Paleontologists have discovered a new raptor species in Inner Mongolia.  The exceptionally well preserved dinosaur, named Linheraptor exquisitus, is the first near complete skeleton of its kind to be found in the Gobi desert since 1972, and will help scientists work out the appearance of other closely related dinosaur species.

A study documenting the find was published today in Zootaxa.

Linheraptor is in the Dromaeosauridae family of the carnivorous theropod dinosaurs and lived during the Late Cretaceous period. In addition to Linheraptor and Velociraptor, theropod dinosaurs include charismatic meat-eaters like Tyrannosaurus rex and modern birds.

Despite several social psychological theories that suggest otherwise, failing to meet educational goals does not result in depression, say sociologists from Floria and Kansas State Universities.

Their study in American Sociological review indicates that making no attempt to achieve extravagant educational goals is, in fact, the way to encourage depression.

The authors used two national studies of youth, the National Longitudinal Study and the Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (ADD Health), both of which track respondents over a period of time, to test whether unrealized expectations are associated with depression in adulthood.

If the idea was ever in doubt, psychologists writing in Social Psychological and Personality Science say they have confirmed that pretty girls make boys do dumb things.

Specifically, they say the presence of an attractive woman elevates testosterone levels and physical risk taking in young men.

For the study, young adult men were asked to perform both easy and difficult tricks on skateboards, first in front of another male and then in front of a young, attractive female. The skateboarder's testosterone levels were measured after each trick.

Researchers have long been puzzled by large societies in which
strangers routinely engage in voluntary acts of kindness and respect even though there is often an individual cost involved.

Evolutionary forces associated with kinship and reciprocity can explain such cooperative behavior among other primates, but the same isn't true for large societies of strangers.

A new study published today in Science suggests that the cooperative nature of each society may be explained in part by religious beliefs and the growth of market transactions. The study also found the extent to which a society uses punishment to enforce norms increases and decreases with the number of people in the society.

Scientists at the University of California, San Diego are undertaking an expedition to explore the rupture site of the 8.8-magnitude Chilean earthquake.

The team hopes to capitalize on a unique opportunity to capture fresh data from the event by studying changes in the seafloor that resulted from movements along faults and submarine landslides.

The "rapid response" expedition, called the Survey of Earthquake And Rupture Offshore Chile, will take place aboard the research vessel Melville.


Scientists will map the rupture site of the 8.8-magnitude earthquake in Chile.

A Penn State physicist is looking at how songbirds transmit impulses through nerve cells in the brain to produce a complex behavior, such as singing.

The research will help scientists gain insight into how the human brain functions, which may lead to a better understanding of complex vocal behavior, human speech production and ultimately, speech disorders and related diseases.

The findings were presented this week at the American Physical Society's March meeting in Portland.

Songbirds are particularly well suited for studying speech production and syntax -- the rules of syllable or word sequence -- because there are more similarities between birdsong and human speech than one may initially think.

NASA IceBridge Mission Prepares for Study of Arctic Glaciers


In a world where the blogosphere is filled with politically motivated versions of what is 'really' happening to the cryosphere it is good to know that real scientists are taking real risks to get real data.  I take my hat off to them.



NASA IceBridge Mission Prepares for Study of Arctic Glaciers


Press release March 18, 2010

WASHINGTON -- NASA's Operation IceBridge mission, the largest airborne survey ever flown of Earth's polar ice, kicks off its second year of study when NASA aircraft arrive in Greenland March 22.