SCIENCE IN THE NEWS WEEKLY
Forebear of T. rex Only 9 Feet Long
A team of scientists announced last week that Tyrannosaurus rex had a diminutive precursor that looked remarkably similar but was only 9 feet long and weighed about 150 pounds. That conclusion was based on a single fossil smuggled out of China.
Meanwhile, the New York Times explored the once-popular theory that great white sharks evolved from Carcharodon megalodon, the most fearsome predator of a few million years ago. Shark teeth analysis and new fossils suggest that great whites may actually have evolved from a relative of mako sharks.
In news of the more recent past, a team of marine researchers is eager to complete the excavation of a 200-year-old shipwreck in Maryland's Patuxent River. The vessel was part of the American flotilla that defended the Chesapeake Bay from the British during the War of 1812.
And National Public Radio looked at the extent to which science inspired Romantic artists and their work, including poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge and John Keats.
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