14 | News
Thursday, 29 May 2014
W o r l dwide
Largest Ever Extraterrestrial
Advertising Dinosaur Bones Prepare for a Pocari Sweat Found in Patagonia The biggest dinosaurs known to man were terrifyingly huge, yet it seems they were mere bestial bagatelles compared with the behemoth whose remains were uncovered in Patagonia last Wednesday. As yet unnamed, one of its thigh-bones is longer than most humans, leaving the NBA out of it. Extrapolation from said thigh bone indicates that it was some 40-plus meters long. The as-yet unnamed behemoth evidently stood seven stories tall and weighed as much as 77 tons. Put otherwise, the thigh bone uncovered in Argentina last week is the biggest bone ever found. Based on its size, this is the largest known animal to walk on the planet, the scientists behind the discovery, Dr. Jose Luis Carballido and Dr. Diego Pol told the BBC. Just the week before, palaeontologists had unearthed a relatively titchy cousin of this towering titan, Leinkupal laticauda, which was a mere nine meters in length (lie down on the floor, think of yourself multiplied by say six times and that's how long the midget was, head to tail tip). This smallest of the known diplodocids was also found in
Argentina – as was the so-called "Pinocchio-nosed" dinosaur found mere days before. Based on interpretation of the size, and comparison with other diplodocids, scientists suspect the latest-found animal weighed about 77,000 kilos, or 77 tons. The T-rex, for comparison, is believed to have averaged some seven tons. If we say the average human weight is (say) 70 kilos, this newlyfound dino weighed as much as 1,100 people. With its neck (and rather small head) upright, say the scientists, it was around seven stories tall. Like the other diplodocids, though, it was a herbivore, the scientists say. As said, the unnamed giant may well have been the biggest animal ever to walk the earth. The previous record had been held by another diplodocus-type dinosaur, the Argentinosaurus, yes, also found in Argentina. It is believed to have weighed some 7,000 kilos less. Enough about weight. The bone was spotted in 2011 by a local farmer. Digging it out commenced in 2013, and uncovered several skeletons, thought to belong to seven dinosaurs. Beyond the leg
Taking you in the
bits, the palaeontologists also uncovered vertebrae from torso and tail, and parts of the neck. The diplodocids lived during the Jurassic period, about 90 million years ago. While misunderstandings about their anatomy led to assumptions that they had to live in swampy environments to support their terrific weight, later analysis of their possible standing positions put them back onto dry land. Some believe they used their very long tails as whips to fend off predators. By the way, the name "diplodocus," which applies to a whole family of dinosaurs, comes from the Greek for "double beam" and is based on their doublebeamed chevron bones located on the underside of the tail. Unhappily, other dinosaur families were later discovered to share that tail characteristic, but the name stuck. No dinosaur remains as such have been discovered in Israel, so far - with the exception of tracks found by the community of Beit Zayit, near Jerusalem. Source: http://www.haaretz. com/life/science-medicine
Advert on the lunar surface.
Japanese beverage maker Otsuka is sending a 1 kilogram titanium can filled with powdered sports drink and children's dreams to the moon. The specially designed canister, which contains a shipment of Otsuka's Pocari Sweat powder, will mark a disturbing new frontier for humanity: the first commercial product delivered to another world for marketing purposes. The canister will be carried to the lunar surface aboard the first planned private moon-landing mission, set to take place in October 2015. Otsuka says it hopes that the stunt will inspire young people to become astronauts, so they can travel the 380,000 kilometres (236,121 miles) to our closest celestial neighbour, crack open the can, and consume the powder inside. The capsule will be conveyed to the moon by the Falcon 9 rocket. The Falcon 9, designed to be a potentially reusable means of space travel by Elon Musk's SpaceX, has already made three successful supply runs to the International Space Station, but the planned mission in October 2015 would be the first time one of its rockets has successfully provided propulsion to the moon. After the Falcon 9 rocket has ignited its second-stage boosters and completed a four-and-a-half day journey to the moon, the Pocari Sweat-branded canister will be deposited on the surface by private company Astrobotic Technology's "Griffin" lander.
Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic Technology has more important reasons to be up on the moon than to leave a beverage can on its face. The company is angling to win Google's Lunar X prize, a $20-million bounty for the first company to land a device on the moon that can both travel 500 meters on the surface and transmit high-definition pictures back to Earth. Astrobotic's deal with Otsuka will provide them with funds to achieve this goal — the company reportedly charges upwards of half a million dollars for lunar delivery — but the mission to drop a can is somewhat ironic: Astrobotic is a company that develops technologies for clearing space trash. In addition to Pocari Sweat, the titanium capsule will contain the wishes of children from across Asia, obtained from letters sent to the company and etched onto silver disks. The company says that when the project succeeds, Pocari Sweat, with its ambiguous citrus taste, will become the first beverage to reach the surface of the moon. The American makers of another powdered beverage, orange-flavoured breakfast drink Tang, may take issue with that claim. NASA chose Tang to fly with its astronauts on a number of missions, but it's unclear if the powder ever actually made its way onto the lunar surface during the Apollo missions. Source: http://www.theverge.com/
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