Dinosaur Burrows Yield Clues to Climate Change

On the heels of his discovery in Montana of the first trace fossil of a dinosaur burrow, Emory University paleontologist Anthony Martin has found evidence of more dinosaur burrows – this time on the other side of the world, in Victoria, Australia. The find, to be published this month in Cretaceous Research, suggests that burrowing behaviors were shared by dinosaurs of different species, in different hemispheres, and spanned millions of years during the Cretaceous Period, when some dinosaurs lived in polar environments.

"This research helps us to better understand long-term geologic change, and how organisms may have adapted as the Earth has undergone periods of global cooling and warming," says Martin.

Drawing by James Hays, Fernbank Museum

A year after the Montana find, Martin traveled to the Victoria coast, which marks the seam where Australia once snuggled against Antarctica. Lower Cretaceous strata of Victoria have yielded the best-documented assemblage of polar dinosaur bones in the world.

During a hike to a remote site known as Knowledge Creek, west of Melbourne, Martin rounded the corner of an outcropping and was astounded to see, right at eye level, the trace fossil of what appeared to be a burrow almost identical to the one he had identified in Montana. "I stared at it for a long time," recalls Martin. "In paleontology, the saying, 'where luck meets preparation' really holds true."

Read reports on Martin's find from the BBC and National Geographic.

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Digging dinosaur discovered in fossil den
Crayfish fossils provide missing evolutionary link
Paleontologist tracks clues to ancient life

A creek runs through this teacher workshop

Each summer, Oxford College biology faculty help teachers from K–12 schools across Georgia and north Florida get their feet wet in field ecology. Now in its 18th year, the workshop has given more than 300 science educators training in how to develop their schoolyards for environmental education. “Many participants have told us this has changed the way they teach,” says Oxford Biology Professor Eloise Carter.

Watch an Emory Report slideshow to see what critters the teachers found in Bear Creek this summer.

Get a masters in sustainable development

New degree program puts Emory at forefront of transforming global development practice.

The graduate school will launch a master’s degree program in development practice in the fall of 2010, funded by a $900,000 MacArthur Foundation grant. The grant is part of a significant, worldwide effort by the MacArthur Foundation to promote more effective, sustainable development for the poorest of the poor. Only 10 institutions were awarded the grants, including three universities in the United States, with the rest spread across the globe.

“Emory will be helping to shape and define the future of sustainable development practices, while also training the next generation of innovative practitioners,” says David Nugent, professor of anthropology and director of the new program.

Related stories:
The view from East Congo
Averting the next food crisis

August rumor swirls around Mars

"Every year about this time, people say to me, 'Gee, I hear Mars is going to get really close to the Earth in August, and it will look as big as the moon,'" says Emory astronomer Horace Dale. "I wish there was something we could do to stamp out this rumor."

The annual Mars hoax began in 2003. In August of that year, the Red Planet came within 34 million miles of the Earth, which is pretty close, in astronomical terms -- and the closest it had been in more than 59,000 years. But even then, it only looked like a large, bright star to the naked eye.

"If you ever look up in the sky and Mars is the size of the moon, then something has seriously gone wrong with the laws of physics," Dale says.

Dale created a Mars Geocentric Distance Calculator, and he now refers people to it when they ask him about the Mars myth. Every 780 days, Mars reaches its synodic period – when it is the closest to Earth during its orbit. Dale's calculator lets you keep track of when the Red Planet is getting closer to Earth, and when it is moving away.

"For all of you that are die-hard Mars fans," Dale says, "first let me say that there is nothing wrong with Mars’ orbit, everything is normal. Even though Mars will not be making a close approach this year, you can see it now early in the morning just above and slightly toward the
south of Venus. Mars will remain predominantly a morning object through October, rising slightly earlier each night. Then by mid-November it will be rising around 11:00pm and getting brighter as it prepares to make its close approach on January 27th, 2010 at a distance of about 67 million miles. While this approach will not be as spectacular as it was in 2003, it is still
worth a look."


(Photo by Horace Dale)

Where science meets spirituality

Biologist Arri Eisen writes in Religion Dispatches:

"Do bacteria require light?" Tashi, one of my best students, wants to know. He sits there in Dharamsala, India, like his Buddhist monk colleagues, cross-legged on the floor in maroon robes, six hours a day learning science from a tall white Jewish guy from North Carolina.

Beyond the coolness factor, what in the world is the point of teaching science to a bunch of monks halfway around the world?”

Can you say ‘globalization,’ ‘religion,’ ‘science and technology’?

Read more.

(Photo by Ajay Pillarisetti)