SCIENCE IN THE NEWS WEEKLY
Ancient Past: Tiny Dinosaur, Surgery on a Mummy
North America's smallest dinosaur weighed less than two pounds and scampered about eating a mixture of plants, eggs and insects. Researchers described the species, Fruitadens haagarorum, based on fossils that were collected in Colorado in 1979 and have been stored in a museum ever since.
Ida, the much-discussed primate fossil unveiled earlier this year, probably wasn't really a direct ancestor of humans, according to a new analysis in the journal Nature. The study includes 117 living and extinct primate species, including a newly described fossil of one of Ida's more recent relatives. Ida and her kin—the adapiform primates—are more closely related to lemurs and lorises than to the lineage that led to humans, the researchers report.
And finally, the Boston Globe looked at how a team of scientists, museum conservators and surgeons are working up the head of a 4,000-year-old Egyptian mummy. Although the head was found without its body, high-tech analyses are still giving clues about the mummy's identity and the rituals and procedures it underwent prior to burial.
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