Titanic ambitions: Palmer’s federal push shouldn’t be lightly dismissed

By Donna Weeks, University of the Sunshine Coast

Queensland has a habit of raising the eyebrows of our southern cousins when it comes to politics “our way”. Visits to friends and family down south always have required explanations about Joh Bjelke-Petersen…

10 April 2013

Pj928ndv-1365566885 — Semitransparent flesh reconstruction of an embryonic dinosaur inside an egg, with skeleton shown. D Mazierski

Dinosaur Jr: raising 200-million-year-old embryos

By Eric Roberts, James Cook University

We should forget about ever finding something as small and delicate as a dinosaur embryo, right? A few months ago I would have agreed – but now, well, things have changed. When my colleague, palaeontologist…

20 December 2012

4g2sp3mc-1355963574 — The giant river lizard *Pannoniasaurus inexpectus* (top) was roughly six metres long. In life, the animal would have resembled the smaller, related *Aigialosaurus* (bottom). FunkMonk/Wikimedia Commons

‘Aquatic Komodo dragon’ was the ultimate river monster

By Mike Lee

An aquatic lizard twice the length of a Komodo dragon once lurked in rivers during the age of dinosaurs, according to a team of Hungarian-Canadian researchers. The 85 million-year-old Pannoniasaurus is…

5 December 2012

6jhxfx8f-1354666094 — A 240 million-year-old dinosaur was the size of a golden retriever with a very long tail. Natural History Museum Mark Witton

Dog-sized reptile extends the dinosaur age by 10 million years

By Mike Lee

Before this week, palaeontologists believed the earliest known dinosaurs were small bipedal creatures that lived 230 million years ago in South America. This “oldest known dinosaur” floor proved quite…

10 October 2012

R78q9yqx-1349828093 — DNA in bone appears to decay at a rate almost 400-times slower than previously thought. M.Bunce

Moa bones reveal DNA half-life but Jurassic Park remains fiction

By Michael Bunce, Murdoch University and Morten Erik Allentoft, University of Copenhagen

Moa birds disappeared from New Zealand following the arrival of human settlers in the 13th century, but their fossils now provide us with a valuable clues about long-term DNA survival and how DNA decays…

8 August 2012

V4fsmszt-1344396335 — Since the early 20th century, there have been claims that dinosaurs were warm-blooded. Bharath Kishore

Hot fuss: is warm-blooded dinosaur theory right or wrong?

By Ralph Molnar, Museum of Northern Arizona

Mark Twain reputedly said it wasn’t what he didn’t know that bothered him, but what he knew that wasn’t true. A recent contribution on dinosaur physiology in Nature, by palaeontologist Meike Köhler and…

21 June 2012

P7b36vn8-1340238059 — Dinosaur remains have been found on all continents, including Australia. Peter Trusler

Three decades, 37 bones: the long hunt for Victorian dinosaurs

By Thomas H. Rich, Museum Victoria and Roger Benson, University of Cambridge

Dinosaur remains have been found on every continent on Earth and we know these creatures dominated the planet’s ecosystems for around 140 million years. But despite their abundance elsewhere, few discoveries…

15 May 2012

Qcvjmczx-1336955691 — Cows' methane emissions can be measured with lasers, but it’s not that easy to measure emissions from an extinct sauropod. Mark Witton

How do you make a dinosaur burp in a bag? Measuring prehistoric methane

By David Wilkinson, Liverpool John Moores University

Last week my colleagues and I published a paper showing how methane emitted by dinosaurs could have affected the world’s climate. The media response was huge, with 100+ interviews by email and phone, and…

5 April 2012

R34756h5-1333587897 — Artist’s impression of an individual Yutyrannus. Dr Brian Choo

Dinosaurs of a feather: meet T-Rex’s fluffy cousin

By Mike Lee

It’s taken a century of debate, but in the past two decades we’re finally understanding where birds came from. Now, with a new study published in the journal Nature, Chinese and Canadian researchers have…

5 April 2012

8jhqy7bq-1333586897 — Yutyrannus huali is the largest known feathered animal, living or extinct. Artist's impression: Dr Brian Choo

Relative of T. Rex was biggest feathered animal ever

By Justin Norrie, The Conversation

A newly discovered species of feathered tyrannosaurus, Yutyrannus huali, grew up to 9 metres in length and weighed about 1400 kg, making it 40 times heavier than the largest previously known feathered…

28 July 2011

Dino_bird_photo_1 — Our “first” feathered friend no longer has the wind beneath its wings. Xing Lida and Liu Yi

Move over Archaeopteryx – an earlier bird caught the worm

By Steve Salisbury

As little as 15 years ago, the boundary between birds and dinosaurs was a fairly sharp one. On one side was Archaeopteryx, a 150 million-year-old magpie-sized creature from Bavaria, southern Germany, long…