February 5, 2024: Microfossils reveal the flourishing world of the dinosaurs, stunning new images of Jupiter's moon Io and why community colleges should feed the next generation of doctors. —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | | Researchers have collected tens of thousands of tiny fossils of organisms that lived in the Cretacous world alongside the dinosaurs some 75 million years ago. Vertebrate microfossil bonebeds, or VMBs, preserve thousands of small, hard parts of a diversity of animals that are so small a stiff breeze would blow them out of your hands. The team uses microscopes to scan sediment samples to find the microscopic fossils. To collect these samples, the researchers paddled 50 miles down the Missouri River to the striated layers of sandstone, mudstone and coal of the Judith River Formation, in north central Montana.
What they found: In addition to teeth from dinosaurs like the herbivorous Brachylophosaurus, the team found claws and vertebrae from toothless, ostrich-like dinos; teeth, vertebrae and bony plates of armor of small mammals that likely fell prey to aquatic predators; teeth, vertebrae and scales of fish. Shark teeth. Limb and rib bones of amphibians. Bony plates of turtle shells and lizard appendages. Plus, the oldest known occurrence of a parasitic interaction between a flatworm and clam.
What the experts say: "These well-preserved fossils are providing some of the highest-resolution pictures yet of a dinosaur ecosystem," write Kristina A. Curry Rogers and Raymond R. Rogers, professors of biology and geology at Macalester College. "They reveal the often overlooked creatures that scurried and swam around the feet of dinosaurs, buzzed annoyingly in their ears and maybe even preyed on their young—and scavenged their dead." | | | To reach their fossil-hunting grounds, the researchers paddle 50 miles down the Missouri River. Credit: Jeff Thole | | | NASA's Juno spacecraft made a second close flyby of Jupiter's supervolcanic moon Io on Saturday, following up on a similar maneuver at the end of 2023. Stunning photos already released from the flybys offer a teaser of the range of data Juno gathered, including microwave, gravitational and thermal observations.
Why this matters: Juno's observations during the two flybys could help scientists better understand how this truly wild moon works. In particular, researchers hope the data will shed light on whether the moon hides a global magma ocean or the volcanoes are fed by mere pockets of molten rock. The recent flybys should also show how Io impacts the behemoth Jupiter and its other large moons.
What the experts say: "We really saw Io in a new light," says Scott Bolton, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute and principal investigator on the Juno mission, of December's flyby before the February maneuver. | | | Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill (CC BY 3.0) | | | • The captivating story of how string theory helped confirm the strange connection between two completely different areas of mathematics. | 8 min read | | | • A dog breed's traits such as face shape, size and sex could help predict how long it might live. | 4 min read | | | • A lack of diverse physicians is a known factor that leads to health care inequalities. Since the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action last year, how are medical schools going to ensure they have a diverse student body, ask Cesar Padilla and Michael Galvez, a physician and surgeon, respectively. "Guaranteed community-college-to-medical school pathways could drastically increase the socioeconomic diversity ... of medical school classes," they say. | 5 min read | | | Imagine that the dinosaurs of present-day Montana some 75 million years ago actually lived by the seaside. A body of water called the Western Interior Seaway divided North American into three parts (check out the map in the feature article described above). Sedimentary rocks on the eastern shore of the largest part preserved the bodies of the plants and animals that thrived there. Of course, the continents are not finished moving, and a future civilization might even discover human fossils atop some yet-to-be formed mountain peak. | —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | Subscribe to this and all of our newsletters . | | | | Scientific American
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