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Categories: Energy: Nuclear, Paleontology: Dinosaurs

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Dinosaurs dominated the world right up until a deadly asteroid hit the earth, leading to their mass extinction, some 66 million years ago, a landmark study reveals. Fresh insights into dinosaurs' ecosystems -- the habitats and food types that supported their lives -- suggests that their environments were robust and thriving, right up until that fateful day, at the end of the Cretaceous period.

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Scientists have found new evidence for how armored dinosaurs used their iconic tail clubs. The exceptional fossil of the ankylosaur Zuul crurivastator has spikes along its flanks that were broken and re-healed while the dinosaur was alive -- injuries that the scientists think were caused from a strike by another Zuul's massive tail club. This suggests ankylosaurs had complex behavior, possibly battling for social and territorial dominance or even engaging in a 'rutting' season for mates.

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Fossilized fragments of a skeleton, hidden within a rock the size of a grapefruit, have helped upend one of the longest-standing assumptions about the origins of modern birds.

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The oldest Pterodactylus specimen was found near Painten, Germany. The fossil is about one million years older than other Pterodactylus specimens. The specimen is a complete, well-preserved skeleton of a small-sized individual. With a 5-cm-long skull, it represents a rare 'sub-adult' individual.

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Researchers have successfully extended the quantum phase difference estimation algorithm, a general quantum algorithm for the direct calculations of energy gaps, to enable the direct calculation of energy differences between two different molecular geometries. This allows for the computation, based on the finite difference method, of energy derivatives with respect to nuclear coordinates in a single calculation.

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Small modular nuclear reactors, which offer greater flexibility and lower upfront cost than large nuclear reactors, have both some advantages and disadvantages when it comes to nuclear waste generation.

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Researchers provide experimental data about how radiation travels through dense plasmas. Their data will improve plasma models, which allow scientists to better understand the evolution of stars and may aid in the realization of controlled nuclear fusion as an alternative energy source.

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Artificial intelligence has revealed that prehistoric footprints thought to be made by a vicious dinosaur predator were in fact from a timid herbivore.

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A new study has measured how long it takes for several kinds of exotic nuclei to decay. The paper marks the first experimental result from the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams. It is just a small taste of what's to come at the facility, which will become 400 times more powerful over the coming years. Scientists used the facility to better understand nuclei, the collection of protons and neutrons found at the heart of atoms. Understanding these basic building blocks allows scientists to refine their best models and has applications in medicine, national security, and industry.

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A research group has made a material that can effectively separate heavy water from normal water at room temperature. Until now, this process has been very difficult and energy intensive. The findings have implications for industrial -- and even biological -- processes that involve using different forms of the same molecule.

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A fossil discovery from Scotland has provided new information on the early evolution of lizards, during the time of the dinosaurs.

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Piecing together the crushed skull of a fossil bird that lived alongside the dinosaurs helped researchers extrapolate what its brain would have looked like: big olfactory bulbs would have meant that this bird, the earliest known animal to eat fruit, had a better sense of smell than most modern birds. And the bones around its eye sockets revealed that it would have been better at seeing by day than at night.

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Ostrich-like dinosaurs called ornithomimosaurs grew to enormous sizes in ancient eastern North America, according to a new study.

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A new precision measurement of the proton's electric polarizability has confirmed an unexplained bump in the data. The proton's electric polarizability shows how susceptible the proton is to deformation, or stretching, in an electric field. Like size or charge, the electric polarizability is a fundamental property of proton structure. The data bump was widely thought to be a fluke when seen in earlier measurements, so this new, more precise measurement confirms the presence of the anomaly and signals that an unknown facet of the strong force may be at work.

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A team of scientists believe our brains could use quantum computation, after adapting an idea developed to prove the existence of quantum gravity to explore the human brain and its workings. The brain functions measured were also correlated to short-term memory performance and conscious awareness, suggesting quantum processes are also part of cognitive and conscious brain functions. Quantum brain processes could explain why we can still outperform supercomputers when it comes to unforeseen circumstances, decision making, or learning something new, while the discovery may also shed light on consciousness, the workings of which remain scientifically difficult to understand and explain.

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A process of desiccation and deflation explains why dinosaur 'mummies' aren't as exceptional as we might expect, according to a study.

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Researchers have long studied the color-changing properties of the natural mineral hackmanite upon exposure to UV radiation or X-rays. Now, the research group studied the reactions of synthetic hackmanite to nuclear radiation. The researchers discovered a one-of-a-kind and novel intelligent quality, gamma exposure memory, which allows the use of hackmanite as e.g. radiation detector.

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Researchers have conducted a new analysis of the origins of 'bird-hipped' dinosaurs -- the group which includes iconic species such as Triceratops -- and found that they likely evolved from a group of animals known as silesaurs, which were first identified two decades ago.

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Researchers have discovered a new extinct species of lizard-like reptile that belongs to the same ancient lineage as New Zealand's living tuatara. A team of scientists describe the new species Opisthiamimus gregori, which once inhabited Jurassic North America about 150 million years ago alongside dinosaurs like Stegosaurus and Allosaurus. In life, this prehistoric reptile would have been about 16 centimeters (about 6 inches) from nose to tail -- and would fit curled up in the palm of an adult human hand -- and likely survived on a diet of insects and other invertebrates.

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Researchers have gained new insights into the chemical properties of the superheavy element flerovium -- element 114 -- at the accelerator facilities of the GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung in Darmstadt. The measurements show that flerovium is the most volatile metal in the periodic table.