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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ALAS poor Aegyptopithecus zeuxis! We knew you well.

Check out this story on The Australian:

THE brain of an ancestor of humans, apes and monkeys has been reconstructed for the first time, suggesting that the sophisticated mental capacity of modern primates evolved later than generally thought.

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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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