Word: paleontologist
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...Darwin's friend Thomas Henry Huxley first proposed a theory, based on his observation of broad anatomical similarities, that birds might be descended from the dinosaurs. But for decades, nobody could produce much detailed physical evidence to back up the theory. It wasn't until the 1970s that Yale paleontologist John Ostrom began building a bone-by-bone case for the link--at least for theropod dinosaurs, which include velociraptors and tyrannosaurs. By the mid-1990s, the list of parts common to birds and dinos included wishbones, breastbones, three-toed feet, hollow bones and swiveling wrist joints...
...reassemble an old musical needs a mix of showmanship and scholarship--a paleontologist's digging and Poirot's powers of inference. "Did they use this harmony, or did they mean it to be that harmony?" says Rob Fisher, 45, the series' musical director and local hero. "I agonize over this, because I want the score to sound exactly as it did originally." No reclamation project has been as daunting as that of St. Louis Woman. "There was no score," Fisher says, "just scraps of material." Ace orchestrators Ralph Burns and Luther Henderson re-created--and, for the overture and dance...
They don't hold White House lunches the way they used to at the beginning of the century. On Jan. 1, 1907, for example, the guest list was as follows: a Nobel prizewinner, a physical culturalist, a naval historian, a biographer, an essayist, a paleontologist, a taxidermist, an ornithologist, a field naturalist, a conservationist, a big-game hunter, an editor, a critic, a ranchman, an orator, a country squire, a civil service reformer, a socialite, a patron of the arts, a colonel of the cavalry, a former Governor of New York, the ranking expert on big-game mammals in North...
...since the early 1800s--gorgeously preserved specimens of prehistoric fish and a few birds. No dinosaurs, though. While the rocks date back some 110 million years, smack in the middle of the terrible lizards' reign, not a single dinosaur bone had ever been found there. As far as amateur paleontologist Giovanni Todesco knew, that dismal record was still intact even after he unearthed a 9-in.-long specimen about a decade ago. The nearly complete skeleton, missing only its tail and the lower part of its legs, looked as if it belonged to a bird, and that's what Todesco...
...result, the newly named Scipionyx samniticus may end up telling paleontologists more about the anatomy of theropods--a group of two-legged dinosaurs--than they could ever learn from bones alone. The group, which includes Tyrannosaurus rex as well as velociraptors, is considered by many to comprise the direct ancestors of modern birds. Having the internal organs in hand could help support--or torpedo--that connection. Already, in fact, some scientists are suggesting that the position of the liver indicates an internal structure more like a lizard's than a bird's, undercutting the dinosaur-bird link. Its breastbone...