Happy birthday, Ask a Biologist!

Well, it's actually this coming Friday (the 14th) but since this is a good chance to promote the site, why not start early?

Ask a Biologist is a Q&A website started up by University of Bristol graduate, Dr. Dave Hone. The unique thing about AAB is that unlike many Q&A forums around the internet, AAB's answerers are all either qualified PhDs, PhDs in training, or have a similar level of experience or qualifications. So there is a certain level of quality and authenticity to the answers provided. The questions are either answered by someone in the field or someone decently knowledgeable in the field with proper scientific research and citations to back it all up.

As with many forums, absolutely anyone can ask questions on AAB, sometimes even the contributors ask the other experts for opinions. But it is primarily aimed towards children and young persons still in school. So if you know of any kids aching to get some of their burning questions regarding biology, then please use this chance to direct them to http://www.askabiologist.org.uk.

I am a regular contributor to AAB as well and if you are aware of the DinoBase Forum then you will find the layout almost identical - in fact they were both designed by the same web-designer and software engineer.

Comments

Will Baird said…

Hey Manabu!

I am going to be hosting the Boneyard paleo carnival next week. Would it be possible to grovel enough to get you to post either some new paleo art or some more nifty functional paleo morphology like you did for the sabre tooths?

Thank you!

15 March, 2008 05:06

Raptor's Nest (old) said…

You wouldn't have to try too hard to get me posting. My blog's coming to its first anniversary later this week so I'm kind of building up to it...

17 March, 2008 00:14

Spinosaurus, the gigantic pangolin of the Cretaceous?

I was made aware of this not long ago - it kind of looks creepy, but it gave me an idea: Did Spinosaurus walk like a pangolin? That is, with it's hands low to the ground but not touching the ground - so no knuckle walking - and maintaining balance as a biped... This pangolin seems to maintain balance on its hind legs even though, on cursory glance, its centre of mass seems too far forward for that. Spinosaurus is supposed to have had a dense femur, so maybe its centre of gravity was farther back than you'd think from overall proportions. Maybe the sail helped tip the scale back? ...or maybe it was a giant ant-eater? Those giant claws look particularly suited to breaking open termite mounds? Who knows. This is me being silly, but thought it was hilarious enough to share...

The difference between Lion and Tiger skulls

A quick divergence from my usual dinosaurs, and I shall talk about big cats today. This is because to my greatest delight, I had discovered today a wonderful book. It is called The Felidæ of Rancho La Brea (Merriam and Stock 1932, Carnegie Institution of Washington publication, no. 422). As the title suggests it goes into details of felids from the Rancho La Brea, in particular Smilodon californicus (probably synonymous with S. fatalis ), but also the American Cave Lion, Panthera atrox . The book is full of detailed descriptions, numerous measurements and beautiful figures. However, what really got me excited was, in their description and comparative anatomy of P. atrox , Merriam and Stock (1932) provide identification criteria for the Lion and Tiger, a translation of the one devised by the French palaeontologist Marcelin Boule in 1906. I have forever been looking for a set of rules for identifying lions and tigers and ultimately had to come up with a set of my own with a lot of help...

Maximum bite force in Tyrannosaurus rex

I'm on a roll today. Might as well post another. So obviously, this is a Tyrannosaurus rex . It's so famous I'm afraid I don't really know what else to write about. Oh well, I'll just ramble on about bite forces then. T. rex has been the focus of many biomechanical studies. Bite force is no exception. However, as much of a celebrity T. rex is, as far as I'm aware, there have only been two studies so far that have attempted to estimate the bite force of T. rex : Erickson et al. (1996) and Meers (2002). Erickson et al. (1996) had an interesting approach of reproducing bite marks using cast replicas of a T. rex tooth and ramming it into a cow bone. They recorded the forces needed in order to penetrate the bone to different depths. The depths of T. rex bite marks found on a Triceratops ilium was compared to this relationship of puncture depth and forces needed. As a result they found out that a bite force of 6.4 kN were needed in order to to make that bite mar...

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