By Agence France-Presse

PARIS — A Japanese researcher has put paleo-biologists in a flap by suggesting pterosaurs — the winged lizards beloved of toymakers and dino movies — were unable to fly, New Scientist says.

Katsufumi Sato of the University of Tokyo carried out an unusual study on the Crozet Islands, in the southern Indian Ocean, to test flying ability among large sea birds.

He attached accelerometers the size of AA batteries to the wings of 28 birds from five large species, including the wandering albatross, the world’s biggest flying bird.

Albatrosses fly by riding shifting winds, thanks to wings spanning 3.5 metres (11.4 feet) whose shape can be varied to exploit each draft.

When there is no wind, or if the wind blows at a constant speed, the bird can only stay aloft by flapping its wings, otherwise it is forced down by gravity and air resistance.

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INQUIRER.NET executive editor Leo Magno visits The Field Museum for a close encounter with “Sue,” the world’s most complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton. Sue was named after Sue Hendrickson, the American paleontologist who discovered the skeleton.

By Richard Ingham
Agence France-Presse

PARIS–The extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago can be traced to a collision between two monster rocks in the asteroid belt nearly 100 million years earlier, scientists report on Wednesday.

The smash drove a giant sliver of rock into Earth’s path, eventually causing the climate-changing impact that ended the reign of the dinosaurs and enabled the rise of mammals — including, eventually, us.

Other asteroid fragments smashed into the Moon, Venus and Mars, pocking their faces with mighty craters, the US and Czech researchers believe.

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SO, did the T-rex taste like chicken, heh

If you’ve read or watched “Jurassic Park,” then you’ve heard the hypothesis that birds evolved from dinosaurs. But researchers now have unearthed new evidence of the evolutionary link between dinosaurs and birds.

Here’s an excerpt from one of the stories that came out about the Tyrannosaurus rex fossil:

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