A new Hadrosaurus dinosaur that lived in the late Cretaceous was classified by a group of Japanese researchers.

The study, published in Scientific Reports, talks about the methods of analysis performed by researchers on a fossil found in the formation of Hakobuchi, an island of Hokkaido.

The new dinosaur has been named Kamuysaurus japonicus. The first term refers to “Kamuy,” a deity of the Ainu, an indigenous population of the Japanese island of Hokkaido. The second term refers to Japan.

The discovery, made by Yoshitsugu Kobayashi and colleagues, is related to an adrosaur of about eight meters long that lived about 72 million years ago. It can be considered an average-sized adult hadrosaur weighing 4 tonnes or 5.3 tonnes, depending on whether it was walking on two or four legs.

Unique features found by researchers include a small crest on the head and a row of neural spines pointing forward. According to the researchers, the Kamuysaurus japonicus is related to other adrosaurs whose fossils have been found in the Far East. Among the latter are the Chinese Laiyangosaurus and the Russian Kerberosaurus.

Important discovery

This is an important discovery because it could allow a better understanding of the evolution of the Hadrosaurids during the late Cretaceous period, from 100.5 to 66 million years ago, that is until the period of the very disappearance of the dinosaurs.

Moreover, the fact that it was found near the sea, makes this fossil an important finding in relation to the understanding of the development and evolution of the same adrosaurids in such environments. This discovery, in fact, suggests that the members of the adrosaurids and its subfamilies, Hadrosaurinae and Lambeosaurinae, preferred to live near the coasts.

Links/Sources:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-48607-1

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Bob Miller

Bob was Professor of Behavioural Neuroscience at the University of Denver from 2011-2018 and now works as a practicing psychiatrist. As a passionate scientist, he founded the website ScienceMagazine.us in early 2019 with the goal of delivering accurate and useful scientific reporting, and has since built it up as a valuable publication. While his field is in psychology, Bob also has a strong general understanding of many other fields in health, astronomy and applied science, and is able to write in a way that is easily understandable to the layman.

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• Frontera, the fifth fastest supercomputer in the world, has been opened at the University of Texas - November 18, 2019
• Scientists discover how typhoid bacterium causes DNA breakage - November 15, 2019
• Even monkeys can figure out where others are looking - November 12, 2019

A team of researchers at the University of Sheffield studied how the pathogen Salmonella typhi, which causes typhoid, accelerates the aging of body cells by “hijacking” molecules for DNA repair.

Typhoid fever, also known as “typhus,” affects more than 21 million people worldwide each year, killing about 168,000 people. The disease is particularly widespread in Southeast Asia.

Researchers have infected human cells with Salmonella typhi in the laboratory and used fluorescent microscopes to understand how this pathogen damaged DNA. They then discovered that it induced a particular form of damage to the DNA itself by taking control of DNA repair machines and making cells more susceptible to infection, in practice accelerating their aging.

DNA repair “machines” are molecules inside the cells that constantly protect our DNA when it is threatened by environmental factors such as ultraviolet light or smoke. By attacking these molecules, the typhoid pathogen causes serious damage that damages cellular DNA.

Daniel Humphreys, one of the authors of the study, comments on the results: “Our results have shown that pathogenic bacteria can accelerate cell aging through a toxin and take advantage of it to establish infections. This makes sense because infections are often more difficult to fight and recover as we age, which is partly due to cellular aging, but the fact that bacterial pathogens affect this phenomenon was unexpected.”

Another author of the study, Sherif El-Khamisy, a researcher at the Healthy Lifespan Institute at the University of England, comments: “Until now, how Salmonella typhi’s typhoid toxin contributed to the infection was a mystery. If we want to fight typhoid, understanding how the toxin causes breakage in the DNA of human cells and promotes infection is key and we hope this discovery will be the first step in developing new strategies to control typhoid, which affects some of the most vulnerable communities in the world.”

Researcher Angela Ibler was also involved in the research.

Links/Sources:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12064-1

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Bob Miller

Bob was Professor of Behavioural Neuroscience at the University of Denver from 2011-2018 and now works as a practicing psychiatrist. As a passionate scientist, he founded the website ScienceMagazine.us in early 2019 with the goal of delivering accurate and useful scientific reporting, and has since built it up as a valuable publication. While his field is in psychology, Bob also has a strong general understanding of many other fields in health, astronomy and applied science, and is able to write in a way that is easily understandable to the layman.

2930 Scheuvront Drive, Denver Colorado, 80211
303-458-7258
[email protected]

Latest posts by Bob Miller (see all)

• Frontera, the fifth fastest supercomputer in the world, has been opened at the University of Texas - November 18, 2019
• Scientists discover how typhoid bacterium causes DNA breakage - November 15, 2019
• Even monkeys can figure out where others are looking - November 12, 2019

The ability to understand the direction of someone’s gaze is not a prerogative of human beings according to a new study carried out by researchers from the University of St Andrews, the National University of Singapore and the University of Leiden.

Understanding where others look was considered a feature found only in humans but researchers found that chimpanzees and bonobo can do the same. The wrong conviction, according to the press release on the website of the uniqueness of St Andrews, was born from the physical conformation of our eyes: the white part of the pupil, the sclera and the colored irises allow you to easily understand the direction of the look differently from the eyes of the monkeys.

The latter, in fact, often have a darker sclera and for this reason their gaze has always been considered “hidden” if not even cryptic.

Cat Hobaiter, primatologist and researcher at the University of St Andrews, explains the meaning of the study: “Understanding where someone looks seems to be the key to understanding what they are interested in, what they are thinking. For a long time researchers have suggested that the color of the eyes of monkeys means that they hide this information; we have shown that it is not so.”

The researcher noted that bonobo have a lighter sclera and darker irises, like humans, while chimpanzees have a very dark sclera and lighter irises. Both these models, after the researcher, show practically the same type of contrast that can be seen in the human eyes and therefore also these monkeys can understand where they are looking at the other individuals.

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• Author
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Bob Miller

Bob was Professor of Behavioural Neuroscience at the University of Denver from 2011-2018 and now works as a practicing psychiatrist. As a passionate scientist, he founded the website ScienceMagazine.us in early 2019 with the goal of delivering accurate and useful scientific reporting, and has since built it up as a valuable publication. While his field is in psychology, Bob also has a strong general understanding of many other fields in health, astronomy and applied science, and is able to write in a way that is easily understandable to the layman.

2930 Scheuvront Drive, Denver Colorado, 80211
303-458-7258
[email protected]

Latest posts by Bob Miller (see all)

• Frontera, the fifth fastest supercomputer in the world, has been opened at the University of Texas - November 18, 2019
• Scientists discover how typhoid bacterium causes DNA breakage - November 15, 2019
• Even monkeys can figure out where others are looking - November 12, 2019