Word: specimen
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...demonstrably closer links to al-Qaeda and jihad. It is his target audience. Al-Awlaki aims his sermons at young Muslims mostly living in the U.S. and Britain. This is a group he understands better than any other radical preacher. In his fluent English, he has become that rare specimen: the jihadist cleric who can communicate effortlessly with audiences in the West. His tone and his message can appear seductively conciliatory. Most of his sermons have nothing at all to do with radical ideology; they are simple translations from the Koran and stories about the life of the Prophet Muhammad...
Kelley was also involved in creating an online gazetteer that helps researchers to locate places in the region—sorting out the confusion that can arise from the propagation of a variety of transliterated names. The site also makes accessible a database of specimen images and descriptions...
...Raptorex came to light, meanwhile, is a story in itself. About three years ago, Sereno, who usually does his own fossil-hunting, was approached by ophthalmologist and avid fossil collector Henry Kriegstein for help in identifying a newly purchased specimen. Kriegstein had bought the fossil legally, but when Sereno saw it, he became convinced it was from China and that it had almost certainly been smuggled out of that country. "I told him that I'd help," says Sereno, "but only if he was willing to donate the fossil to science and let us return it to China when...
Kriegstein agreed. Sereno, in turn, gave the remarkable specimen Kriegstein's surname (in honor of his parents, Holocaust survivors who are still alive), and listed Kriegstein as a co-author on perhaps the most important paleontology paper of the year. "In the normal course of things," says Sereno, "this fossil could have ended up on someone's mantelpiece or been forgotten in an attic somewhere and lost to science. Now China gets its property back, and Dr. Kriegstein has found immortality for his family. Everybody wins...
...both branches, which suggests that she could be a transitional animal that gave rise to the anthropoids and, ultimately, to us. "How transitional it is," says Novacek, "is a matter of debate and further study. I expected that from the beginning. The ratio of vertebrate paleontologists to actual specimens is high, which makes for a lot of theorizing." A specimen like this will reduce the theorizing, but in the end it may not settle anything...