In fossilized dinosaur poop, scientists find hidden treasure:
You might think fossilized feces are only full of crap, but new research on one specimen has turned up a hidden treasure: a 230-million-year-old, previously undiscovered beetle species.
Named Triamyxa coprolithica, the tiny beetles are also the first insects to be described from fossilized feces — or coprolites — and were visible by a scanning method that uses strong X-ray beams, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Current Biology. Besides the discovery of the beetles in a coprolite, the scientific name also refers to the Triassic period, which lasted from roughly 252 million to 201 million years ago, and the suborder of bugs called Myxophaga — small aquatic or semiaquatic beetles that eat algae.
"Insect fossils of this type, preserved in three-dimensions like this, are practically unheard of from the Triassic, so this discovery is very important," said Sam Heads, the director and chief curator of the PRI Center for Paleontology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, via email. Heads wasn't involved in the study.
"I was really amazed to see how well preserved the beetles were, when you modeled them up on the screen, it was like they were looking right at you," said the study's first author Martin Qvarnström, a paleontologist and postdoctoral fellow at Uppsala University, Sweden, in a statement. "This is facilitated by coprolites' calcium phosphatic composition. This together with early mineralization by bacteria likely helped to preserve these delicate fossils."
Calcium phosphate is critical for bone formation and maintenance, and mineralization is when organic compounds are converted into inorganic compounds during decomposition processes.
Based on the size, shape and other anatomical features of fossilized droppings analyzed in prior research by the authors of the current study, the scientists concluded the coprolites were excreted by Silesaurus opolensis, a small dinosaur roughly 6.6 feet long that weighed around 33.1 pounds and lived in Poland around 230 million years ago during the Triassic age.
[Editor's Note: I cannot access the site from Europe unless I use a VPN in the USA]
Never let the bastards grind you down, J., - this link works in the EU too: New Species of Beetle Discovered in Dinosaur Ancestor’s 230 Million-Year-Old Poop. -- FP.
Journal Reference:
Martin Qvarnström, Martin Fikáček, Joel Vikberg Wernström, et al. Exceptionally preserved beetles in a Triassic coprolite of putative dinosauriform origin [OPEN] Current Biology (DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2021.05.015)
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by Anti-aristarchus on Tuesday July 06 2021, @06:12AM (8 children)
And why is that a problem, for we persons of science? We created this network, to be a medium of shared knowledge and enlightenment. Nation-states need to be brought down, rendered meaningless. Use the Vpn, Use all the Vpns, we need to restore the internet to what it was meant to be. Not another pron TV channel. You can't stop the signal, Mal. You can't stop the signal.
(Score: 1, Troll) by c0lo on Tuesday July 06 2021, @06:21AM (6 children)
Because those corporations providing VPNs do need to get some profits. Me reckons you forgot to mention "profit" as one of the reasons Internet exists. I'm sure the inventor of the Internet, Al Gore, didn't forget it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2, Troll) by Anti-aristarchus on Tuesday July 06 2021, @06:34AM (5 children)
Shirley, my dear colleague c0lo, you realize that the Internets was created by CERN, to share data? Only much later, after the Eternal September, did the .com and AOL barge into the scene with their tawdry whore-mongering, and business plans. Pets.com!!! Forever!
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Tuesday July 06 2021, @06:46AM (4 children)
(i shouldav grinned)
Shirley, my dear anti-magister, you remember that CERN can only be credited for the http/HTML. And the Internet is much older than that.
Still, profit has a strong merit that the Internet today is still booming - the US space program wasn't that lucky after the fall of CCCP (made them Cyrillic)
And indeed, Al Gore does have a merit in the Internet as we know today, the TCP/IP designers payed due credit to him [vox.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by Anti-aristarchus on Tuesday July 06 2021, @06:53AM (3 children)
Fairy enough, my Communist survivor! But there is still the DARPA roots. Survivability. The internet interprets censorship as damage, and routes around it, as well it should.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday July 06 2021, @08:20AM (2 children)
I doubt it is still the case today, especially when the attacker just needs to fuck just a bit the BGP configuration to have the whole traffic to/from USofA routed through China for a day or so.
Nukes are no longer necessary.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 07 2021, @07:13AM (1 child)
If nukes are no longer required then why is china building so many of then?
Are we the beetles crawling through the digestive system of the earth?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday July 07 2021, @08:07AM
Lemme see if I understood your question correctly:
Context
If that's correct, here's my answer, my dear AC: china is building so many nukes just to keep you scared silly you'll lose your connection to NetFlix, Facebook and Soylentnews.
Now, you can sleep proud of yourself for forcing china waste billions of dollars for such a stupid thing, there'll be time tomorrow too to live with that fear.
I hope my answer is entirely satisfactory for you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 1) by beernutz on Tuesday July 06 2021, @04:01PM
I know this is a little bit nit-picky, but that Serenity quote always bothered me. "You can't stop the signal, Mal. You can't stop the signal."
Except you CAN stop the signal. And acutally, it's not even difficult. A faraday cage does a pretty great job of stopping the signal.
Ok, nerd rant over. 8)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 06 2021, @06:15AM (1 child)
And I, for one, appreciated the IRC discussion on this sub. Made me think, of Victory! Or, Napalm in the Spring.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 06 2021, @01:43PM
Look to the Old Poops to find old bugs.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 06 2021, @06:26AM (1 child)
Bad, very bad name.
"Trumpus coprophilicus" would have been much better. First, it eats shit, second it's as evolved as the dinosaurs and last, but not least, it worth being buried in shit as a warning to anyone willing to follow the same path.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Tuesday July 06 2021, @09:16AM
It's probably a species related to Cambridge Analytica: both made a living from shit and both drowned in it.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 06 2021, @08:04AM
Would it kill you to come up with a sensible headline rather than the clickbait one?
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Tuesday July 06 2021, @08:41AM
This is probably the URL that should have been under New Species of Beetle Discovered in Dinosaur Ancestor’s 230 Million-Year-Old Poop [scitechdaily.com].
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday July 06 2021, @08:49PM
Decades ago, in college, summers between I worked at one of those stores along an interstate highway. You could stop for gas and food. There was also a novelty shop with candy and um 'novelties'.
One such item that people would buy was "petrified" (if that's the right word? but it's the word they used) dino poop.
So it must have value if people will buy it.
Brings back memories of those old mechanical NCR cash registers.
The anti vax hysteria didn't stop, it just died down.