Up the Evolutionary Tree by Scott LaFee - Eureka! on Creators.com

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Up the Evolutionary Tree

In the movie "Jurassic Park" and in popular (albeit misguided) dinosaur mythology, the foot claws of velociraptors are used to frightening effect, the terrifying instruments of disembowelment and death.

A new analysis based on fossil biomechanics, however, suggests the curved claws had a more benign use: They helped the turkey-sized velociraptors (actually much smaller than in the movies) climb trees.

Phil Manning, a paleontologist at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom, told New Scientist magazine that the claws weren't sharp enough to rip skin open. On the other hand, they would be useful climbing up trees where a velociraptor could perch, waiting for small, hapless prey to wander below.

Manning points to another similar dinosaur — the Microraptor — which lived 50 million years earlier than velociraptor, but possessed a similar body plan. Based on fossil evidence, microraptors leaped from trees onto prey using four feathered limbs to help guide them down.

Not everyone is convinced by Manning's argument. Other scientists note that dromaeosaurs like Utahraptor and Achillobator also sported sharp, curved claws. But they were big animals, up to 18 feet in length and weighing thousands of pounds. They would have been too big and heavy to climb trees.

In their cases, the claws would have lived up to their scary appearance.

BRAIN SWEAT

Jake and Susan visit the beach to collect seashells. They take a bag with them to hold their booty. Without knowing its dimensions, can you work out how many seashells Jake and Susan can put in the empty bag?

VERBATIM

They're a frightening bunch.

— Salim Ismail, executive director of the new Singularity University in Silicon Valley, on the first class of students who appear to already possess enough knowledge about technology to teach some of the classes they will be taking

BRAIN SWEAT ANSWER

Only one, after that the bag isn't empty.

ANTHROPOLOGY 101

In Lapland, it was the custom for young men gone-a-courting to provide regular gifts of brandy to a potential bride's father.

In order to maintain this supply, it was the custom of potential father-in-laws to delay marriage as long as possible.

PRIME NUMBERS

12,414,000 — Number of spam e-mails sent for every one that receives a response

Source: Vern Paxson, International Computer Science Institute (Berkeley)

QUIRKS OF NATURE

Ornithologists have announced that the Tasman booby, a kind of seabird, has not been extinct since the 18th century, as previously believed. Rather, the extant species has been consistently misidentified as its cousin, the masked booby.

PATENTLY ABSURD

The milk gun, patented in 2003, is a kind of hybrid baby's bottle/caulking gun. Load formula or liquified food into the gun's storage container, insert nipple-like feeding tip into baby's mouth and squeeze.

'TRUE FACTS'

Every year, approximately 100,000 sleeping Bangladeshis are bitten by snakes.

WHERE IN THE WORLD? ANSWER

The Lena River delta. The Lena is the easternmost of the three great Siberian rivers that flow into the Arctic Ocean (the others are the Ob and the Yenisei). It is the 10th longest river in the world, with the ninth largest watershed.

This false-color composite image (check it out online) was made using shortwave infrared, infrared and red wavelengths.

To find out more about Scott LaFee and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.