Word: fossilizing
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...latest twist in the global-warming equation involves the effects of the tiny droplets of sulfuric acid that gather in the atmosphere wherever fossil fuels are burned. These droplets help reflect sunlight, counteracting the effects of greenhouse gases. But the cooling may not be concentrated in exactly the same place as the heating, says Stephen Schneider, a climatologist at Stanford. He notes that unlike greenhouse gases, which disperse rapidly around the globe, the sulfate droplets tend to concentrate over industrialized regions -- the U.S., Europe, the former Soviet Union. The result, he says, may be a localized skewing of the weather...
...maybe it was one of those Jurassic Park deals: a fossil mosquito left over from the Johnson Administration must have bitten our fine young "new Democrat" and turned him overnight into a paleoliberal, crashing through the jungle taxing and spending...
...reverse that trend is to discourage the use of fossil fuels by raising energy taxes. Clinton has already proposed a tax on various forms of energy that would take the country about a quarter of the way to the target for carbon dioxide reduction. But even this modest proposal is running into opposition, and it is hard to imagine a more ambitious tax getting anywhere on Capitol Hill...
This rewriting of conventional wisdom has accelerated in the past 10 years. New fossil beds have been found and old ones rediscovered in the Gobi Desert, along the ancient Silk Road in the mountains of China, on the margin of the Argentine Andes and in the jungles of Laos and Thailand. Despite the remarkably small number of scientists working in the field -- only about 100 worldwide, splitting a meager $1 million in research funds -- a new dinosaur species is found on average every seven weeks...
...notion that dinosaurs and birds are related dates back over a century. In 1861, quarry workers near Solnhofen, Germany, uncovered the fossil of a pigeon-size creature. Its bone structure and teeth were similar to those of dinosaurs. Yet along with the bones, the 150 million-year-old limestone in which it was trapped had also preserved the unmistakable impressions of feathers and wings. It was ultimately decided that Archaeopteryx, as it was named, was a transitional animal, related to dinosaurs but well along the evolutionary pathway to modern birds...