And interestingly, just like this dinosaur, the correct pronunciation of Uranus (YOOR-uh-nus) isn't dirty. That doesn't stop the giggling of middle schoolers.

Not a dinosaur, but damn this is a big bug

Monster Sea Scorpion

This'n'd take a bit more'n a pint'a melted buttah. :eek:

Yeah you'd need one hell of a cray pot.

Just the one though, eh...? I have been hearing some good things about this stuff called beer - might go and try some myself tonight.

Dee-no-saow. That's how they say it here in Thailand; somehow, I doubt the scientific name will get a look in...

In the papers here, we have big news about the 10 foot scorpion - is that making the news elsewhere in the world?

I believe the latest fossil evidence suggests that it was beer and cigarettes which caused the dinosaur extinction.

I agree... Who knows, maybe some 100 million years away in the future, some other 'living thing' will be saying the same about the human race..:D

Must be the same impulse that makes me chuckle when they claim to have 'cracked' the genetic code of clostridium difficile.

Clostridium Difficile

The scientific article mentioned in the news story link above has been published online at the following link if anyone is interested.

http://www.plosone.org/article/fetch...l.pone.0001230

I see nothing wrong about the dinosaurs name. It is in Latin not in English? Maybe ban Latin then?

When mispronounced in the U.S. it would sound like a racial epithet.

It’s bad enough that they couldn’t stick to naming hurricanes after women.

Do you know the politically correct term for mailman?

It’s personperson. :rolleyes:

Anothery

Fossil of 'ultimate predator' unearthed in Arctic

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fazstp, you beat me to it. I was looking at various articles on this beast the other day. Were it cruising the world’s oceans today, then I suspect there would be far fewer small boats out at sea. That’s one hefty dinosaur!

Is that how you pronounce it? Never heard that, I've always used the "dirty" pronunciation and damn the torpedoes. I would have said that the authentic Greek pronunciation was "OO-ran-os", there's no reason for the Y sound. OTOH we do say YOOR-anium, from the same root. Means "heaven", IIRC.

Regarding Niger the country, maybe both it and Nigeria should have gone the Ghana and Zimbabwe route of rebranding with a "native" name. Some European explorer must have decided to call that whacking big river the Niger, presumably after the skin colour of the inhabitants, unless it was the water; which name was then transferred to two colonial constructions. Perhaps we should rename a Northern country "Pastyfacia" to make up for it.....;) The big pre-colonial kingdoms in those parts were Benin and Mali, both the names of modern countries, and there's a Benin Province in Nigeria too. (I note that Civ 4, which I've just started playing, has a civ called Mali, under Mansa Musa, instead of the Zulus that earlier versions used. Cool. Mali has really great music, btw. -- Habib Koité and others.)

We have gators... over 28 ft (6.5 meters)

No - see the Wikipediia article on the etymology:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niger_River#Etymology

Well I never! That was interesting, thanks.

So, Preditor X, that's an interesting name. Did they give up on the Latin naming scheme? I guess Preditor X would make for a better movie title if you think about it...

Furthermore, how on earth do they figure out some of the things they do? They say that it would have only used the rear flipper when it needed extra speed, and that it would use it's front flippers when it's "cruising". How could you know something like that? Time machines?

That being said, I had a roomie who was a paleontologist, and he repeatedly amazed me with just how much you can deduce from information like this. So, I suppose my question "How do they know that" should have an emphasis on the How, rather than the that.

I think it's a mixture of finding modern biological equivalents to guess at their behaviours and scaling up mechanical properties of their skeletons to establish physical limitations.

Some of the things they come up with seem a bit of a stretch. Like "We found a new fossil. We only found part of the third vertebrae but we think it looked like this...".