Science News Roundup: Stuff that caught my eye this week
How to build a dinosaur and other news of the week
Book Review: Stone Girl, Bone Girl
Laurence Anholt’s Stone Girl, Bone Girl tells the story of Mary Anning, an extraordinarily prolific fossil hunter born in England in 1799.
“Can I learn all the dinosaurs, Mommyo?”
As she sat next to me previewing the finalists for last Friday’s Dinosaur Video of the Week, my daughter asked, “Can I learn all the dinosaurs, Mommyo?” “I don’t see why not,” I said. After all, my little computational wonder could already recite all 50 states in alphabetical order. How much harder could dinosaurs be? Little did I know how long and uncertain the list of dinosaur species would be.
Science News Roundup: Stuff that caught my eye this week
Stranded penguins, cloud formation, vague threats from children, and other news of the week
Book Review: Prehistoric Actual Size
Reading Prehistoric Actual Size to my daughter, I found myself placing my hands on the page very carefully, lest I snag my finger on a Baryonyx claw or accidentally touch the Very Large Cockroach. It’s not that the illustrations are so terribly life-like. They are clearly pictures. It’s just that the effect of seeing these creatures, or in most cases, bits of these creatures, at actual size is so startling.
Book Review: The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins
In 1853, almost no one knew what a dinosaur looked like. No one had ever mounted a complete dinosaur skeleton, and who could imagine what these strange creatures would have looked like with muscles, skin, teeth, eyes, tails, and feet all in their proper places from just a heap of bones? In the Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins, Barbara Kerley tells the story of the Victorian artist who, with the help of renowned scientist Richard Owen, brought dinosaurs to life for the people around him.
“Why did they think T. Rex stood with his tail on the ground?”
The Museum of Science in Boston boasts two life-size statues of the T. Rex. The one in the permanent dinosaur exhibit stands in the now-classic T. Rex pose: the predator in mid-stride, while the other stands primly with his tail on the ground. How do scientists know which stance is right? And why do they change their minds about dinosaurs all the time?
“Do you need a lot of shots to go to Botswana?”
I suppose this entry should really be titled, “Why did our daughter ask me how many shots she would need to go to Botswana?”, because that’s what my husband actually said when he came back downstairs after putting our 4 year old to bed last night.
Science News Roundup: Stuff that caught my eye this week
Massive solar flares, a dog who adopted some ducklings, and a dinosaur mystery soon to be solved
Book Review: Did Dinosaurs Eat Pizza (Mysteries Science Hasn’t Solved)
Of all the dinosaur books my daughter and I have read so far, Lenny Hort’s Did Dinosaurs Eat Pizza?: Mysteries Science Hasn’t Solved may be our favorite. It packs a lot of information into very readable bursts of text.
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