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Once found almost entirely in the western United States and in As. ia, dinosaur fossils are now being discovered on all seven continents. A host of new revelations emerged in 1998 that promise to reshape scientists' views of dinosaurs, including what they looked like and when and where they lived.
It is doubtful that Tyrannosaurus Rex had lips or that Triceratops had cheeks, says Lawrence Witmer, an assistant professor of anatomy at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. Witmer was a leading researcher for a study on dinosaur anatomy that was presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Vertebrate Paleontology, which concluded on October 3 in Snowbird, Utah.
Witmer's study reached its conclusions by using high-tech computerized axial tomography (CT or CAT) scans along with comparative anatomy studies. For example, the theory that Triceratops and similar dinosaur species had cheeks was based on past comparisons with mammals such as sheep. But Witmer's careful analysis found the structure of the triceratops jaw and skull made it more likely that Triceratops had a beak like that of an eagle. Witmer said that scientists should use birds and crocodiles as models when researching the appearance of dinosaurs.
In early October scientists announced that they had confirmed the discovery of a new type of ceratopsian dinosaur. The dinosaur's bones, found in New Mexico in 1996, are forcing paleontologists to rethink their theories about when eeratopsians migrated to what is now North America.
Scientists previously thought that ceratopsians, the group that included the well known Triceratops, arrived in North America from Asia between 70 million and 80 million years ago. During this time, the late Cretaceous Period, the earth's two supercontinents—Laurasia in the north and Gondwanaland in the south—were in the process of pulling apart, cutting dinosaur populations off from each other and interrupting migratory patterns.
The fossilized bones, found by eight-year-old Christopher Wolfe and his father, paleontologist Doug Wolfe of the Mesa Southwest Museum in Arizona, date to about 90 million years ago. This could mean that ceratopsians originated in North America and migrated to Asia rather than the reverse, paleontologists said. Doug Wolfe named' the important new species of dinosaur Zuniceratops Christopheri after his son.
An expedition from the Universities of Alaska in Anchorage and Fairbanks has discovered a region in remote northern Alaska so rich in fossilized dinosaur tracks that team members dubbed it the "dino expressway". The trampled area was found during the summer of 1998 on Alaska's North Slope near the Brooks Range.
The team found 13 new track sites and made casts from the prints of five different types of dinosaurs. The rock in which the prints were found dates to more than 100 million years ago, or about 25 million years older than the previously discovered signs of dinosaurs in the Arctic region. Paleontologists said that the new findings provide important evidence that dinosaurs migrated between Asia and North America during the early and mid-Cretaceous Period, before Asia split off into its own continent.
Two rich fossil sites in the hills of Bolivia have been recently discovered, exciting paleontologists and dinosaur buffs. This discovery includes one of the most spectacular dinosaur trackways ever found.
The discovery of a large site in the mountain region of Kila Kila in southern Bolivia was announced in early October. Here scientists found the tracks of at least two unknown species of dinosaur. These included a large quadruped (four-footed) dinosaur that was probably about 20m (about 70 ft) long.
The other site, located not far from the Bolivian city of Sucre, was uncovered in a cement quarry by workers several years ago but was not brought to paleontologists' attention until the middle of 1998. The site features a
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Computers have aided in the study of humanities for almost as long as the machines have existed. Decades ago, when the technology consisted solely of massive, number- crunching mainframe. computers, the chief liberal arts applications were in compiling statistical indexes of works of literature. In 1964, IBM held a conference on computers and the humanities where, according to a 1985 article in the journal Science, "most of the conferees were using computers to compile concordances, which are alphabetical indices used in literary research."
Mainframe. computers helped greatly in the highly laborious task, which dates back to the Renaissance, of cataloging each reference of a particular word in a particular work. Concordances help scholars scrutinize important texts for patterns and meaning. Other humanities applications for computers in this early era of technology included compiling dictionaries, especially for foreign or antiquated languages, and cataloging library collections.
Such types of computer usage in the humanities may seem limited at first, but they have produced some interesting results in the last few years and promise to continue to do so. As computer use and access have grown, so has the number of digitized texts of classic literary works.
The computer-based study of literary texts has established its own niche in academia. Donald Foster, an English professor at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, is one of the leaders in textual scholarship. In the late 1980s Foster created SHAXICON, a database that tracks all the "rare" words used by English playwright William Shakespeare. Each of these words appears in any individual Shakespeare play no more than 12 times. The words can then be cross-referenced with some 2,000 other poetic texts, allowing experienced researchers to explore when they were written, who wrote them, how the author was influenced by the works of other writers, and how the texts changed as they were reproduced over the centuries.
In late 1995 Foster's work attracted widespread notice when he claimed that Shakespeare was the anonymous author of an obscure 578-1ine poem, A Funeral Elegy (1612). Although experts had made similar claims for other works in the past, Foster gained the backing of a number of prominent scholars because of his computer-based approach. If Foster's claim holds up to long-term judgment, the poem will be one of the few additions to the Shakespearean canon in the last 100 years.
Foster's work gained further public acclaim and validation when he was asked to help identify the anonymous author of the best-selling political novel Primary Colours (1996). After using his computer programme to compare the stylistic traits of various writers with those in the novel, Foster tabbed journalist Joe Klein as the author. Soon after, Klein admitted that he was the author. Foster was also employed as an expert in the case of the notorious Unabomber, a terrorist who published an anonymous manifesto in several major newspapers in 1995.
Foster is just one scholar who has noted the coming of the digital age and what it means for traditional fields such as literature. "For traditional learning and humanistic scholarship to be preserved, it, too, must be digitized," he wrote in a scholarly paper. "The future success of literary scholarship depends on our ability to integrate those electronic texts with our ongoing work as scholars and teachers, and to exploit fully the advantages offered by the new medium."
Foster noted that people can now study Shakespeare via Internet Shakespeare Editions, using the computer to compare alternate wordings in different versions and to consult editorial footnotes, literary criticism, stage history, explanatory graphics, video clips, theater reviews, and archival records. Novelist and literary journalist Gregory Feeley noted that "the simplest (and least radical) way in which computer technol
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Tube placement isn't a terribly risky procedure, but it costs $1,000 to $1,500 and sometimes scars the eardrum, causing a partial loss of hearing. Studies show that the benefits are most likely to outweigh the risks if a child's middle ear has produced sticky fluid for more than four months despite treatment with antibiotics. For less virulent infections, drug treatment is usually a cheaper, safer alternative (though drugs, too, can be overused). In the new JAMA study, Kleinman's team reviewed the medical charts of 6,429 kids, all under 16, whose doctors had recommended the procedure. Even making "generous assumptions" about the likely benefits, the researchers found that a quarter of the proposed operations were inappropriate, since less invasive alternatives were available, while another third were as likely to harm the recipients as help them.
Parents needn't panic about ear tubes that are already in place. Once successfully implanted, the tiny devices provide drainage for six months to a year, then come out by reducing health costs by hundreds of millions of dollars every year.
In the 1940s ______.
Farmers in the developing world hate price fluctuations. It makes it hard to plan ahead. But most of them have little choice: they sell at the price the market sets. Farmers in Europe, the US and Japan are luckier: they receive massive government subsidies in the form. of guaranteed prices or direct handouts. Last month US President Bush signed a new farm bill that gives American farmers $190 billion over the next 10 years, or $83 billion more than they had been scheduled to get, and pushes US agricultural support close to crazy European levels. Bush said the step was necessary to "promote farmer independence and preserve the farm way of life for generations". It is also designed to help the Republican Party win control of the Senate in November's midterm elections.
Agricultural production in most poor countries accounts for up to 50% of GDP, compared to only 3% in rich countries. But most farmers in poor countries grow just enough for themselves and their families. Those who try exporting to the West find their goods whacked with huge tariffs or competing against cheaper subsidized goods. In 1999 the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development concluded that for each dollar developing countries receive in aid they lose up to $14 just because of trade barriers imposed on the export of their manufactured goods. It's not as if the developing world wants any favours, says Gerald Ssendawula, Uganda's Minister of Finance. "What we want is for the rich countries to let us compete."
Agriculture is one of the few areas in which the Third World can compete. Land and labour are cheap, and as farming methods develop, new technologies should improve output. This is no pie-in-the-sky speculation. The biggest success in Kenya's economy over the past decade has been the boom in exports of cut flowers and vegetables to Europe. But that may all change in 2008, when Kenya will be slightly too rich to qualify for the "least-developed country" status that allows African producers to avoid paying stiff European import duties on selected agricultural products. With trade barriers in place, the horticulture industry in Kenya will shrivel as quickly as a discarded rose. And while agriculture exports remain the great hope for poor countries, reducing trade barriers in other sectors also works: America's African Growth and Opportunity Act, which cuts duties on exports of everything from handicrafts to shoes, has proved a boon to Africa's manufacturers. The lesson: the Third World can prosper if the rich world gives it a fair go.
This is what makes Bush's decision to increase farm subsidies last month all the more depressing. Poor countries have long suspected that the rich world urges trade liberalization only so it can wangle its way into new markets. Such suspicions caused the Seattle trade talks to break down three years ago. But last November members of the World Trade Organization, meeting in Doha, Qatar, finally agreed to a new round of talks designed to open up global trade in agriculture and textiles. Rich countries assured poor countries that their concerns were finally being addressed. Bush's handout last month makes a lie of America's commitment to those talks and his personal devotion to free trade.
By comparison, farmers receive more government subsidies than others.
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