The London architectural studio «Two Create» has created a colorful interior for a new modern hospital of Queen Elizabeth in Birmingham.
The hospital interior looks rather cheerful and gives only positive emotions. Green apartments give more healthy happy life.
The first detailed study of a Stegosaurus skull shows that the dinosaur had a stronger bite than suspected, enabling it to eat a wider range of plants than other plant-eating dinosaurs with similarly shaped skulls.
A team of scientists from Bristol, London, Manchester and University of Birmingham compared the skull of 'Sophie', the Natural History Museum's new Stegosaurus specimen, with two other dinosaurs, Plateosaurus and Erlikosaurus, which shared similar skull characteristics. Computer modelling at the University of Bristol showed that, despite looking very similar, the dinosaurs had different biting abilities.
Although the three dinosaurs existed in different time periods and locations and had very differently shaped bodies, all three had similar-looking skulls: a large low snout, feeble peg-shaped teeth, and a scissor-like jaw action only capable of moving up and down. All three ate mainly or exclusively plants.
Until now, it has been assumed that the dinosaurs probably had similar biting abilities and therefore ate similar types of plants. But the research reveals that it can be a trap to assume that because a set of dinosaurs shared a set of similar features, they all operated in the same way – function does not necessarily follow form.
As Prof. Paul Barrett, Merit Researcher at The Natural History Museum explains: 'Our key finding really surprised us: we expected that many of these dinosaur herbivores would have skulls that worked in broadly similar ways. Instead we found that even though the skulls were fairly similar to each other in overall shape, the way they worked during biting was substantially different in each case.'
Stegosaurus lived around 150 million years ago and needed to eat a lot of plants to sustain its large size. As grasses did not exist then, it would have fed on plants such as ferns and horsetails. However the research indicates that it had a much higher bite force than anyone had suspected, enabling it to a wider range of plants than previously thought.
As Barrett, leader of the research team, comments: 'Far from being feeble, as usually thought, Stegosaurus actually had a bite force within the range of living herbivorous mammals, such as sheep and cows.'
This wider range of plants means that scientists need to reconsider how Stegosaurus fitted into its ecological niche. For example it may have had a role in spreading the seeds of cycads – woody ever green plants that were abundant in the time of the dinosaurs and whose seeds are contained in large cones.
Dr David Button, from the University of Birmingham's School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, said: 'The extra information provided by computing modelling is invaluable. Although we can tell roughly what a dinosaur ate from the shape of its teeth and jaws, the differences highlighted by this study indicate that the biology and ecology of these animals is more complex than we previously thought. As we study the lives of dinosaurs in greater detail, they continue to surprise us.'
Lead author Dr Stephan Lautenschlager, a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Bristol's School of Earth Sciences, employed digital models and computer simulations to analyse the dinosaurs' bites, using data from 3D scans of the skulls and lower jaws. He used engineering software to give the skulls the material properties that would match as closely as possible to the real thing, for example, using data on crocodile teeth to model those of the dinosaurs. By attaching muscles to the models, he was able to examine the forces that the jaws could produce and the subsequent stresses on the skulls.
As computer power increases and software becomes more available, Lautenschlager thinks that we will see more modelling used in dinosaur research: 'Using computer modelling techniques, we were able to reconstruct muscle and bite forces very accurately for the different dinosaurs in our study. As a result, these methods give us new and detailed insights into dinosaur biology – something that would not have been several years ago.'
The findings are published in >Nature Scientific Reports.
Source: University of Birmingham [May 20, 2016]
The name Stonehenge is full of mysteries. It is probably the most famous prehistoric monument, and also the monument about which the most myths and legends have been created. For the first time in the world, an exhibition is being shown about the fascinating cult complex Stonehenge and its surrounding landscape including the latest research findings on the much bigger and older stone circle at Durrington Walls – this is at MAMUZ Museum Mistelbach.
In the exhibition Stonehenge. A Hidden Landscape, original finds will be on display which have never before left the British Isles. Gigantic stone models in original size which can be touched, original stones like the ones used in the cult complex, and also digital animations on the surrounding landscape transport visitors to the mystical world of our ancestors more than 4,000 years ago. But a long time before Stonehenge there were even bigger monumental structures in Europe, in particular in the Weinviertel region: the circular enclosures. Discover a piece of the religious world of our ancestors – Stonehenge is close enough to touch.
True-to-scale reconstructions of the stone circle based on 3D laser scan data let visitors to MAMUZ experience the magnificence and dimension of this cult monument without having to travel to the cult site itself. Elaborate visualisations give a three-dimensional impression of the landscape surrounding Stonehenge so that visitors are able to imagine the stone circle and also picture all of the fascinating cult monuments in the extensive surrounding area. At the location west of London, in Wiltshire, the large numbers of visitors and the preservation of the site mean it is not possible to enter the stone circle directly or to touch the stones. In the exhibition at Museum Mistelbach, visitors are really “in the thick of it” thanks to visualisations and reproductions and they can also touch original bluestones and sarsen stones as used to build the complex.
The exhibition also links Stonehenge with the prehistory of the province of Lower Austria. Long before the first stones were put in place at Stonehenge, the first monumental structures appeared in Central Europe. The impressive discoveries of these circular enclosures, which are distributed throughout Lower Austria and especially in the Weinviertel region, are shown alongside the fascinating original exhibits of the so-called Bell Beaker culture, which demonstrates the transition from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age in Lower Austria.
Working together with renowned cooperation partners, academics from Austria and abroad and also experts in exhibition design and multimedia presentation, MAMUZ is showing the first ever exhibition about Stonehenge. The exhibition is being realised in cooperation with the Niederösterreichische Landessammlungen, Ludwig Boltzmann Institute, 7reasons, atelier cremer and the University of Birmingham.
Stonehenge: A Hidden Landscape opens on 20th March 2016 and will run until 27 Nov. 2016.
Source: MAMUZ Museum Mistelbach [March 03, 2016]
Bodies found in a 200 year-old Hungarian crypt have revealed the secrets of how tuberculosis (TB) took hold in 18th century Europe, according to a research team led by the University of Warwick.
A new study published in Nature Communications details how samples taken from naturally mummified bodies found in an 18th century crypt in the Dominican church of Vác in Hungary have yielded 14 tuberculosis genomes, suggesting that mixed infections were common when TB was at peak prevalence in Europe.
The research team included collaborators from the Universities of Warwick and Birmingham, University College London, the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the Hungarian Natural History Museum in Budapest. Lead author Professor Mark Pallen, from Warwick Medical School, said the discovery was significant for current and future infection control and diagnosis.
Professor Pallen said: “Microbiological analyses of samples from contemporary TB patients usually report a single strain of tuberculosis per patient. By contrast, five of the eight bodies in our study yielded more than one type of tuberculosis – remarkably from one individual we obtained evidence of three distinct strains.”
The team used a technique called “metagenomics” to identify TB DNA in the historical specimens—that is direct sequencing of DNA from samples without growing bacteria or deliberately fishing out TB DNA. This approach draws on the remarkable throughput and ease of use of modern DNA sequencing technologies.
Gemma Kay, first author on the paper says: “Poignantly, we found evidence of an intimate link between strains from in a middle-aged mother and her grown-up daughter, suggesting both family members died from this devastating infection.”
The team used the 18th century sequences to date the origin of the lineage of TB strains commonly found in Europe and America to the late Roman period, which fits in with the recent controversial suggestion that the most recent common ancestor of all TB strains occurred as recently as six thousand years ago.
Professor Pallen said: “By showing that historical strains can be accurately mapped to contemporary lineages, we have ruled out, for early modern Europe, the kind of scenario recently proposed for the Americas—that is wholesale replacement of one major lineage by another—and have confirmed the genotypic continuity of an infection that has ravaged the heart of Europe since prehistoric times.”
Professor Pallen added that with TB resurgent in many parts of the world, the struggle to contain this ancient infection was far from over. He concludes: “We have shown that metagenomic approaches can document past infections. However, we have also recently shown that metagenomics can identify and characterize pathogens in contemporary samples, so such approaches might soon also inform current and future infectious disease diagnosis and control.”
For more photos of the Hungarian mummies visit the website Morbid Anatomy.
Source: University of Warwick [April 07, 2015]
Fluctuating sea levels and global cooling caused a significant decline in the number of crocodylian species over millions of years, according to new research.
Crocodylians include present-day species of crocodiles, alligators, caimans and gavials and their extinct ancestors. Crocodylians first appeared in the Late Cretaceous period, approximately 85 million years ago, and the 250 million year fossil record of their extinct relatives reveals a diverse evolutionary history.
Extinct crocodylians and their relatives came in all shapes and sizes, including giant land-based creatures such as Sarcosuchus, which reached around 12 metres in length and weighed up to eight metric tonnes. Crocodylians also roamed the ocean -- for example, thalattosuchians were equipped with flippers and shark-like tails to make them more agile in the sea.
Many crocodylians survived the mass extinction that wiped out almost all of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago, but only 23 species survive today, six of which are classified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as critically endangered and a further four classified as either endangered or vulnerable.
In a new study published in Nature Communications, researchers from Imperial College London, the University of Oxford, the Smithsonian Institution and the University of Birmingham compiled a dataset of the entire known fossil record of crocodylians and their extinct relatives and analysed data about Earth's ancient climate. They wanted to explore how the group responded to past shifts in climate, to better understand how the reptiles may cope in the future.
Crocodylians are ectotherms, meaning they rely on external heat sources from the environment such as the Sun. The researchers conclude that at higher latitudes in areas we now know as Europe and America, declining temperatures had a major impact on crocodylians and their relatives.
At lower latitudes the decline of crocodylians was caused by areas on many continents becoming increasingly arid. For example, in Africa around ten million years ago, the Sahara desert was forming, replacing the vast lush wetlands in which crocodylians thrived. In South America, the rise of the Andes Mountains led to the loss of a proto-Amazonian mega wetland habitat that crocodylians lived in around five million years ago.
Marine species of crocodylians were once widespread across the oceans. The team found that fluctuations in sea levels exerted the main control over the diversity of these creatures. For example, at times when the sea level was higher it created greater diversity because it increased the size of the continental shelf, providing the right conditions near the coast for them and their prey to thrive.
Interestingly, the Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction event, which wiped out many other creatures on Earth nearly 66 million years ago including nearly all of the dinosaurs, had positive outcomes for the crocodylians and their extinct relatives. The team found that while several groups did go extinct, the surviving groups rapidly radiated out of their usual habitats to take advantage of territories that were now uninhabited.
In the future, the team suggest that a warming world caused by global climate change may favour crocodylian diversification again, but human activity will continue to have a major impact on their habitats.
Dr Philip Mannion, joint lead author from the Department of Earth Science and Engineering at Imperial College London, said: "Crocodylians are known by some as living fossils because they've been around since the time of the dinosaurs. Millions of years ago these creatures and their now extinct relatives thrived in a range of environments that ranged from the tropics, to northern latitudes and even deep in the ocean. However, all this changed because of changes in the climate, and crocodylians retreated to the warmer parts of the world. While they have a fearsome reputation, these creatures are vulnerable and looking back in time we've been able to determine what environmental factors had the greatest impact on them. This may help us to determine how they will cope with future changes."
The next step for the researchers will be for them to look at similar patterns in other fossil groups with long histories, such as mammals and birds to determine how past climate influenced them.
Source: Imperial College London [September 24, 2015]
