PH881, by analyzing the fossilized melanosomes in the fossil with scanning electron microscope techniques, the researchers compared their arrangements to those of modern birds. In Microraptor, these cells were shaped in a consistent with black. These rod-shaped, narrow melanosomes were arranged in stacked layers, much like those of a modern starling, Microraptor had four wings, one on each of its forelimbs and hindlimbs, somewhat resembling one possible arrangement of the quartet of flight surfaces on a tandem wing aircraft of today. It had long pennaceous feathers on arms and hands, with legs, the long feathers on the legs of Microraptor were true flight feathers as seen in modern birds, with asymmetrical vanes on the arm, leg, and tail feathers. As in modern bird wings, Microraptor had both primary and secondary flight feathers and this standard wing pattern was mirrored on the hindlegs, with flight feathers anchored to the upper foot bones as well as the upper and lower leg. Some paleontologists have suggested that dinosaurs used their wings to parachute from trees, possibly to attack or ambush prey on the ground
12.
Feathered dinosaur
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A feathered dinosaur is any species of dinosaur possessing feathers. Among extinct dinosaurs, feathers or feather-like integument have been discovered on dozens of genera via both direct and indirect fossil evidence, the vast majority of feather discoveries have been for coelurosaurian theropods. However, integument has also discovered on at least three ornithischians, raising the likelihood that proto-feathers were also present in earlier dinosaurs. It is possible that feathers first developed in an earlier group. Crocodilians also possess beta keratin very similar to those of birds, shortly after the 1859 publication of Charles Darwins On the Origin of Species, British biologist Thomas Henry Huxley proposed that birds were descendants of dinosaurs. He compared the structure of Compsognathus, a small theropod dinosaur. He showed that, apart from its hands and feathers, Archaeopteryx was quite similar to Compsognathus, thus Archaeopteryx represents a transitional fossil. In 1868 he published On the Animals which are most nearly intermediate between Birds and Reptiles, making the case, the leading dinosaur expert of the time, Richard Owen, disagreed, claiming Archaeopteryx as the first bird outside dinosaur lineage. In 1969, John Ostrom described Deinonychus antirrhopus, a theropod that he had discovered in Montana in 1964, Ostrom became a leading proponent of the theory that birds are direct descendants of dinosaurs. Further comparisons of bird and dinosaur skeletons, as well as cladistic analysis strengthened the case for the link, skeletal similarities include the neck, the pubis, the wrists, the arms and pectoral girdle, the shoulder blade, the clavicle and the breast bone. In all, over a hundred distinct anatomical features are shared by birds, other researchers drew on these shared features and other aspects of dinosaur biology and began to suggest that at least some theropod dinosaurs were feathered. Gregory S. Paul was probably among the first paleoartists to depict non-avian maniraptoran dinosaurs with feathers and protofeathers, by the 1990s, most paleontologists considered birds to be surviving dinosaurs and referred to non-avian dinosaurs, to distinguish them from birds. Before the discovery of feathered dinosaurs, the evidence was limited to Huxley, some mainstream ornithologists, including Smithsonian Institution curator Storrs L. Olson, disputed the links, specifically citing the lack of fossil evidence for feathered dinosaurs. After a century of hypotheses without conclusive evidence, well-preserved fossils of feathered dinosaurs were discovered during the 1990s, the fossils were preserved in a Lagerstätte — a sedimentary deposit exhibiting remarkable richness and completeness in its fossils — in Liaoning, China. The area had repeatedly been smothered in volcanic ash produced by eruptions in Inner Mongolia 124 million years ago, the fine-grained ash preserved the living organisms that it buried in fine detail. The area was teeming with life, with millions of leaves, angiosperms, insects, fish, frogs, salamanders, mammals, turtles, turner et al. reported quill knobs from an ulna of Velociraptor mongoliensis, and these are strongly correlated with large and well-developed secondary feathers. Behavioural evidence, in the form of an oviraptorosaur on its nest and its forearms were folded, like those of a bird. Although no feathers were preserved, it is likely that these would have been present to insulate eggs, not all of the Chinese fossil discoveries proved valid however
13.
Liaoning
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Liaoning is a province of China, located in the northeast of the country. The modern province was established in 1907 as Fengtian or Fengtien province and it was also known as Mukden province at the time, for the Manchu pronunciation of Shengjing, the former name of the provincial capital Shenyang. Under the Japanese-puppet Manchukuo regime, the province reverted to its 1907 name but the name Liaoning was restored in 1945, Liaoning is the southernmost part of Manchuria, the Chinese Northeast. The Yalu River marks its border with North Korea, emptying into the Korea Bay between Dandong in Liaoning and Sinuiju in North Korea, the characters forming the provinces modern Chinese name are 辽 and 宁. They are the forms of the traditional characters 遼 and 寧. The first character literally means far, distant but is actually a reference to the Liao River which flows through the territory. The second literally means peace, calm but in such Chinese place names actually has the sense of pacified, made peaceful, here in reference to the turbulent situation of Manchuria in the late 1920s. In both English and Chinese, however, it is most common to gloss the name as the more literal Peace on the Liao, the provinces one-character abbreviation in Chinese is 辽. Liaoning is located in the part of Northeast China. In the past, it formed part of Korean kingdoms as Gojoseon, Goguryeo, and Balhae, as well as Chinese polities such as the Yan State and it was also inhabited by non-Han peoples such as Xiongnu, Donghu, Xianbei. In addition, the Khitan, Jurchen, Mongol Empire and Northern Yuan ruled Liaoning, the Ming Empire took control of Liaoning in 1371, just three years after the expulsion of the Mongols from Beijing. Around 1442, a wall was constructed to defend the agricultural heartland of the province from a potential threat from the Jurchen-Mongol Oriyanghan from the northwest. Between 1467 and 1468, the wall was expanded to protect the region from the northeast as well, although similar in purpose to the Great Wall of China, this Liaodong Wall was of a lower-cost design. While stones and tiles were used in parts, most of the wall was in fact simply an earth dike with moats on both sides. Despite the Liaodong Wall, the Manchus conquered Liaodong, or eastern Liaoning, in the early 17th century, decades before the rest of China fell to them. The Manchu dynasty, styled Later Jin, established its capital in 1616–1621 in Xingjing and it was moved to Dongjing, and finally in 1625 to Shengjing. Although the main Qing capital was moved from Shengjing to Beijing after it fell to the Qing in 1644, in the Governors words, Tieling and Fushun only have a few vagrants. West of the Liaohe, only Ningyuan, Jinzhou, and Guangning had any significant populations remaining, in the latter half of the seventeenth century, the imperial Qing government recruited migrants from south of the Great Wall to settle the relatively sparsely populated area of Fengtian Province
14.
National Museum of Natural History
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The National Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D. C. Opened in 1910, the museum on the National Mall was one of the first Smithsonian buildings constructed exclusively to hold the national collections and research facilities. The main building has an area of 1,500,000 square feet with 325,000 square feet of exhibition and public space. The museums collections contain over 126 million specimens of plants, animals, fossils, minerals, rocks, meteorites, human remains, the United States National Museum was founded in 1846 as part of the Smithsonian Institution. The museum was housed in the Smithsonian Institution Building, which is better known today as the Smithsonian Castle. A formal exhibit hall opened in 1858, the growing collection led to the construction of a new building, the National Museum Building. Covering a then-enormous 2.25 acres, it was built in just 15 months at a cost of $310,000, congress authorized construction of a new building on June 28,1902. The regents began considering sites for the new building in March, the D. C. architectural firm of Hornblower & Marshall was chosen to design the structure. Testing of the soil for the foundations was set for July 1903, the Natural History Building opened its doors to the public on March 17,1910, in order to provide the Smithsonian Institution with more space for collections and research. The building was not fully completed until June 1911, the structure cost $3.5 million dollars. The Neoclassical style building was the first structure constructed on the side of the National Mall as part of the 1901 McMillan Commission plan. In addition to the Smithsonians natural history collection, it housed the American history, art. Between 1981 and 2003, the National Museum of Natural History had 11 permanent, there were six directors alone between 1990 and 2002. Turnover was high as the directors were disenchanted by low levels of funding. Robert W. Fri was named the director in 1996. One of the largest donations in Smithsonian history was made during Fris tenure, kenneth E. Behring donated $20 million in 1997 to modernize the museum. Fri resigned in 2001 after disagreeing with Smithsonian leadership over the reorganization of the scientific research programs. J. Dennis OConnor, Provost of the Smithsonian Institution was named acting director of the museum on July 25,2001, eight months later, OConner resigned to become the vice president of research and dean of the graduate school at the University of Maryland
15.
Utah
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Utah is a state in the western United States. It became the 45th state admitted to the U. S. on January 4,1896, Utah is the 13th-largest by area, 31st-most-populous, and 10th-least-densely populated of the 50 United States. Utah has a population of more than 3 million, approximately 80% of whom live along the Wasatch Front, Utah is bordered by Colorado to the east, Wyoming to the northeast, Idaho to the north, Arizona to the south, and Nevada to the west. It also touches a corner of New Mexico in the southeast, approximately 62% of Utahns are reported to be members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or LDS, which greatly influences Utahn culture and daily life. The LDS Churchs world headquarters is located in Salt Lake City, Utah is the only state with a majority population belonging to a single church. The state is a center of transportation, education, information technology and research, government services, mining, in 2013, the U. S. Census Bureau estimated that Utah had the second fastest-growing population of any state. St. George was the metropolitan area in the United States from 2000 to 2005. Utah also has the 14th highest median income and the least income inequality of any U. S. state. A2012 Gallup national survey found Utah overall to be the best state to live in based on 13 forward-looking measurements including various economic, lifestyle, the name Utah is derived from the name of the Ute tribe. It means people of the mountains in the Ute language, according to other sources Utah is derived from the Apache name Yudah which means Tall. These Native American tribes are subgroups of the Ute-Aztec Native American ethnicity and were sedentary, the Ancestral Pueblo people built their homes through excavations in mountains, and the Fremont people built houses of straw before disappearing from the region around the 15th century. Another group of Native Americans, the Navajo, settled in the region around the 18th century, in the mid-18th century, other Uto-Aztecan tribes, including the Goshute, the Paiute, the Shoshone, and the Ute people, also settled in the region. These five groups were present when the first European explorers arrived, the southern Utah region was explored by the Spanish in 1540, led by Francisco Vásquez de Coronado, while looking for the legendary Cíbola. A group led by two Catholic priests—sometimes called the Dominguez-Escalante Expedition—left Santa Fe in 1776, hoping to find a route to the coast of California, the expedition traveled as far north as Utah Lake and encountered the native residents. The Spanish made further explorations in the region, but were not interested in colonizing the area because of its desert nature, in 1821, the year Mexico achieved its independence from Spain, the region became known as part of its territory of Alta California. European trappers and fur traders explored some areas of Utah in the early 19th century from Canada, the city of Provo, Utah was named for one, Étienne Provost, who visited the area in 1825. The city of Ogden, Utah was named after Peter Skene Ogden, in late 1824, Jim Bridger became the first known English-speaking person to sight the Great Salt Lake. Due to the salinity of its waters, Bridger thought he had found the Pacific Ocean
16.
Tucson, Arizona
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Tucson is a city and the county seat of Pima County, Arizona, United States, and home to the University of Arizona. The 2010 United States Census put the population at 520,116, the Tucson MSA forms part of the larger Tucson-Nogales combined statistical area, with a total population of 1,010,025 as of the 2010 Census. Tucson is the second-largest populated city in Arizona behind Phoenix, both of which anchor the Arizona Sun Corridor, the city is located 108 miles southeast of Phoenix and 60 mi north of the U. S. –Mexico border. Tucson is the 33rd largest city and the 53rd largest metropolitan area in the United States, Major incorporated suburbs of Tucson include Oro Valley and Marana northwest of the city, Sahuarita south of the city, and South Tucson in an enclave south of downtown. Communities in the vicinity of Tucson include Casas Adobes, Catalina Foothills, Flowing Wells, Midvale Park, Tanque Verde, Tortolita, towns outside the Tucson metro area include Benson to the southeast, Catalina and Oracle to the north, and Green Valley to the south. The Spanish name of the city, Tucsón, is derived from the Oodham Cuk Ṣon, meaning base of the black, Tucson is sometimes referred to as The Old Pueblo. Tucson was probably first visited by Paleo-Indians, known to have been in southern Arizona about 12,000 years ago, recent archaeological excavations near the Santa Cruz River have located a village site dating from 2100 BC. The floodplain of the Santa Cruz River was extensively farmed during the Early Agricultural Period and these people constructed irrigation canals and grew corn, beans, and other crops while gathering wild plants and hunting. The Early Ceramic period occupation of Tucson saw the first extensive use of vessels for cooking. The groups designated as the Hohokam lived in the area from AD600 to 1450 and are known for their vast irrigation canal systems and their red-on-brown pottery. Jesuit missionary Eusebio Francisco Kino visited the Santa Cruz River valley in 1692, a separate Convento settlement was founded downstream along the Santa Cruz River, near the base of what is now A mountain. Hugo OConor, the father of the city of Tucson, Arizona authorized the construction of a military fort in that location, Presidio San Agustín del Tucsón. During the Spanish period of the presidio, attacks such as the Second Battle of Tucson were repeatedly mounted by Apaches, eventually the town came to be called Tucson and became a part of Sonora after Mexico gained independence from Spain in 1821. Tucson was not included in the Mexican Cession and Cookes road through Tucson became one of the important routes into California during the California Gold Rush, Arizona, south of the Gila River, was obtained via treaty from Mexico in the Gadsden Purchase on June 8,1854. Tucson became a part of the United States of America, although the American military did not formally take control until March 1856. In 1857, Tucson became a station on the San Antonio-San Diego Mail Line. The Overland Mail Corporation attempted to continue running, however, following the Bascom Affair, devastating Apache attacks on the stations, from August 1861 to mid-1862, Tucson was the western capital of the Confederate Arizona Territory, the eastern capital being Mesilla. In 1862, the California Column drove the Confederate forces out of Arizona, Tucson and all of what is now Arizona were part of New Mexico Territory until 1863, when they became part of the new Arizona Territory
17.
Blanding, Utah
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Blanding is a city in San Juan County, Utah, United States. The population was 3,375 at the 2010 census, making it the most populated city in San Juan County and it was settled in the late 19th century by Mormon settlers, predominantly from the famed Hole-In-The-Rock expedition. Economic contributors include mineral processing, mining, agriculture, local commerce, tourism, Blanding is located near both the Navajo and White Mesa Ute Native American reservations, and a significant percentage of Blandings population has family ties to these nearby cultures. It is located approximately 1 hour south of the popular recreation hub of Moab, first known as Grayson, the town changed its name in 1914 when a wealthy easterner, Thomas W. Bicknell, offered a thousand-volume library to any town that would adopt his name. Grayson competed with Thurber, Utah for the prize, Grayson was renamed Blanding after the maiden name of Bicknells wife, and each of the towns received 500 books. Blanding is located at 37°37′24″N 109°28′44″W in the Four Corners area of the Colorado Plateau, according to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 2.4 square miles, all land. As of the census of 2010, there were 3,375 people,1,013 households, the population density was 1,332.7 people per square mile. There were 1,110 housing units at a density of 417.7 per square mile. The racial makeup of the city was 66. 1% White,0. 3% African American,29. 4% Native American,0. 09% Asian,0. 01% Pacific Islander. 5% from other races, and 3. 3% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 3. 8% of the population,20. 4% of all households were made up of individuals and 8. 8% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 3.19 and the family size was 3.71. In the city, the population was out with 39. 2% under the age of 19,9. 87% from 20 to 24, 22% from 25 to 44,18. 8% from 45 to 64. The median age was 26.6 years, for every 100 females there were 95.3 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 88.3 males, the median income for a household in the city was $43,946, and the median income for a family was $50,833. Males had an income of $42,667 versus $21,615 for females. About 14. 1% of families and 11. 1% of the population were below the poverty line, the community of Blanding and its surrounding area is rich in Anasazi artifacts, many examples of which are now on display at the Edge of the Cedars Museum. Largely these examples have come from the collections of local residents and were put together early in the history of the community, federal authorities still retain out-of-area custody of local artifacts seized in raids conducted in 2009
18.
Philip J. Currie
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He was one of the models for palaeontologist Alan Grant in the film Jurassic Park. Currie received his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Toronto in 1972, a Master of Science from McGill University in 1975, and his Masters thesis and Ph. D. thesis were on synapsids and early aquatic diapsids respectively. Currie became curator of earth sciences at the Provincial Museum of Alberta in Edmonton in 1976 just as he began the Ph. D. program, within three seasons he had so much success at fieldwork that the province began planning a larger museum to hold the collection. The collection became part of the Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology, which was completed in 1985, over the last 25 years he has worked on fossil discovery in Mongolia, Argentina, Dinosaur Provincial Park, Dry Island Buffalo Jump Provincial Park, and many other locations. His contributions to paleontology include synonymizing the genera Troodon and Stenonychosaurus in 1987, the similarities between the troödonts and birds made him a major proponent of the theory that birds are descended from dinosaurs. In contrast with the 1996 discovery of Sinosauropteryx, which showed the impression of downy filaments. This not only helped cement the theory that birds are descended from dinosaurs and this discovery made him a celebrity, featured in numerous popular articles and documentaries. He was involved in exposing a composite specimen that had been the subject of the 1999 National Geographic Archeoraptor scandal. Currie became increasingly skeptical of the belief that large carnivorous dinosaurs were solitary animals. However, circumstantial evidence came when he tracked down a site mentioned by Barnum Brown that featured 12 specimens of Albertosaurus from various age groups. In 2015, a museum entitled to Philip J. Currie, the museum, designed by Teeple Architects, celebrates one of the world’s richest dinosaur-bone beds, Pipestone Creek. Currie is a lifelong fan, and fan of the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs. He is married to the Danish palaeobotanist and palynologist Eva Koppelhus, halbouty Human Needs Award 1999, Elected to the Royal Society of Canada 2001, The festschrift Mesozoic Vertebrate Life, New Research Inspired by the Paleontology of Philip J. As one of the worlds foremost palaeontologists, Currie has been featured in films, programs in radio and television. Apart from this, he has also been accessorial to many books, Dinosaur Systematics, Approaches and Perspectives, the flying dinosaurs, the illustrated guide to the evolution of flight. Great Dinosaurs, From Triassic Through Jurassic to Cretaceous,101 Questions about Dinosaurs, ISBN 0-486-29172-3. Graveyards of the dinosaurs, what its like to discover prehistoric creatures, a Moment in Time with Troodon. A Moment in Time with Sinosauropteryx, a Moment in Time with Albertosaurus
19.
National Geographic Society
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The National Geographic Society, headquartered in Washington, D. C. United States, is one of the largest nonprofit scientific and educational institutions in the world and its interests include geography, archaeology and natural science, the promotion of environmental and historical conservation, and the study of world culture and history. In partnership with 21st Century Fox, the Society operates the magazine, TV channels, a website that features extra content and worldwide events, the National Geographic Society was founded in 1888 to increase and diffuse geographic knowledge. The Society believes in the power of science, exploration and storytelling to change the world, National Geographic is governed by a board of trustees, whose 21 members include distinguished educators, business executives, former government officials and conservationists. The organization sponsors and funds research and exploration. National Geographic maintains a museum for the public in its Washington and its Education Foundation gives grants to education organizations and individuals to improve geography education. Its Committee for Research and Exploration has awarded more than 11,000 grants for scientific research, National Geographic has retail stores in Washington, D. C. The locations outside of the United States are operated by Worldwide Retail Store S. L and it also publishes other magazines, books, school products, maps, and Web and film products in numerous languages and countries. National Geographics various media properties reach more than 280 million people monthly, the National Geographic Society began as a club for an elite group of academics and wealthy patrons interested in travel. After preparing a constitution and a plan of organization, the National Geographic Society was incorporated two weeks later on January 27, Gardiner Greene Hubbard became its first president and his son-in-law, Alexander Graham Bell, succeeded him in 1897. Bell and Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor devised the successful marketing notion of Society membership, the current National Geographic Society president and CEO is Gary E. Knell. The chairman of the board of trustees is John Fahey, the editor-in-chief of National Geographic magazine is Susan Goldberg. Gilbert Melville Grosvenor, a chairman of the Society board of trustees received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005 for his leadership in geography education. In 2004, the National Geographic Society headquarters in Washington, D. C. was one of the first buildings to receive a Green certification from Global Green USA. The National Geographic received the prestigious Prince of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities in October 2006 in Oviedo, in 2013 the society was investigated for possible violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act relating to their close association with an Egyptian government official responsible for antiquities. This new, for-profit corporation, will own National Geographic and other magazines, as reported by The Guardian, a spokesman for National Geographic in a November 2,2015 e-mail statement, briefly discussed the rationale for the staff reductions as part of the. Process of reorganizing in order to move forward following the closing the National Geographic Partners deal. Additional specifics were provided to Photo District News by M. J. Jacobsen, National Geographic’s SVP of communications, similar to the contents of a formal announcement by the two companies
20.
Nature (journal)
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Nature is an English multidisciplinary scientific journal, first published on 4 November 1869. Nature claims a readership of about 3 million unique readers per month. The journal has a circulation of around 53,000. There are also sections on books and arts, the remainder of the journal consists mostly of research papers, which are often dense and highly technical. There are many fields of research in which important new advances, the papers that have been published in this journal are internationally acclaimed for maintaining high research standards. In 2007 Nature received the Princess of Asturias Award for Communications, the enormous progress in science and mathematics during the 19th century was recorded in journals written mostly in German or French, as well as in English. Britain underwent enormous technological and industrial changes and advances particularly in the half of the 19th century. In addition, during this period, the number of popular science periodicals doubled from the 1850s to the 1860s. According to the editors of these popular science magazines, the publications were designed to serve as organs of science, in essence, Nature, first created in 1869, was not the first magazine of its kind in Britain. While Recreative Science had attempted to more physical sciences such as astronomy and archaeology. Two other journals produced in England prior to the development of Nature were the Quarterly Journal of Science and Scientific Opinion, established in 1864 and 1868 and these similar journals all ultimately failed. The Popular Science Review survived longest, lasting 20 years and ending its publication in 1881, Recreative Science ceased publication as the Student, the Quarterly Journal, after undergoing a number of editorial changes, ceased publication in 1885. The Reader terminated in 1867, and finally, Scientific Opinion lasted a mere 2 years, janet Browne has proposed that far more than any other science journal of the period, Nature was conceived, born, and raised to serve polemic purpose. Perhaps it was in part its scientific liberality that made Nature a longer-lasting success than its predecessors and this is what Lockyers journal did from the start. Norman Lockyer, the founder of Nature, was a professor at Imperial College and he was succeeded as editor in 1919 by Sir Richard Gregory. Gregory helped to establish Nature in the scientific community. During the years 1945 to 1973, editorship of Nature changed three times, first in 1945 to A. J. V. Gale and L. J. F. Brimble, then to John Maddox in 1965, and finally to David Davies in 1973. In 1980, Maddox returned as editor and retained his position until 1995, philip Campbell has since become Editor-in-chief of all Nature publications
21.
Science (journal)
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Science, also widely referred to as Science Magazine, is the peer-reviewed academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and one of the worlds top academic journals. It was first published in 1880, is circulated weekly and has a print subscriber base of around 130,000. Because institutional subscriptions and online access serve an audience, its estimated readership is 570,400 people. Unlike most scientific journals, which focus on a field, Science. According to the Journal Citation Reports, Sciences 2015 impact factor was 34.661, although it is the journal of the AAAS, membership in the AAAS is not required to publish in Science. Papers are accepted from authors around the world, competition to publish in Science is very intense, as an article published in such a highly cited journal can lead to attention and career advancement for the authors. Fewer than 7% of articles submitted are accepted for publication, Science is based in Washington, D. C. United States, with an office in Cambridge, England. Science was founded by New York journalist John Michels in 1880 with financial support from Thomas Edison, however, the journal never gained enough subscribers to succeed and ended publication in March 1882. Entomologist Samuel H. Scudder resurrected the journal one year later and had some success while covering the meetings of prominent American scientific societies, however, by 1894, Science was again in financial difficulty and was sold to psychologist James McKeen Cattell for $500. In an agreement worked out by Cattell and AAAS secretary Leland O. Howard, after Cattell died in 1944, the ownership of the journal was transferred to the AAAS. After Cattells death in 1944, the journal lacked a consistent editorial presence until Graham DuShane became editor in 1956. In 1958, under DuShanes leadership, Science absorbed The Scientific Monthly, physicist Philip Abelson, a co-discoverer of neptunium, served as editor from 1962 to 1984. Under Abelson the efficiency of the process was improved and the publication practices were brought up to date. During this time, papers on the Apollo program missions and some of the earliest reports on AIDS were published, biochemist Daniel E. Koshland, Jr. served as editor from 1985 until 1995. From 1995 until 2000, neuroscientist Floyd E. Bloom held that position, biologist Donald Kennedy became the editor of Science in 2000. Biochemist Bruce Alberts took his place in March 2008, geophysicist Marcia McNutt became editor-in-chief in June 2013. During her tenure the family of journals expanded to include Science Robotics and Science Immunology, jeremy M. Berg became editor-in-chief on July 1,2016
22.
Washington, D.C.
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Washington, D. C. formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D. C. is the capital of the United States. The signing of the Residence Act on July 16,1790, Constitution provided for a federal district under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Congress and the District is therefore not a part of any state. The states of Maryland and Virginia each donated land to form the federal district, named in honor of President George Washington, the City of Washington was founded in 1791 to serve as the new national capital. In 1846, Congress returned the land ceded by Virginia, in 1871. Washington had an population of 681,170 as of July 2016. Commuters from the surrounding Maryland and Virginia suburbs raise the population to more than one million during the workweek. The Washington metropolitan area, of which the District is a part, has a population of over 6 million, the centers of all three branches of the federal government of the United States are in the District, including the Congress, President, and Supreme Court. Washington is home to national monuments and museums, which are primarily situated on or around the National Mall. The city hosts 176 foreign embassies as well as the headquarters of international organizations, trade unions, non-profit organizations, lobbying groups. A locally elected mayor and a 13‑member council have governed the District since 1973, However, the Congress maintains supreme authority over the city and may overturn local laws. D. C. residents elect a non-voting, at-large congressional delegate to the House of Representatives, the District receives three electoral votes in presidential elections as permitted by the Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1961. Various tribes of the Algonquian-speaking Piscataway people inhabited the lands around the Potomac River when Europeans first visited the area in the early 17th century, One group known as the Nacotchtank maintained settlements around the Anacostia River within the present-day District of Columbia. Conflicts with European colonists and neighboring tribes forced the relocation of the Piscataway people, some of whom established a new settlement in 1699 near Point of Rocks, Maryland. 43, published January 23,1788, James Madison argued that the new government would need authority over a national capital to provide for its own maintenance. Five years earlier, a band of unpaid soldiers besieged Congress while its members were meeting in Philadelphia, known as the Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783, the event emphasized the need for the national government not to rely on any state for its own security. However, the Constitution does not specify a location for the capital, on July 9,1790, Congress passed the Residence Act, which approved the creation of a national capital on the Potomac River. The exact location was to be selected by President George Washington, formed from land donated by the states of Maryland and Virginia, the initial shape of the federal district was a square measuring 10 miles on each side, totaling 100 square miles. Two pre-existing settlements were included in the territory, the port of Georgetown, Maryland, founded in 1751, many of the stones are still standing
23.
Smithsonian Institution
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The Smithsonian Institution, established in 1846 for the increase and diffusion of knowledge, is a group of museums and research centers administered by the Government of the United States. Originally organized as the United States National Museum, that ceased to exist as an administrative entity in 1967. Additional facilities are located in Arizona, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York City, Texas, Virginia, more than 200 institutions and museums in 45 states, Puerto Rico, and Panama are Smithsonian Affiliates. The Institutions thirty million annual visitors are admitted without charge and its annual budget is around $1.2 billion with 2/3 coming from annual federal appropriations. Other funding comes from the Institutions endowment, private and corporate contributions, membership dues, and earned retail, concession, Institution publications include Smithsonian and Air & Space magazines. The British scientist James Smithson left most of his wealth to his nephew Henry James Hungerford, Congress officially accepted the legacy bequeathed to the nation, and pledged the faith of the United States to the charitable trust on July 1,1836. The American diplomat Richard Rush was dispatched to England by President Andrew Jackson to collect the bequest, Rush returned in August 1838 with 105 sacks containing 104,960 gold sovereigns. Once the money was in hand, eight years of Congressional haggling ensued over how to interpret Smithsons rather vague mandate for the increase, unfortunately, the money was invested by the US Treasury in bonds issued by the state of Arkansas which soon defaulted. The United States Exploring Expedition by the U. S. Navy circumnavigated the globe between 1838 and 1842, in 1846, the regents developed a plan for weather observation, in 1847, money was appropriated for meteorological research. The Institution became a magnet for young scientists from 1857 to 1866, the Smithsonian played a critical role as the U. S. partner institution in early bilateral scientific exchanges with the Academy of Sciences of Cuba. The Smithsonian Institution Building began construction in 1849, designed by architect James Renwick Jr. its interiors were completed by general contract Gilbert Cameron and the building opened in 1855. The Smithsonians first expansion came with construction of the Arts and Industries Building in 1881, Congress had promised to build a new structure for the museum if the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition generated enough income. It did, and the building was designed by architects Adolf Cluss and Paul Schulze, meigs of the United States Army Corps of Engineers. The National Zoological Park opened in 1889 to accommodate the Smithsonians Department of Living Animals and this structure was designed by the D. C. architectural firm of Hornblower & Marshall. More than 40 years would pass before the museum, the Museum of History. It was designed by the firm of McKim, Mead & White. That same year, the Smithsonian signed an agreement to take over the Cooper Union Museum for the Arts of Decoration, the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum opened in the Old Patent Office Building on October 7,1968. The first new building to open since the National Museum of Natural History was the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
24.
Open letter
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An open letter is a letter that is intended to be read by a wide audience, or a letter intended for an individual, but that is nonetheless widely distributed intentionally. Open letters usually take the form of a letter addressed to an individual but provided to the public newspapers and other media. Especially common are critical open letters addressed to political leaders, currently there are very few sites solely specialising in publishing open letters. However, there are community sites where visitors can publish their own letters, sociological or historical research on open letters are also not found, although sociologists and historians have written open letters. Recently, a professor of anthropology at Vidyasagar University in India has written an article on open letter. Letters patent are another form of letter in which a legal document is both mailed to a person by the government, and publicized so that all are made aware of it. Open letters can also be addressed directly to a rather than any individual. Encyclicals are by definition open letters sent by the Pope or a primate to the bishops of the church community, most papal bulls are letters patent and therefore open letters. Martin Luther published many letters, including his Open Letter on the Harsh Book Against the Peasants Farmers letters by Samuel Seabury against the American Revolution. Ralph Waldo Emersons letter to Martin Van Buren against the Cherokee removal order, professor James Symes calls for medical reform in 1854 and 1857, addressed to British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston. Robert Louis Stevensons open letter to Rev. Dr. Hyde in defense of Father Damien, jaccuse by Émile Zola over the Dreyfus Affair. Martin Luther Kings Letter from Birmingham Jail, Bill Gatess Open Letter to Hobbyists attacking copyright infringement in software development, audre Lordes open letter about racism to Mary Daly. Gennady Zyuganovs open letter to Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev criticizing perestroika and glasnost, david Crosss open letter to Larry the Cable Guy. Bobby Hendersons Open Letter to the Kansas School Board, googles Open Letter to the net on net neutrality. Steve Jobss Thoughts on Music concerning the past and future of DRM, siegfried Sassoons A Soldier’s Declaration, questioning the judgment of Britains leadership in World War I. Sam Harris book Letter to a Christian Nation is written as a letter in response to criticism he received after his previous book. Scholars for Peaces open letter sanctioning a historic truce and the subsequent peace talks between the Turkish state and the Kurdistan Workers Party, rob Lewis Entrepreneurs letter to The Times warning of the dangers of a Lib-Lab coalition ahead of the 2010 UK general election. Tom Wrigglesworths Open Letters, a BBC Radio 4 stand-up comedy series taking the form of an open letter, based on Wrigglesworths 2009 Edinburgh Comedy Award nominated show Tom Wrigglesworths Open Return Letter to Richard Branson
25.
Maniraptora
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Maniraptora is a clade of coelurosaurian dinosaurs that includes the birds and the non-avian dinosaurs that were more closely related to them than to Ornithomimus velox. It contains the major subgroups Avialae, Deinonychosauria, Oviraptorosauria and Therizinosauria, Ornitholestes and the Alvarezsauroidea are also often included. Together with the next closest sister group, the Ornithomimosauria, Maniraptora comprises the more inclusive clade Maniraptoriformes, maniraptorans first appear in the fossil record during the Jurassic Period, and are regarded as surviving today as living birds. Maniraptorans are characterized by arms and three-fingered hands, as well as a half-moon shaped bone in the wrist. Maniraptorans are the only known to have breast bones. In 2004, Tom Holtz and Halszka Osmólska pointed out six other maniraptoran characters relating to specific details of the skeleton, unlike most other saurischian dinosaurs, which have pubic bones that point forward, several groups of maniraptorans have an ornithischian-like backwards-pointing hip bone. A backward-pointing hip characterizes the therizinosaurs, dromaeosaurids, avialans, modern pennaceous feathers and remiges are known in the advanced maniraptoran group Aviremigia. More primitive maniraptorans, such as therizinosaurs, preserve a combination of simple downy filaments, thus it appears as if some form of feathers or down-like integument would have been present in all maniraptorans, at least when they were young. Maniraptora is the dinosaur group known to include flying members. Powered and/or gliding flight is believed to have present in some types of dromaeosaurid, such as Rahonavis. Zhenyuanlong suni, a dromaeosaurids, was too heavy to fly but still had wings with feathers required for flying, gregory S. Paul has suggested that this might be the case. Paul has gone as far as to propose that Therizinosauria, Alvarezsauroidea, scientists have traditionally assumed that maniraptorans were ancestrally hypercarnivorous, that is, that most non-avialan species primarily ate and hunted only other vertebrates. Most other groups fell somewhere in between the two extremes, with alvarezsaurids and some avialans being insectivorous, and with advanced oviraptorosaurs and troodontids being omnivorous. The Maniraptora was originally named by Jacques Gauthier in 1986, for a clade defined as all dinosaurs closer to modern birds than to the ornithomimids. Gauthier noted that this group could be characterized by their long forelimbs and hands. Most subsequent studies have not followed this definition, however, preferring the earlier branch-based definition, the branch-based definition usually includes the major groups Deinonychosauria, Oviraptorosauria, Therizinosauria, and Aves. Other taxa often found to be maniraptorans include the alvarezsaurs, Ornitholestes, several taxa have been assigned to the Maniraptora more definitively, though their exact placement within the group remains uncertain. These forms include the scansoriopterygids, Pedopenna, and Yixianosaurus, in 1993, Perle and colleagues coined the name Metornithes to include alvarezsaurids and modern birds, which the researchers believed were members of the Avialae
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Fossil collecting
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Fossil collecting is the collection of fossils for scientific study, hobby, or profit. Fossil collecting, as practiced by amateurs, is the predecessor of modern paleontology and many still collect fossils, professionals and amateurs alike collect fossils for their scientific value. A commercial trade in fossils has also existed, with some of this being practised illegally. Fossils are generally found in sedimentary rock with differentiated strata representing a succession of deposited material, the occurrence of fossil bearing material depends on environmental factors before and after the time of preservation. After death, the first preserving factor is a burial in water bodies or terrestrial sediment which would help in preserving the specimen. These rocks types are usually termed clastic rock, and are subdivided into fine, medium. While fossils can be found in all types, more detailed specimens are found in the fine grained material. A second type of burial is the rock, form where the rock is made up of the precipitation of compacted fossil material, types of rock include limestone. The third fossil bearing material is the evaporates, which out of concentrated dissolved salts to form nodular deposits, examples include rock salt. The evaporates are usually associated with gastropod, algae, vertebrate, Fossils are not to be found in areas of igneous rock. In rocks which have undergone metamorphism, fossils are generally so distorted that they are difficult to recognize or have been destroyed completely, after burial various factors are at work to endanger the current fossils preserved state. Areas where sedimentary rocks are being eroded include exposed mountainous areas, river banks and beds, wave washed sea cliffs, and engineering features like quarries and road cuts. Coal mining operations often yield excellent fossil plants, but the best ones are to be not in the coal itself. And foreshore exposures are often good places to search for fossils, never take chances by climbing high cliffs of crumbling rock or clay. Dried up natural lake beds and caves in the form of pitfall traps frequently also have high concentrations of fossils. Generally in appearance, a fossil will be either a different colour to the rock, because of the different mineral content, will have a defining shape. The techniques used to collect fossils vary depending on the sediment or rock in which the fossils are to be found, for collecting in rock a geological hammer, a variety of cold chisels and a mallet are used to split and break rocks to reveal fossils. Since the rock is deposited in layers, these layers may be split apart to reveal fossils, for soft sediments and unconsolidated deposits, such as sands, silts, and clays, a spade, flat-bladed trowel, and stiff brushes are used
27.
Xu Xing (paleontologist)
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Xu Xing is a Chinese paleontologist who has named more dinosaurs than any other living paleontologist. Such dinosaurs include the Jurassic ceratopsian Yinlong, the Jurassic tyrannosauroid Guanlong, the large oviraptorosaur Gigantoraptor, and he was born in Xinjiang, China, in 1969. He had originally planned to become a designer, but the Chinese government forced him to major in geology. He graduated in 1995, and claims inspiration from Roy Chapman Andrews, among Xus paleontological contributions have been discovery and analysis of dinosaur fossils with avian characteristics, and development of theories in regarding the evolution of feathers. Xu, Xing, Norell, Mark A, Kuang, Xuewen, Wang, Xiaolin, Zhao, Qi & Jia, basal tyrannosauroids from China and evidence for protofeathers in tyrannosauroids. Doi,10. 1038/nature02855 PMID15470426 Xu, Xing, Clark, James M, Forster, Catherine A, Norell, Mark A, Erickson, Gregory M, Eberth, David A, Jia, Chengkai & Zhao, Qi. A basal tyrannosauroid dinosaur from the Late Jurassic of China, doi,10. 1038/nature04511 Xu, Xing, Tan, Qingwei, Wang, Jianmin, Zhao, Xijin & Tan, Lin. A gigantic bird-like dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous of China, doi,10. 1038/nature05849 Xu, Xing, Zheng, Xiaoting & You, Hailu. A new feather type in a theropod and the early evolution of feathers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America,106, doi,10. 1073/pnas.0810055106 PMID19139401 Xu, X. Wang, K. Zhang, K. Ma, Q. Hu, D. Cheng, S. Wang, S, a gigantic feathered dinosaur from the Lower Cretaceous of China. Archived from the original on April 17,2012, famous Expert Forum, Research Fellow Xu Xing’s Academic Report
28.
Archaeovolans
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Yanornis is an extinct genus of fish-eating Early Cretaceous birds. Similarly, its scapula and coracoid had evolved the basic shape and layout as in modern birds and it was probably a more efficient flyer compared to enantiornithines, and especially compared to Confuciusornis and Archaeopteryx, which were only marginally able to perform upstrokes. To allow for the large flight muscles, the sternum of Yanornis was longer than it was wide. Several fossil specimens of Y. martini preserve the remains of fish in the stomach and crop and their fish-eating and associated adaptations show convergent evolution with the unrelated enantiornithine Longipteryx. One specimen preserved large amounts of supposed gastroliths in the gizzard region, large numbers of small gastroliths are usually associated with species that need to grind tough plant material, such as seeds, after swallowing them. This led some scientists to suggest that Yanornis was capable of switching, perhaps seasonally. However, later studies cast doubt on the diet-switching hypothesis, rather, the stones were spread throughout the body cavity in a front-to-back arrangement. This has been suggested to correspond closely with the intestines. In modern birds, sand is often swallowed accidentally during feeding, the cladogram below follows O’Connor et al.2013 phylogenetic analysis. The clade names are positioned based on their definitions, the genus name Yanornis is derived from the Ancient Chinese Yan dynasties, whose capital was at Chaoyang, and Ancient Greek ornis, bird. The species Y. martini was named for avian paleontologist Larry Martin, Yanornis gained notoriety when the front half of a fossil bird was combined with the tail of a Microraptor to make the paleontological forgery Archaeoraptor. Upon discovering this, the half was described as Archaeovolans repatriatus
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Scansoriopteryx
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Scansoriopteryx is a genus of avialan dinosaur. Described from only a single fossil specimen found in Liaoning, China. It possessed an unusual, elongated third finger which may have supported a membranous wing, the type specimen of Scansoriopteryx also contains the fossilized impression of feathers. Most researchers regard this genus as a synonym of Epidendrosaurus, with some preferring to treat Scansoriopteryx as the junior synonym, the type specimen of Scansoriopteryx heilmanni represents the fossilized remains of a hatchling maniraptoran dinosaur, similar in some ways to Archaeopteryx. A second specimen, the holotype of Epidendrosaurus ninchengensis, also shows features indicating it was a juvenile, the specimen is partially disarticulated, and most bones are preserved as impressions in the rock slab, rather than three-dimensional structures. Because the only known specimens are juvenile, the size of a full-grown Scansoriopteryx is unknown–the type specimen is a tiny, Scansoriopteryx is also notable for its wide, rounded jaws. The lower jaw contained at least twelve teeth, larger in the front of the jaws than in the back, the lower jaw bones may have been fused together, a feature otherwise known only in the oviraptorosaurs. One distinctive feature of Scansoriopteryx is its third finger, which is the longest on the hand. This is unlike the configuration seen in most other theropods, where the finger is longest. The long wing feathers, or remiges, appear to attach to this long digit instead of the middle digit as in birds, shorter feathers are preserved attached to the second finger. A relative of Scansoriopteryx, Yi, suggests that this elongated third finger supported a membranous wing of some kind alongside feathers, Scansoriopteryx had a non-perforated hip socket, which is more open in most, but not all, other dinosaurs. It also had a pubis which pointed forward, a primitive trait among theropods, and unlike some maniraptorans more closely related to birds, where the pubis points downward or backward. It also had a large first toe, or hallux. The tail was long, six or seven times the length of the femur, several tiny fossil eggs discovered in the Sao Khua Formation of Phu Phok, Thailand were originally thought to have been laid by a small dinosaur similar to Scansoriopteryx. However, further study showed that the eggs belonged to an anguimorph lizard. In describing Scansoriopteryx, Czerkas & Yuan cited evidence for an arboreal lifestyle and they noted that, unlike all modern bird hatchlings, the forelimbs of Scansoriopteryx are longer than the hind limbs. The authors argued that this indicates the forelimbs played an important role in locomotion even at an extremely early developmental stage. Scansoriopteryx has a foot, and the authors interpreted the hallux as reversed
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Sapeornis
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Sapeornis is a type of avialan which lived during the early Cretaceous period. The genus Sapeornis contains only one species, Sapeornis chaoyangensis, Sapeornis was large for an early avialan, about 30–33 centimetres long in life, excluding the tail feathers. The hand of Sapeornis was far more advanced than that of Archaeopteryx and it had three fingers, the outer ones with two and the middle one with three phalanges, and a well-fused carpometacarpus. Its arms were about half again as long as the legs, the humerus was large and bore holes, apparently to save weight, as in the Confuciusornithidae. The skull has a handful of teeth in the upper jawtip only, Sapeornis had gastralia but no uncinate processes. The breastbone was either absent or, more likely, made of cartilage rather than bone, the pygostyle was rod-like as in Confuciusornis and Nomingia, but like in the former there was no long bony tail anymore. While the tarsometatarsi were more fused than in Archaeopteryx, the fibula was long and reached the point of the tarsal joint. In specimen IVPP V12375, the stomach contained numerous small gastroliths, analysis of its skeletal bones suggest that it had an ontogeny and slow growth like Archaeopteryx and small carnivorous dinosaurs, rather than the explosively fast growth seen in modern birds. In absolute number of features shared with modern birds, S. chaoyangensis is about as advanced as Confuciusornis, however, the apomorphies were largely different from Confuciusornis, and a character analysis demonstrates that these two were not closely related. The tail plumage of Sapeornis consisted of rectrices that formed a graded, the reduced fingers suggest that it might have had an alula. The small gastroliths, overall size, and the inferred habitat indicate that Sapeornis was most likely a herbivore, possibly eating plant seeds. Comparisons between the rings of Sapeornis and modern birds and reptiles indicate that it may have been diurnal. Sapeornis is known from fossils found in Jiufotang Formation and Yixian Formation rocks in western Liaoning and these rocks formed during the late Aptian through early Albian epochs of the Cretaceous period, and are about 125-120 million years old. Several nearly complete skeletons have been found and it was discovered by a team from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, and was reported in 2002 by the scientists Zhonghe Zhou and Fucheng Zhang. They chose the name in honor of SAPE, the Society of Avian Paleontology and Evolution, the species name chaoyangensis is Latin for from Chaoyang. Soon after this, two more, nearly complete specimens were discovered in the Dapingfang area, about 40 kilometres from the fossil site. None of these first three specimens preserved traces of feathers, but based on the size of their skeletons alone, in 2008, Yuan named a new specimen related to Sapeornis as Didactylornis jii. Yuan concluded that Didactylornis differed from Sapeornis in the proportions of the foot and number of wing, however, the relevant portions of the specimen were badly crushed, and later authors concluded that these differences were based on misinterpretation of the poorly preserved specimen
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Pterosaur
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Pterosaurs were flying reptiles of the extinct clade or order Pterosauria. They existed from the late Triassic to the end of the Cretaceous, Pterosaurs are the earliest vertebrates known to have evolved powered flight. Their wings were formed by a membrane of skin, muscle, Early species had long, fully toothed jaws and long tails, while later forms had a highly reduced tail, and some lacked teeth. Many sported furry coats made up of hair-like filaments known as pycnofibers, Pterosaurs spanned a wide range of adult sizes, from the very small anurognathids to the largest known flying creatures of all time, including Quetzalcoatlus and Hatzegopteryx. Pterosaurs are often referred to in the media and by the general public as flying dinosaurs. Like the dinosaurs, and unlike these other reptiles, pterosaurs are more related to birds than to crocodiles or any other living reptile. Pterosaurs are also referred to as pterodactyls, particularly in fiction. Technically, Pterodactyl refers only to members of the genus Pterodactylus, the anatomy of pterosaurs was highly modified from their reptilian ancestors by the adaption to flight. Pterosaur bones were hollow and air-filled, like the bones of birds and they had a keeled breastbone that was developed for the attachment of flight muscles and an enlarged brain that shows specialised features associated with flight. In some later pterosaurs, the backbone over the shoulders fused into a known as a notarium, which served to stiffen the torso during flight. Pterosaur wings were formed by membranes of skin and other tissues, the primary membranes attached to the extremely long fourth finger of each arm and extended along the sides of the body to the ankles. The outer wings were strengthened by closely spaced fibers called actinofibrils, the actinofibrils themselves consisted of three distinct layers in the wing, forming a crisscross pattern when superimposed on one another. The function of the actinofibrils is unknown, as is the material from which they were made. Depending on their composition, they may have been stiffening or strengthening agents in the outer part of the wing. The wing membranes also contained a layer of muscle, fibrous tissue. The pterosaur wing membrane is divided into three basic units, the first, called the propatagium, was the forward-most part of the wing and attached between the wrist and shoulder, creating the leading edge during flight. This membrane may have incorporated the first three fingers of the hand, as evidenced in some specimens, the brachiopatagium was the primary component of the wing, stretching from the highly elongated fourth finger of the hand to the hind limbs. It is generally agreed though that non-pterodactyloid pterosaurs had a broader uro/cruropatagium, a bone unique to pterosaurs, known as the pteroid, connected to the wrist and helped to support a forward membrane between the wrist and shoulder
32.
San Diego Natural History Museum
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The San Diego Natural History Museum is a museum located in Balboa Park in San Diego, California. It was founded in 1874 as the San Diego Society of Natural History and it is the second oldest scientific institution west of the Mississippi and the oldest in Southern California. The present location of the museum was dedicated on January 14,1933, a major addition to the museum was dedicated in April 2001, doubling exhibit space. The San Diego Natural History Museum grew out of the San Diego Society of Natural History, the Natural History Society was founded by George W. Barnes, Daniel Cleveland, Charles Coleman, E. W. Hendrick and O. N. Sanford. It is the oldest scientific institution in southern California, and the second oldest west of the Mississippi. In 1887, the Society was given a lot on Sixth Avenue between B and C streets by E. W. Morse, a president of the citys short-lived Lyceum of Natural Sciences. The Hotel Cecil was eventually built on part of the societys lot, in 1910, the San Diego Society of Natural History hired Kate Stephens, an authority on terrestrial and marine mollusks, as curator for its collections. These included the collection of her husband, mammalogist and ornithologist Frank Stephens. In June 1912, Katherine and Frank Stephens installed the Societys first museum exhibits at the Hotel Cecil, the Sixth Avenue property hosted the museums exhibits for a very short time, roughly 1912-1917. However, it remained the property of the Society until 1987, money raised by the sale became part of the Museum of Natural History’s endowment fund. Various supporters of the 1915 Panama-California Exposition at Balboa Park expressed interest in repurposing buildings from the Exposition and this was complicated because the actual title to the land in Balboa Park remained with the City of San Diego. In June 1916, museum supporter G. S. e. without admission charges, the museum eventually occupied three different buildings from the Exposition in Balboa Park, none of which was ideally suited to museum use. In 1917, the Society paid $500 to the Panama-California Exposition Corporation for the vacant Nevada State Building, the Society moved its growing collections and library into the building in February 1917, thus creating the San Diego Natural History Museum. Frank Stephens served as the first director of the museum from 1917 to 1920, the Board identified its mission as being to educate and help people know and love nature. Using specimens from the collections, the institution developed educational outreach programs with city and county schools. Unfortunately, many of the buildings at the Exposition had been intended as temporary structures, the two-story Nevada building, with its arcades, flanking wings, and Spanish-Renaissance trim, was not built to last. The museum obtained permission from the Park Commission to move to the 1915 Foreign Arts Building, when the Foreign Arts Building proved too small, the museum expanded into the 1916 Canadian Building. This new space was opened to the public on December 9,1922, the museums intention was to eventually combine the buildings
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Fresno Metropolitan Museum of Art and Science
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The Museum was established in 1984 and was one of the largest museums between San Francisco and Los Angeles. “The Met” was housed in the historic 1922 Fresno Bee Building, in August 2005, the museum began an extensive interior renovation, the first of its kind since the Museums opening. The museum reopened on November 13,2008 and closed on January 5,2010, in 1978, a group of Fresno civic leaders began to explore the possibility of creating a regional museum for the San Joaquin Valley. From 1981-1985, these members of the community raised more than $5.5 million to open the Met in the downtown site of the Fresno Bee building. The Museum opened its doors to the community on April 8,1984, since that time, the Museum has attracted more than 2 million people with its programs in art and science with diverse exhibitions including A T. The Museum was named the Best Museum each year since 1999 by the readers of The Fresno Bee, on January 5,2010, the Museum closed for good, due to the museums inability to pay off the increasing deficit from the museums renovation and operations. The building underwent significant structural enhancements, specifically on the west wall from the footings below the basement up to the fifth floor, the existing support columns consisting of steel reinforced concrete were enhanced in the basement and first floor. The building reopened November 13,2008, the museums fourth floor consisted of a large gallery space that also served as a forum for educational purposes and housed the Michaelis Classroom in an adjacent room. The fifth floor became the home for the administrative offices and also housed a conference room. During the museum’s renovation, programming and exhibitions were held in a temporary location, the museum’s Reeves ASK Science Center moved into donated space in the fall of 2005 and was open until July 2008. The Reeves Family ASK Science Center was a science education space that features rotating exhibits. Following the renovation the center returned to its location inside the museum, the Docent Outreach Project, which allowed teachers in grades 1 through 3 to take advantage of the Met’s programming without traveling to the museum. The programs lessons were one long and feature hands-on art instruction. Visual Thinking Strategies, which used art to teach critical thinking, communication skills and these lessons were provided in English, Spanish and Hmong, free of charge to schools. The Met on the Move was the latest addition to the City of Fresnos Department of Parks After School, following the closure of the museum, the city of Fresno took possession of the property. After standing vacant for two years, a new public access station, Community Media Access Collaborative moved into the floor of the building in April,2012. As part of their public access mission, they continue to show art from local artists
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Type (biology)
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In biology, a type is a particular specimen of an organism to which the scientific name of that organism is formally attached. In other words, a type is an example that serves to anchor or centralize the defining features of that particular taxon, in older usage, a type was a taxon rather than a specimen. Types are of significance to biologists, especially to taxonomists. Types are usually physical specimens that are kept in a museum or herbarium research collection, but failing that, describing species and appointing type specimens is part of scientific nomenclature and alpha taxonomy. If there is more than one named type that all appear to be the same taxon, then the oldest name takes precedence, and is considered to be the correct name of the material in hand. If on the hand the taxon appears never to have been named at all, then the scientist or another qualified expert picks a type specimen and publishes a new name. This process is crucial to the science of biological taxonomy, peoples ideas of how living things should be grouped change and shift over time. How do we know that what we call Canis lupus is the thing, or approximately the same thing. Depending on the nomenclature applied to the organism in question, a type can be a specimen, a culture. Some codes consider a subordinate taxon to be the type, for example, in the research collection of the Natural History Museum in London, there is a bird specimen numbered 1886.6.24.20. This is a specimen of a kind of commonly known as the spotted harrier. This particular specimen is the holotype for that species, the name Circus assimilis refers, by definition and that species was named and described by Jardine and Selby in 1828, and the holotype was placed in the museum collection so that other scientists might refer to it as necessary. Note that at least for type specimens there is no requirement for an individual to be used. The usage of the type is somewhat complicated by slightly different uses in botany. In the PhyloCode, type-based definitions are replaced by phylogenetic definitions, in some older taxonomic works the word type has sometimes been used differently. … Après avoir étudié ces diverses formes, jen arrivai à les considérer comme appartenant à un seul et même type spécifique, translation, This single character permits distinguish this type from all other species of the section. After studying the diverse forms, I came to them as belonging to the one. In botanical nomenclature, a type, is that element to which the name of a taxon is permanently attached, in botany a type is either a specimen or an illustration
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Kent Hovind
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Kent E. Hovind is an American Christian fundamentalist evangelist and tax protester. Hovinds views, which elements of creation science and conspiracy theory, are dismissed by the scientific community as fringe theory. He has been criticized by Young Earth Creationist organizations like Answers in Genesis for his use of discredited arguments that have been abandoned by others in the movement. Hovind established Creation Science Evangelism in 1989 and Dinosaur Adventure Land in 2001 in Pensacola and he frequently spoke on Young Earth creationism in schools, churches, debates, and on radio and television broadcasts. In a separate court case in early 2015, a federal court jury found Hovind guilty of contempt of court in connection with a charge of disobeying a prior court order. The trial court, however, threw out the verdict and rendered a judgment of acquittal, at the age of 16, Hovind became a born-again Christian within the Independent Fundamental Baptist church. He married his wife Jo in 1973 and they had three children between 1977 and 1979, between 1975 and 1988, Hovind served as an assistant pastor and teacher at three private Baptist schools, including one he started. In 1989, the moved to Pensacola, Florida where Jo would attend Pensacola Christian College and would earn a bachelors degree in music and masters degrees in music. In 1989, Hovind started Creation Science Evangelism, in 1998, he created his Dr. Dino web site and began producing articles and selling video tapes, books, and fossil replicas. In 1999, his son Eric Hovind began traveling to present his arguments, Kent and Jo divorced in 2016. In 1971, he graduated from East Peoria Community High School in East Peoria and he entered the accredited Illinois Central College, then transferred to the unaccredited Midwestern Baptist College in 1972, attaining a Bachelor of Religious Education in 1974. In 1988 and 1991 respectively, Hovind received a degree and doctorate in Christian Education through correspondence from Patriot University in Colorado Springs. Having a website called Dr. Dino has provoked some academics to look closely at how Hovind presents his education, all his known degrees are from unaccredited institutions, and he has no training in paleontology. Patriot University is a diploma mill, Hovind established Creation Science Evangelism in 1989 to evangelize and teach creationism. In May 1999, his son Eric joined Creation Science Evangelism as a speaker and that year, CSE merged with Faith Baptist Fellowship of Hawthorne, Florida, beginning a relationship that lasted until 2002. CSE properties were conveyed to the trusts which operated under business licenses from the Kingdom of Heaven, Hovind is associated with the Unregistered Baptist Fellowship, a loosely affiliated group of roughly 100 churches which share a theology of Christian resistance to civil governments. The UBF holds that governmental authority stops at the threshold of the church, Hovind was convicted of 58 felony counts in November 2006 and sentenced to ten years in prison in January 2007, Eric Hovind announced that he would take over Creation Science Evangelism. The new website announced Creation Today is a ministry of God Quest, Inc. with focus on creation, apologetics, in 2001, Hovind started Dinosaur Adventure Land, a Young Earth creationist theme park located behind Hovinds home in Pensacola, Florida
36.
Piltdown Man
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The Piltdown Man was a paleoanthropological hoax in which bone fragments were presented as the fossilised remains of a previously unknown early human. In 1912 amateur archaeologist Charles Dawson claimed he had discovered the link between ape and man. After finding a section of a skull in Pleistocene gravel beds near Piltdown, East Sussex, Dawson contacted Arthur Smith Woodward. Dawson and Smith Woodward discovered more artifacts at the site, which connected to the same individual. These included a jawbone, more skull fragments, a set of teeth, Smith Woodward reconstructed the skull fragments and hypothesised that they belonged to a human ancestor from 500,000 years ago. The discovery was announced at a Geological Society meeting and was given the Latin name Eoanthropus dawsoni, the questionable significance of the assemblage remained the subject of considerable controversy until it was conclusively exposed in 1953 as a forgery. It was found to have consisted of the mandible and some teeth of an orangutan deliberately combined with the cranium of a fully developed, though small-brained. At a meeting of the Geological Society of London on 18 December 1912, according to Dawson, workmen at the site discovered the skull shortly before his visit and broke it up in the belief that it was a fossilised coconut. Revisiting the site on several occasions, Dawson found further fragments of the skull and took them to Arthur Smith Woodward, greatly interested by the finds, Woodward accompanied Dawson to the site. Though the two worked together between June and September 1912, Dawson alone recovered more skull fragments and half of the jaw bone. The skull unearthed in 1908 was the only discovered in situ. He went on to indicate that, save for two human-like molar teeth, the jaw bone was indistinguishable from that of a modern, young chimpanzee, almost from the outset, Woodwards reconstruction of the Piltdown fragments was strongly challenged by some researchers. This reconstruction, by Prof. Arthur Keith, was called Homo piltdownensis in reflection of its human appearance. French Jesuit paleontologist and geologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin participated in the uncovering of the Piltdown skull with Woodward, Woodwards reconstruction included ape-like canine teeth, which was itself controversial. In August 1913, Woodward, Dawson and Teilhard de Chardin began a search of the spoil heaps specifically to find the missing canines. Teilhard de Chardin soon found a canine that, according to Woodward, a few days later Teilhard de Chardin moved to France and took no further part in the discoveries. Noting that the tooth corresponds exactly with that of an ape, Keith pointed out that human molars are the result of side to side movement when chewing. The canine in the Piltdown jaw was impossible as it prevented side to side movement, to explain the wear on the molar teeth, the canine could not have been any higher than the molars
37.
Flight feather
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The primary function of the flight feathers is to aid in the generation of both thrust and lift, thereby enabling flight. The flight feathers of birds have evolved to perform additional functions, generally associated with territorial displays. In some species, these feathers have developed into long showy plumes used in courtship displays. Tiny serrations on the edge of their remiges help owls to fly silently. Even flightless birds still retain flight feathers, though sometimes in modified forms. The moult of their feathers can cause serious problems for birds. Different species have evolved different strategies for coping with this, ranging from dropping all their feathers at once to extending the moult over a period of several years. Remiges are located on the side of the wing. Ligaments attach the long calami firmly to the bones. Corresponding remiges on individual birds are symmetrical between the two wings, matching to an extent in size and shape, though not necessarily in pattern. They are given different names depending on their position along the wing, primaries are connected to the manus, these are the longest and narrowest of the remiges, and they can be individually rotated. These feathers are important for flapping flight, as they are the principal source of thrust. The mechanical properties of primaries are important in supporting flight, most thrust is generated on the downstroke of flapping flight. However, on the upstroke, the primaries are separated and rotated, the flexibility of the remiges on the wingtips of large soaring birds also allows for the spreading of those feathers, which helps to reduce the creation of wingtip vortices, thereby reducing drag. The barbules on these feathers, friction barbules, are specialized with large lobular barbicels that help grip, species vary somewhat in the number of primaries they possess. The number in non-passerines generally varies between 9 and 11, but grebes, storks and flamingos have 12, and ostriches have 16, while most modern passerines have ten primaries, some have only nine. Those with nine are missing the most distal primary which is very small. The outermost primaries—those connected to the phalanges—are sometimes known as pinions, secondaries are connected to the ulna
