“What do paleontologists do with all the things they find that they weren’t actually looking for?”

I knew walking in to Dr. Paul Sereno’s Fossil Lab at the University of Chicago last Tuesday that I’d see a ton of dinosaur bones (perhaps even literally). But what I didn’t expect to see were the human remains and bits of pottery that were scattered about as well. Seeing all that non-dinosaur stuff prompted a question: “What do paleontologists do with all the things they find that they weren’t actually looking for?”

Caterpickles asks the expert: “Dr. Paul Sereno, did dinosaurs have belly buttons?”

This week, The Eight-Year-Old and I got to meet world-famous paleontologist, Dr. Paul Sereno. After three years of hunting for the answer to my daughter’s question about whether or not dinosaurs had belly buttons, I was finally in a paleontology lab with both a world-famous paleontologist and a dinosaur mummy. I bet you can guess what happened next.

Classic Caterpickles: “Did dinosaurs have belly buttons?”: A Caterpickles Investigative Report

On a recent visit to the Boston Museum of Science, my daughter asked “Did dinosaurs have belly buttons?” We did our best to find out, using the evidence available to us at the time.

What’s The Eight-Year-Old reading this week?

Our mostly-weekly survey of the tidbits that cross The Eight-Year-Old’s desk. This week, The Eight-Year-Old boards Howl’s Moving Castle, travels by airship in The Journals of Thaddeaus Shockpocket, and provides friendly encouragement to Kenneth Graham’s Reluctant Dragon.

What’s The Eight-Year-Old reading this week?

This week, The Eight-Year-Old takes her first steps toward becoming a world-class literary tourist, cradles a crocodile, and shops for antiques.

This week's book covers: Pioneer Cat, Mutts: Call of the Wild, and Sherlock Holmes.

What’s The Eight-Year-Old reading this week?

Our mostly-weekly survey of the tidbits that cross The Eight-Year-Old’s desk. This week, we meet the not-so-newly discovered Hellboy dinosaur and mourn the loss of the world’s oldest living cat. The 8YO also reads Pioneer Cat by William H. Hooks, Call of the Wild: A Mutts Treasury by Patrick McDonnell, and The Original Illustrated Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle.

“Why doesn’t Dr. Scott ever win a Nobel Prize?”

Every December when the Nobel Prizes are handed out, The Eight-Year-Old waits with baited breath to find out whether Dr. Scott Sampson of Dinosaur Train fame has finally been recognized as the outstanding scientist he is. Every year, she’s disappointed. “Mommyo, why doesn’t Dr. Scott ever win the Nobel Prize?”

Book covers for Aliens for Breakfast, My Teacher is an Alien, and The Truth about Dragons.

What’s The Eight-Year-Old reading this week?

Our mostly-weekly survey of the tidbits that cross The Eight-Year-Old’s desk. This week, an innovative animal shelter campaign that pairs Star Wars characters with adoptable future friends, a proto-star cluster out in space, and of course, more books about aliens and dragons.

What’s The Eight-Year-Old reading this week?

The Eight-Year-Old’s school has been celebrating poetry all month. Yesterday was Poem in your Pocket day. The kids were asked to pick a poem, print or write it out, and carry it around in their pocket all day, reading it to everyone they met. The Eight-Year-Old picked “The Tyrannosaur” by Bill Watterson.

What’s The Eight-Year-Old reading this week?

Our semi-weekly survey of the tidbits that cross the 8YO’s desk. This week, The Eight-Year-Old reads Toby Alone and Toby and the Secrets of the Tree by Toby Alone by by Timothee de Fombelle, and reads the next book in Lucy and Stephen Hawking’s middle grade science fiction series, George’s Cosmic Treasure Hunt.