[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cY65HFr0BxA&hl=en_US&version=3]
Year: 2013
DINOSAUR EGG MISSING LINK
Recently scientists discovered a clutch of 150-million-year-old fossil eggs that may be an important “missing link” in evolutionary history. The eggs are dated to be from the Late Jurassic period and contain actual fossilized embryos. This find allows paleontologists a rare insight into the early lives of a group of dinosaurs known as theropods, which include the iconic Tyrannosaurus rex and modern birds. The discovery also addresses questions of about which shells came from which particular species.
“Most of the time, you find eggs without the embryos, or the embryos without the eggs,” said said Ricardo Araújo to National Geographic. Araújo is a vertebrate paleontologist at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, and lead author of the new study.
The majority of fossilized eggs found up until now have been from the Cretaceous period—about 80 million years ago. The gap between the Cretaceous period and the Early Jurassic period (190 million years ago) has confounded scientists, leaving them without the necessary information to make concrete conclusions about the “bird like” qualities seen in the later dinosaur species. These qualities are believed to have occurred during the gap between the Late Jurassic period and Cretaceous period. The newly discovered clutch of theropod eggs and embryos are exactly what paleontologists needed to solve the evolutionary mystery.
The theropod eggs belong to a group called Trovosaurus, which are extremely porous, leading scientists to believe the eggs were at one time buried. The pores allowed gas exchange between the inside and outside of the egg while underground. The embryos found inside the theropod eggs were formed enough to have significant skeletal structure. This means that the eggs are from a very late stage of incubation, possibly the last week of development before they would have hatched—another impressive aspect of this particular scientific discovery.
“ROCK MY RV” BIGFOOT SPECIAL
Well, it would seem hair-band icon and reality TV star Brett Michaels has found a new series where he can rock his red bandana! Michaels is now the host of a new show on the Travel Channel entitled “Rock My RV.” Tonight they will be re-airing the Bigfoot episode for all of the Bigfoot enthusiasts of the world! And for all of those monster hunters out there, you can enter to win your very own monster RV. Visit the Cryptomundo site by clicking here to read the official press release from Rock My RV!
Big Foot Hunter
Travel Channel
Original Airdate | Sunday, June 02, 2013
9PM EDT
EPISODE SYNOPSIS: Bret and his team help a father and his son transform their beat up 1980′s ambulance into a high-tech, fully customized, Big-Foot-hunting RV, complete with satellite tracking, digital camouflage and a state-of-the-art thermal imaging system.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2KQvInLAVw&hl=en_US&version=3]
UFO CRASHES INTO LAKE TITICACA
On May 18, 2013 several eyewitnesses reported a UFO crashing into Lake Titicaca in Peru. The event was even captured by the local news station 90 as the strange object entered the atmosphere and slowly descended in a fiery blaze. The first thought was that this was a meteor, but as pointed out by Scott Waring on UFO Sightings Daily, meteors have only one tail that is then broken up into sections. This particular object has two tails. Another interesting aspect of this story is the fact that, one year ago to the very day, a similar UFO was photographed falling over Amantani island on Lake Titicaca. This account was documented by Christian Mace on the site UFO Digest.
Could there be a link between the date of May 18th and UFO? After watching the video below, what do you think?
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HHAi-6kbj4&version=3&hl=en_US]
MORATORIUM ON KILLER ROBOTS
The UN Human Rights Council will be discussing the morality of “killer robots” at their next meeting in Geneva. A moratorium has been requested on their use until a decision has been made by the Council—this is not a complete ban as some groups would like to see, but it will allow enough time to put to rest the more philosophical dilemmas. The robots in question, which are currently under development in the US, UK, and Israel, are called “lethal autonomous robots” and are designed to be pre-programmed to kill people or take out specified targets in war. However, these robots are also equipped with the ability to think freely for themselves in order to make adjustments when necessary.
Supporters of these machines believe that they will save countless lives in the long run by reducing the number of soldiers utilized in battle. Human rights groups believe that the distancing of the human element from war raises serious moral questions about our approach to combat. They have serious concerns on the robots’ ability to distinguish between targets and civilians, and if civilian casualties occur, who would be held responsible.
“The traditional approach is that there is a warrior, and there is a weapon,” said Christof Heyns, the UN expert examining the use of the robots in an article on the BBC News, “but what we now see is that the weapon becomes the warrior, the weapon takes the decision itself.”
VIDEO: COSMIC SWIRLY STRAWS FEED GALAXY
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hv7oxhUNrnY&version=3&hl=en_US]
MASSIVE HURRICANE ON SATURN
Thanks to NASA’s Cassini spacecraft scientists have caught the first glimpse of a hurricane 1,250 miles (2,000 kilometers) wide within an ambiguous six-sided weather pattern known as the hexagon. The eye alone is twenty times larger than any storm ever recorded on Earth with wind speeds reaching 330mph (150 meters per second), swirling around Saturn’s north pole. Scientists will be studying the storm closely in an effort to find a deeper understanding of Earth’s own hurricanes. While there is no actual body of water near to this particular storm the study will be based on the way in which Saturn’s atmosphere uses the water vapor contained within it.
Last week on the NASA website, Andrew Ingersoll, a Cassini imaging team member at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena stated, “We did a double take when we saw this vortex because it looks so much like a hurricane on Earth. But there it is at Saturn, on a much larger scale, and it is somehow getting by on the small amounts of water vapor in Saturn’s hydrogen atmosphere.”
The intense similarities between Earth’s hurricanes and the storms on Saturn are striking, even given the vast difference in the atmospheric compositions of the two planets. Saturn’s atmosphere is primarily made of the simple molecules hydrogen and helium. There is also a large quantity of sulfur, which gives the planet its yellowish hue. The storm spied by Cassini on Saturn has been in rotation since at least 2004, when the spacecraft first arrived at the planet. The hurricane appears to be stuck at the north pole. Without a major change in the atmosphere of the planet, it is anyone’s guess just how long it will remain.
For more information about Cassini and its mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov.
MAYAN PYRAMID BULLDOZED FOR GRAVEL
This is one of those stories that makes me cringe at the idea of such a piece of history being destroyed so carelessly. A pre-Columbian Mayan temple in Belize was bulldozed by a road construction crew on a quest for gravel for road-filler.
The Noh Mul temple was one of the country’s largest pyramids, estimated to be nearly 2,300 years old. After the destruction, only the very core of the temple remains, an epic loss for archaeological world.
“It is incredible that someone would actually have the gall to destroy this building out here,” said Dr. John Morris of the Belizean Institute of Archaeology. “There is absolutely no way that they would not know that these are Maya mounds.”
While the ruins lay on private land, under Belizean law, any pre-Hispanic ruins come under government protection. Police are investigating and possible criminal charges are to be leveled against the construction company.
BIGFOOT SHOT BY TURKEY HUNTER
The guys over at Ghost Theory spied an unusual police report siting the shooting of “Bigfoot” by a Pennsylvanian turkey hunter. The report was accompanied by a photo taken on May 14, 2013 of the footprint which led the hunter to believe that it was indeed the legendary Sasquatch. We’ll be following this report through the Pennsylvanian Bigfoot Society for updates.
MASSIVE FLORIDA PYTHON CAPTURED
One of the largest Burmese Python in recorded history was captured and killed in the Florida Everglades this week. The female snake weighed in at a whopping 128 pounds with a length of 18 feet, 8 inches. Jason Leon spied the snake in a rural area southeast of Miami-Dade County and decided to take it upon himself, with the assistance of his friend Veronica, to kill the snake using a knife.
Wildlife officials have battled the growing epidemic of wild Burmese Pythons in Florida, an unfortunate problem stemming from people releasing their pets into the wild when they are unable to care for them any longer. The snakes have begun breeding at an alarming rate, threatening the local wildlife they prey on. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Committee have recently sanctioned the hunting of wild pythons in the million-acre Everglades. 63 pythons were captured as 1,600 people took part in the month-long hunt. Until now, the largest recorded python measured 17 feet, 7 inches.
