This is actually a trailer for the Half Life 2 mod Dino D-Day, but both the video and the mod present a bizarre, pulpy alternate history of the Normandy Landings. Although I sincerely doubt the troops would have had much success punching Nazi dinos in the face.

[via Discovery News]

The study, published in PLoS ONE, looks at whether dinosaurs were ectothermic (cold-blooded), like modern-day reptiles, or endothermic (warm-blooded) like birds and mammals. Endothermic animals are more athletic than ectotherms, and are better able to survive in colder climates. But the payoff is that endotherms must consume more food than ectotherms because of their higher metabolisms.

Thus, the study authors examined the physiology of dinosaurs to determine whether the energy they would have expended exceeded what an ectothermic system could supply. Herman Pontzer of Washington University in St Louis has studied the relationship between the cost of locomotion and the length of an animal's leg. He has found that length of leg predicts the cost of locomotion with 98 percent accuracy in various land mammals, and estimated the length of various dinosaur legs based on fossil records. He and his colleagues looked at anatomical models of 14 species of dinosaur and compared the estimated cost of locomotion with those of modern-day endotherms and ectotherms. They found that the cost of locomotion was similar to that endotherms experience, and that walking and running would have consumed too much energy for dinosaurs to be cold-blooded. The findings suggest that dinosaurs were, in fact, powerful athletes — and that they needed a constant supply of food to maintain their energy.

Biomechanics of Running Indicates Endothermy in Bipedal Dinosaurs [PLoS ONE]

AICN spoke with The Wolfman director Johnston and managed to wrangle out a few hypotheticals out of the Jurassic Park 3 director. After saying the only way he'd get involved would be to revamp the franchise and take it completely off of the island, he explained why.

"Why would anybody go back to that island? It was hard enough to figure out the second and third reason for them to go, but it would take it off in a whole other trilogy basically, but when it gets to that level it's sort of about studios and Steven [Spielberg's] thing and who knows. I think we are at that point where we are due for another one if we are going to do it."

Off the island is very tricky, as it didn't work so swimmingly with Jurassic Park: Lost World. Personally I kind of like this idea. [Thanks, Gitemstevedave]...

Or they could just write a wholly original dinosaur story — I'm not sure which one is less likely to happen.

Many dinosaur species are experiencing a second extermination — death by reclassification. Thanks to new technologies that allow paleontologists to analyze the tissues in dinosaur fossils, many paleontologists are discovering that dinosaurs we once thought of as separate species are actually part of the same species, simply at different stages of their development. For example the Nanotyrannus, supposedly a diminutive cousin of the Tyrannosaurus Rex is probably just a juvenile version of the latter species. Similarly, the Torosaurus and the Dracorex hogwartsia have been stricken from the books, as they are likely members of previously discovered species.

In this week's issue of PLoS, Jack Horner of the Museum of the Rockies at Montana State University in Bozeman estimates that a third of dinosaur species currently listed are actually members of other speicies. So how were these creatures mislabeled for so long? As paleontologists are better able to determine the growth stage of dinosaur fossils, they are finding that many species retain their juvenile characteristics longer than previously believed, and as dinosaurs age, their characteristics undergo drastic changes.

So, Hogwarts may be losing its dinosaur, but its parent species, Pachycephalosaurus wyomingensis, is gaining a child.

New Analyses Of Dinosaur Growth May Wipe Out One-third Of Species [Science Daily]

Let us today pay tribute to the humble dinosaur. Without dinosaurs, Michael Crichton would have only been that complete loser who wrote The Andromeda Strain, museums would be tumbleweed-strewn burned-out shells of buildings, and The Land Before Time would have been ninety minutes worth of poignant shots of ‘tree-stars'. And comic books? Comic books would have gone the way of The Land Before Time. No other medium uses dinosaurs like comics uses dinosaurs. Below, see the top five dino-fights in comics and forget sad-eyed apatosauri forever.

5. The fifth-place dino fight wins a spot in this line-up through its originality and choice of dinosaur. When planning a dinosaur fight, so many people automatically go for the T-Rex. So many focus on conflict among dinosaurs, or among dinosaurs and humans. These people, while holding higher places on this list, will never understand the dignity, the good will, and yes, the poetry, of an organized pterodactyl strike.

(Some sticklers will recognize this as a still from the Batman: The Brave and the Bold animated series and say that it shouldn't be counted as it is not technically a comic. To you, I repeat Plastic Man's immortal words: "Are you seeing what I'm seeing? Because I'm seeing gorillas, riding pterodactyls, with harpoon guns, stealing a boat.")


That's right. Feel shame, pedants. Feel shame.

4. Our fourth-best dinosaur fight appears in Wolverine: Old Man Logan. Have a look.

‘What's so special about that,' you say? This:

A T-Rex chasing a jeep? Please. They did that in Jurassic Park.

A T-Rex chasing a jeep while people are shooting at it? Better.

A T-Rex chasing a jeep while a blind man shoots at it? By god, that's a good fight.

3. The third fight in this series starts on an ordinary, average day. Batman and the Green Lantern are hanging out in the Batcave and an alien monster attacks. You know, the kind of thing that happens when there's no big crossover event going on but something needs to happen in the premiere issue of The Brave and the Bold.

Because the attacking alien is a glowing energy-creature fifty feet tall, batarangs don't do much. Fortunately, there is one thing that Batman keeps in his cave that might do the trick; a giant animatronic dinosaur that Green Lantern can control with his ring.

Look at that. You can see why it wins the bronze. This fight is pure technical perfection. Batcave: check. Aliens: check. Batman and Green Lantern: check. Dinosaur: check.

What's that you say? It's not a real dinosaur? That's right. It's a robot. Leading to my final point.

Robots: check.

The fight is so awesome that even Batman has to take cover.

2. The second place fight snuck into the back pages of the final issues of DC's recently-completed Wednesday Comics. Hawkman, the superhero with the silliest headgear in the comics universe, fought a T-Rex. Unfortunately for him, he chose to taunt said Rex, and it responded the way all Tyrannosaurs do when you taunt them, or even when you don't. It kicked the crap out of him, and chased him to the beach and into the ocean. As it turns out, that was his clever plan all along, because Aquaman had come along as back-up.

One little picture can capture so much. A man body-surfing. A giant seahorse. An unrecognizable blur that turns out to be a squid tangling around a tyrannosaurus's legs. But none of those things are what made this fight take the second-place spot.

Look at the T-Rex's tail.

Yes. That's a shark. It's true that sharks inspire a lot of terror, but that's only because in the water they are hundreds of pound of muscle, thousands of teeth, perfectly streamlined, and probably heading for your legs . . . right . . . now.

Out of the water, pretty much all they do is twitch and asphyxiate. That doesn't stop this shark, though. If all it can do is gnaw some dino tail-tip, then that is what is going happen. Never have I seen such a perfect tribute to both the viciousness and the nobility of these often misunderstood creatures. It is like a whole Shark Week squeezed into one panel. One panel with a dinosaur in it.

1. This is Devil Dinosaur from Marvel's Nextwave.

This is Devil Dinosaur shattering a champagne flute in anticipation of kicking the crap out of the protagonists.

This is the protagonists pushing Devil Dinosaur's perfectly round mansion off of its foundations in the two-mile-high floating city it rests on. (Just go with it.)

This is Devil Dinosaur's reaction.

This is Devil Dinosaur's house bouncing off a mountain like a marble off an anthill.

And exploding.

It has to be said that I'm more of a DC person than a Marvel person. It also has to be said that there is good-natured rivalry maintained between those two companies.

Most importantly, though, it has to be said that, without question, Marvel wins the gold in this competition. They had to. They left everything out on the field, and it shows.

Honestly, this fight would have placed if it had stopped at the champagne flute move, because when a Tyrannosaurus Rex in a smoking jacket shatters a champagne flute prior to a fight, the reader has to respect the artistry inherent in that image. But the floating city, the globe-house, the game of pinball with the Alps, the revolver in a dinosaur's claw; it all added up to the most incredible, awe-inspiring, and piss-your-pants funny dinosaur fight of all time. My hat is off to you, Marvel. If this is all you ever do to make the world a better place, be proud. You have succeeded.

Designer Pedro Mealha created this lamp using a CNC laser cutter to create perfect shapes for the body of the lamp, then added metal bits to create elastic tension - and it looks like ball berings to balance the base. Very understated and very geeky. You can get this lamp, called rhizome, as a DiY set or fully-made.

Design Boom says:

The project emerged from his interest in wooden dinosaur kits and the way in which the various components are pieced together to gain a three-dimensional shape from a flat wooden panel. made from two A3 aeroply boards, rhizome uses an LED ring as a source of light. the lamp was initially intended to be for self-assembly for DIY enthusiasts, however, the project has now evolved into a ready assembled product made from 3mm bamboo ply and is fully extendible and can rotate.

via Design Boom

For comparison! This dinosaur set from RLP Woodware.

In a paper published yesterday on PLoS One, a group of international researchers described how they examined the fossils of several T-Rex specimens, and found ten separate individuals who showed signs of trichomonosis - a parasitic infection that eats through the jawbones of birds. The parasites cause lesions on the throat and lower jaw in birds, eventually eating into the bones. Birds of prey are particularly vulnerable to trichomonosis. But birds also possess a unique form of white blood cell called heterophil that isolates infections like trichomonosis to one region of the body and prevents them from spreading. So the birds don't actually die from the disease - instead, they starve to death because so much of their jaws and throats are eaten away that they can no longer swallow.

You can see the telltale lower jaw bone holes caused by trichomonosis in these T-Rex fossils. The researchers speculate that many dinosaurs died of the disease, and that T-Rex probably spread it during fights when they commonly bit each other on the head. Cannibalism is another possible way they spread the disease (birds today often get it from eating infected pigeons).

Paleontologist Ewan Wolff, who contributed to the paper, said:

The holes in tyrannosaur jaws occur in exactly the same place as in modern birds with trichomonosis. The shape of the holes and the way that they merge into the surrounding bone is very similar in both animals. The cause of these holes in tyrannosaurs has previously been attributed to tooth gouges from biting or bacterial infections, but we think a trichomonosis-type disease is much more likely given the position and nature of the holes.

Added his fellow researcher Steven Salisbury:

It's ironic to think that an animal as mighty as [T-Rex fossil] ‘Sue' probably died as a result of a parasitic infection. I'll never look at a feral pigeon the same way again.

Read the scientific paper via PLoS One

About the size of a big seagull, Anchiornis huxleyi is the oldest birdlike dinosaur ever discovered, which researcher Xing Xu and colleagues say makes this creature old enough to be a true precursor to birds. Other birdlike dinosaurs have come too late in the fossil record for scientists to be sure they were bird ancestors. As you can see from these sketches and images of the fossils themselves, Anchiornis huxleyi had long feathers on its arms and legs, suggesting that birds went through a phase of being four-winged before evolving into the current two-wing morphology.

According to a release about this discovery, which was published in Nature:

Anchiornis huxleyi was previously thought to be a primitive bird, but closer inspection reveals that it should be assigned to the Troodontidae - a group of dinosaurs closely related to birds. The authors date the fossil to the earliest Late Jurassic, meaning that it is the oldest bird-like dinosaur reported so far, and older than Archaeopteryx, the earliest known bird. They conclude that the presence of such a species at this time in the fossil record effectively disputes the argument that bird-like dinosaurs appeared too late to be the ancestors of birds.

via Nature [PDF]

Paleontologists recently found the remains of the Raptorex in a lake bed in Northern China. Like the Tyrannosaurus Rex, Raptorex sports an over-sized head, itty bitty forearms, strong jaws, and a runner's build — "jaws on legs" as Paul Sereno of the University of Chicago described it — but it was only one hundredth the mass of the T-Rex and stood a mere 3 meters in length.

It's the combination of its small stature and its classically T-Rex features that has paleontologists excited. Other smaller relatives of the Tyrannosaurus have lacked that dinosaur's tiny forearms and comparatively large head, which has long caused paleontologists to suspect those adaptations were due to the Tyrannosaurus's large size. But finding them on a smaller relation means they will have to rethink the T-Rex's evolutionary development.

Raptorex – a prototype T. rex [New Scientist]

Raptorex Rendering
Raptorex Skeleton

T. Rex vs. Raptorex
Skull Comparison

Phil Manning of the University of Manchester has been examining the biomechanics of raptors, with an especial focus on the dinosaurs' claws, which Manning previously found were sharp enough to puncture skin, but probably could not tear it open. Manning now believes that the claws were better suited to climbing trees than ripping open prey, with the Velociraptor waiting for prey to appear below them and then leaping down, hooking its claws into a hapless animal and delivering a killing blow with its powerful teeth.

If Manning is correct, this may demand a revision of Randall Munroe's famous Velociraptor problem:

Velociraptor's 'killing' claws were for climbing [New Scientist]
Raptor problem from xkcd.

Over on Etsy, you can see this delightful series of dino vs. bot combat scenes in Excape Artist's store. These are stencils for $25, but I'm really hoping at some point to get some of these on t-shirts. The point is that nothing is more epic than giant mega-chickens from history smashing down ultra-roombas of the future.

Excape Artist Store via Etsy (Thanks, Leanna Kotecki!)

According to AFP:

Hans Larsson, the Canada Research Chair in Macro Evolution at Montreal's McGill University, said he aims to develop dinosaur traits that disappeared millions of years ago in birds.

Larsson believes by flipping certain genetic levers during a chicken embryo's development, he can reproduce the dinosaur anatomy, he told AFP in an interview.

Though still in its infancy, the research could eventually lead to hatching live prehistoric animals, but Larsson said there are no plans for that now, for ethical and practical reasons - a dinosaur hatchery is "too large an enterprise."

"It's a demonstration of evolution," said Larsson, who has studied bird evolution for the last 10 years.

"If I can demonstrate clearly that the potential for dinosaur anatomical development exists in birds, then it again proves that birds are direct descendants of dinosaurs."

Larsson says he was inspired partly by the movie Jurassic Park. Did he somehow manage to miss the message of that flick, and the Michael Crichton novel that inspired it? Don't turn your chickens into dinosaurs, unless you've got Godzilla (or Jeff Goldblum) fighting on your side.

via Xenophilia

Otocinclus batmani (Batman)

In 2007, ichthyologist Pablo Lehmann named a newly discovered species of catfish after the caped crusader. Why? Because, if you look closely at the tail, you can see the Bat Symbol. Now visitors flock to Loon Lake in Antioch, Illinois each summer to try to catch the fish.

Tarbosaurus efremovi (Ivan Yefremov)

Soviet writer Ivan Yefremov is most famous for his works of science fiction (most notably the communist utopian novel Andromeda Nebula), but he was also a paleontologist. Perhaps that's why a Russian paleontologist named this species of Tarbosaurus (a near cousin of the Tyrannosauri) after the author.

Arthurdactylus conandoylei (Arthur Conan Doyle)

Writing a book about dinosaurs is a good way to get a reptile named after you, even if Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had to wait 82 years after the publication of The Lost World for it to happen. In 1994, paleontologist Eberhard Frey and David Matrill named an entire genus of pterosaur after the author, who described a similar creature in his novel.

Irritator Challengeri (Professor Challenger)

A second dinosaur named for The Lost World, I. challengeri is named for Doyle's irritable dilettante Professor Challenger. Perhaps appropriately, I. challengeri could have eaten A. conandoylei for breakfast; a fossilized tooth from its genus was once discovered lodged in a pterosaur's neck.

Draculoides bramstokeri (Bram Stoker)

If you're going to name a critter after the author of Dracula, it had better be a bloodsucker. This Australian arachnid is known for its fang-like pedipalps, which it uses to grab and crush prey before sucking out their tasty juices. As an added bonus, this sucker lives in the darkness of caves.

Orsonwelles (Orson Welles)

Arachnologist Gusavo Hormiga named this genus of gigantic spider after writer and director Orson Welles simply because Welles was a giant of filmmaking (we're assured this is meant metaphorically). The individual species' names are subtle references to Welles' work, such as O. Bellum for War of the Worlds, O. Malas for Touch of Evil, and O. Toledus for Citizen Kane.

Serendipaceratops arthurcclarkei (Arthur C. Clarke)

2001 author Arthur C. Clarke has a slew of things named for him and his creations: the asteroid 4923 Clarke, the 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter, and, of course, the Clarke awards. Having a species of dinosaur named after him is just icing on the namesake cake.

Borogovia (Borogoves - The Jabberwocky)

Perhaps as an attempt to lend more meaning to Lewis Carroll's famous nonsense poem, the paleontologists who named these smaller, carnivorous dinosaurs named them after the borogoves in the opening verse:

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Dracorex Hogwartsia (Hogwarts School of Wizardry)

When a 66 million year-old dinosaur that looks like a dragon was discovered in South Dakota, paleontologists decided it would be at home in the Harry Potter universe, naming it "The Dragon King of Hogwarts" after the school of wizardry. J.K. Rowling agreed that the beast looked familiar, like "a slightly less pyromaniac Hungarian Horntail."

Leucothoe tolkieni (JRR Tolkien)

There is actually no shortage of critters named for Tolkien's creations, from a hairy-footed beetle named Pericompsus bilbo to the hexapod Gollumjapyx smeagol. But the tiny shrimp-like crustacean L. tokieni is named for the man himself.

Gojirasaurus (Gojira)

It's probably not surprising that someone would eventually name a dinosaur after Japan's giant reptilian monster. But you would think they would have chosen a larger creature; Gojirasaurus is a mere 6.5 meters tall, and would tower over a human, but not the city of Tokyo.

Godzilliidae (Gojira)

Of course, this family of blind crustaceans from the class Remipedia makes Gojirasaurus look like Godzilla. It also contains two Gojira-themed geni: Godzillius, the largest of the remipedes, and Godzilligonomus, the smallest.

Pleomothra (Mothra)

Evidentally, naming remipede crustaceans after Japanese monsters became something of a convention, as another genus in the Godzilliidae family was named after the flying menace Mothra.

Sinemys gamera (Gamera)

At least Gamera was named for a creature he might actually be related to. S. gamera is a turtle from the Cretaceous Period. Though the species may have existed in Japan, the S. gamera fossils were actually found in Inner Mongolia.

Hortipes terminator (Terminator)

The Hortipes are a genus of tiny spiders that live in the soil of sub-Saharan Africa. The H. terminator was reportedly so named because the males' appendages resemble a futuristic gun.

Balnibarbi (Balnibarbi - Gulliver's Travels

Another common source of scientific names is Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels. Oddly enough, this genus of trilobites gets its name from Balnibarbi, a country where science is used for foolish ends.

Laputavis (Laputa - Gulliver's Travels)

The Laputavis seems a more apt name from Jonathan Swift. Not only does it make sense to name an extinct bird for the flying castle in Gulliver's Travels, it's also a bit of a pun, as the Laputavis are related to swifts.

Sadly, no image of Laputavis was available. This is its distant relative, an Alpine Swift.

Holorusia brobdingnagia (Brobdingnags - Gulliver's Travels)

Brobdingnag is the country of giants — giant people, giant rats, giant insects. The H. brobdingnagia crane fly isn't quite as large as similar creatures in Brogdingnag (which were said to be as large as cats), but they're still sizable and annoying pests.

Jurassosaurus Nedegoapeferima (Jurassic Park)

This ankylosaurus is named not just for the film Jurassic Park, but for the cast as well. The species name is made up of letters from the actors' surnames: Sam Neil, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Sir Richard Attenborough, Bob Peck, Martin Ferrero, Ariana Richards, and Joseph Mazzello. Ultimately, the genus name Jurassosaurus was dropped in favor of Tianchisaurus, but the movie-inspired species name stuck.

Conus tribblei (Tribbles - Star Trek)

You would think a species named after the fuzzy, procreation-happy pets from the original Star Trek series would be furry. Instead, we get predator sea snails. As it turns out, C. tribblei isn't named directly for the fictional pet, but for discoverer Jerry Walls actual pet, a cat named "Tribbles."

Bidenichthys beeblebroxi (Zaphod Beeblebrox - Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)

Though you can't see it on this species of triplefin blenny (a close relation), B. bebblroxi has a false head pattern on its scales, earning it a moniker similar to that of Douglas Adams' funny two-headed alien.

Erechthias beeblebroxi (Zaphod Beeblebrox - Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)

Once again not seen here on this related species, but the E. beeblebroxi moth's pattern create the illusion of a second head, adding it to Zaphod's two-headed naming pile.

Fiordichthys slartibartfasti (Slartibartfast - Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)

Planet designer Slartibartfast has a particular affinity for making coastlines, especially the fjords of Norway. So this particular fishy, found only in the Fiordland of New Zealand was named in his honor.

Ninjemys (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles)

This horned turtle of Pleistocene epoch gets its radical name from the sewer-dwelling mutants of New York. Sadly, its existence predates the invention of the pepperoni pizza, so it was forced to live on a diet of plants.

Morlockia Garcia-Valdecasas (Morlocks - The Time Machine)

The subterranean Morlocks from H.G. Wells get their own troglodyte species named for them, a remipede crustacean found in the caves of the Bahamas.

Pimoa Cthulhu (The Call of Cthulhu)

You might have expected that a species named after Lovecraft's unspeakable horror would be a cephalopod of some kind, or at least something frighteningly monstrous. Instead, we get an ordinary American spider, one that isn't even poisonous to humans.

Han solo (Han Solo)

Giving this trilobite species the name Han solo was an excuse not only to name a creature after a character from Star Wars, but also to make a terrible pun. H. solo, is, after all, the sole member of the genus Han. Incidentally, Harrison Ford has two species named after him, the spieder Calponia harrisonfordi and the ant Pheidole harrisonfordi.

Agathidium vaderi (Darth Vader)

If there's one person that biologists can't resist naming critters after, it's Darth Vader. And entymologists Kelly Miller and Quentin Wheeler particularly love assigning beetles in the Agathidium genus unusual names. Other Agathidium species include A. bushi, A. cheneyi, and A. rumsfeldi. A. vaderi in particular gets its name from its shiny, helmet-like head.

Darthvaderum (Darth Vader)

Apparently, this genus of orbited mites got its name when the entomologist who discovered them took one look and thought of the Sith Lord.

Polemistus chewbacca, P. vaderi, and P. yoda (Chewbacca, Darth Vader, and Yoda)

It's not entirely clear why entomologists Arnold Menke and David Vincent decided to name their newly-discovered wasp species after characters from Star Wars. Apparently, they're just big fans.

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Picture from Kyle Brady.

If you live in or around Pensacola, it just got harder to be a creationist who wants to see giant statues of dinosaurs. Dinosaur Adventure Land, which was packed with educational exhibits devoted to unmasking the lies of evolution, will be no more. No longer will children be taught how dinosaurs walked the earth 6000 years ago. All because park's owners, Kent and Jo Hovind, owed the IRS just under half a million dollars in employee taxes.

According to the Pensacola News Journal:

[Kent Hovind] was found guilty in November 2006 on 58 counts, including failure to pay employee taxes and making threats against investigators.
The conviction culminated 17 years of Hovind sparring with the IRS. Saying he was employed by God and his ministers were not subject to payroll taxes, he claimed no income or property.

Now the government is finally going to get those back taxes by seizing what remains of their theme park.

The Hovinds were also the founders of Creation Science Church, which seems (if the website is to be believed) to be devoted to a creationist interpretation of the Bible, really awesome dinosaurs, and super excellent paper airplanes. As the Dinosaur Adventure Land website explains:

Dinosaur Adventure Land is a theme park and science museum that gives God the glory for His creation. It has rides and fun-filled events and activities, each involving a physical challenge, a science lesson, and a biblical truth.

Learn about dinosaurs, principles of science, and even how to make a paper airplane that can fly over 300 feet! Handle our real, live creatures and take the Leap of Faith swing. Enjoyable and educational for all ages, it is specifically targeted for kids under a million years of age!

But don't worry – other creationist dinosaur parks live on. In fact, in recent years, creationist groups have seized control of previously science-friendly dino attractions. The famous Cabazon Dinosaurs in California, featured in Pee Wee's Big Adventure, were recently purchased by a creationist group. Now their website includes helpful information on why Darwin was wrong. The park owners write:

Through our exhibit, Mr. Rex's Dinosaur Adventure™ At the World's Biggest Dinosaurs™, we hope to help the young and old explore what is known and not known about dinosaurs, man and the creation of the world in a practical, factual and fun way.

There also remains the Creation Museum in Kentucky, toured by SF author John Scalzi, who had quite a bit to say about it, as well as having a great Flickr set of crazy dioramas from the displays there. The Creation Museum is so hip that it even has a blog, which recently announced that the museum is sponsoring a car that will be racing at the Kentucky Speedway. But will the car have a velociraptor painted on the side? You know, one that lived like 5000 years ago?

Dinosaur Adventure Land image via bak2new. Timeline image from Creation Museum via Scalzi. Cabazon Dino pic via slworking2.

In many ways, the movie is a recreation of the original TV series with this serious characters taken out and replaced by goofballs who make a lot of pop culture references. Ferrell and company satirize the original show, but most of all they satirize themselves.

I was a big fan of the Krofft Super Show series where Land of the Lost debuted in the 1970s. It was a fun kids' series about an alternative universe full of dinosaurs and lizard aliens, and somebody was always being chomped or threatened with being chomped. Although the show was whimsical, it was sort of like the recent Journey To The Center of the Earth - goofy but snarkless. I couldn't imagine how Will Ferrell's adolescent humor would translate into this universe.

But it did, effortlessly. Instead of a nice dad and his two kids trapped in a dinosaur-packed landscape, we have a self important scientist (who is basically the anchorman, but with time travel on his mind), the hot Oxford graduate student (Holly, played a rather woodenly by Anna Friel) who believes in him, and a sideshow operator (Will, played by Danny Mcbride) whose goal in life is to build a mega casino. Through an accident that involves show tunes and a broken down roadside attraction, the three of them wind up on an alternate Earth where the past, present and future are intertwined. And that's when things get really awesome.

Chaka, the cute primate of the TV series, has been turned into a horny adolescent. The sleestaks are still bulgy-eyed lizard people, but they're kind of scary too. And Dr. Rick Marshall, played by Ferrell with deadpan pizzazz, is the perfect satirical white explorer without a clue. He immediately tries to establish himself as Chaka's master (though Chaka hardly takes him seriously), and is constantly making incorrect proclamations about everything around them. There's a great moment when he thinks the sleestak are guarding when they're actually about to "hit that ass." And even on alternate earth, he can't escape a humiliation he suffered on YouTube.

Part of the fun in this flick is watching Ferrell turn science fiction stereotypes of the intrepid explorer upside down. The other part of that fun is watching him dance to show tunes, pour dinosaur urine all over himself so that his scent will "blend in," and make an ill-advised deal with an alien wearing a tunic. As Will points out wisely, tunics are always bad news.

The plot, such as it is, is pretty simple. The gang falls into an alternate dimension, with the help of Rick's tachyon-enhanced time travel device, and now they need to get the device back if they want to go home. In addition the tunic - wearing alien has told them that an evil alien will use the device to invade earth with his terrible army of lizard aliens. So it's a race against time, and also, strangely, a test of banjo improvisation. Hey, it's Will Ferrell - what do you want?

Somehow along the way we manage to have drug induced male bonding. And boob grabbing. Plus a wide array of poop jokes, which culminate in the biggest poop joke of all. But that's a major spoiler and I won't give it away.

A few scenes go on a bit too long (the drug scene springs to mind), and you may be irritated by the fact that many of the jokes are at the expense of women. But despite this most of the bits are genuinely funny, and I predict you'll be repeating lines from the movie for days afterward. In fact, if you're looking for good science fiction fun this weekend I would recommend Land of the Lost over Terminator 4 any day of the week.

BBC America sent us DVDs of the first two episodes of Primeval season three, and the show about monsters and rips in the fabric of space/time has continued to develop. The cast of monster-hunters is a bit different than in season one, and there are monsters from the future, plus there are mysterious artifacts, conspiracies within conspiracies, and a healthy amount of romantic intrigue.

In the first episode of the season, there's an ancient Egyptian shrine thingy in the British Museum, and it turns out the Egyptians trapped a hole in space/time, out of which come dinosaurs known as Pristichampsuses, which the Egyptians used to worship/fear as the demon Ammut. Basically it's a big crocodile terrorizing London, until it goes away agin. And then in the second episode, there's a haunted house, where a gremlin from the future has killed three boys, and our heroes investigate.

I had previously watched a couple of episodes of Primeval season one, and hadn't been able to get into it at all. So I was hoping things would be different this time around, and season three would suddenly electrify my brain. Sadly, that wasn't the case - the show still feels like a warmed-over copy of Torchwood to me. I couldn't get interested in any of the characters, from the moody scientist Nick Cutter to Connor, who inexplicably dresses like he's in a Thompson Twins video.

Oh, and in the first episode, they meet a cute Egyptologist, who's moderately useful since they're dealing with a monster that has a lot of ancient Egyptian lore about it - and then they recruit her to join the team. Because when you're coping with dinosaurs and "future Predators" every week, what you really need is an expert on Egyptian funerary practices. It makes perfect sense! Actually, there is a sort of explanation for their decision to recruit Sarah Page to the team - their leader, Nick Cutter, has decided all ancient myths are actually about monsters coming out of temporal anomalies. And he thinks that because Page knows about Egyptian mythology, she'll be able to help him chart every myth in the world.

The other thing that sort of turned me off the show originally, the copious amounts of goofy humor, are still in full effect, mostly centered on Connor. In the first episode, Page tells Connor that by touching some Egyptian thingy, he's incurred some ancient curse, and is now doomed to die, like her friend who died earlier in the episode. And then it turns out she was just joking. (But meanwhile, we get to see Connor "hilariously" freaking out about it.)

Anyway, I hate to be negative about this show - it does have some nice CG monsters, and there are some fun monster-hunting bits. The "future gremlins" are sort of spooky, especially when they camouflage themselves. All of the stuff about conspiracies and mysterious artifacts from a vaguely apocalyptic future is intriguing, and Wikipedia says it all gets a lot more intense later in the season. If you feel sad that there's not more SF on television, you could definitely do worse than curling up with Primeval this weekend.

But sadly, it just didn't excite me at all - even as the monsters from the past and future were being flung out of time to terrorize the people of London, it all felt like something I'd seen before.

Says National Geographic:

Fassett, who supports the asteroid-strike theory, said he can't explain why dinosaurs may have survived longer in some areas but not others.

"One guess is that the survivors lived in the northernmost parts of North America, at the greatest distance from the impact site, and then migrated south," he said.

"But that doesn't explain why [dinosaurs that lived later] haven't been found elsewhere. We don't have an answer for that."

Despite his caution, the Smithsonian's Hans-Dieter Sues said that the idea of Paleocene dinosaurs can't yet be dismissed.

"There is no a priori reason that dinosaurs could not have survived in some places," he wrote in an email to National Geographic News.

"Indeed, other than in the [U.S.] western interior and in Europe, we have as yet no concrete evidence when dinosaurs vanished."

Read more about this extraordinary find in National Geographic.