New dinosaur dubbed 'Mojoceratops' - 'over a few beers' A newly-discovered dinosaur has been officially named the "Mojoceratops". Apparently, beer was involved. The skull of Mojoceratops perifania. Credit: Yale Prehistoric head-frill mojo The discoverer of the new species is post-doctoral researcher Nicholas Longrich of Yale uni in the States, who found skulls and other …
Liddell & Scott render περιφάν-εια first as "conspicuousness", derived from περιφαίνομαι to be visible from all sides--which does seem to apply to Mojoceratops. They do give a secondary meaning of "celebrity, distinction".
(Thanks to www.perseus.tufts.edu. for the L&S)
I'm sure they'll soon elect to rename the Pleistocene Epoch to "The Days of Epic Chill" or something involving jin and juice.
As long as they don't start burning the books, though, then I hope we're alright, at least for the sakes of the remaining genuine research scientists of forthcoming generations, and those of the present.
On a more genuine angle: Public education standards are something that many people would probably not enjoy true criticism about, but I think that some constructive criticism about as much would be very appropriate, these days. The quality of public education, throughout any region, is going to affect the level of regional ... erm ... shall one say, regional remedial-ness?
I don't believe private education standards would all be so far out of step with those of the public schools, either. We're all on the same national ship, here, after all.
Fix those standards, and set up curricula - around the nation - upon which *all* teachers would be required to actually know what they're teaching, first, then to *teach* (and where the real teachers would be the most supported in as much) and then things may start to change for the better.
Failing that, I'm shipping off to higher ground - or maybe I'll just go for a career in entertainment, after all.
Paris, because doesn't *she* deserve a Nobel Prize for Hawtnesss??...
As it was a big animal, maybe it also used that head frill like a radiator to stay cool? (with skin and Arteries etc.. over it ... maybe it lived in hot countries so it needed its own low tech air conditioning/radiator built in?). Or maybe the deluxe model used it for TV and radio reception. :)
So why is there a prejudice against all languages other than greek or latin. I for one would much prefer an easy to remember name over a complex, strange sounding name with buried meaning.
For example, the Diplodocus (meaning Double Beam, wtf?) why not just call it Frank or Michelle or something.
It's handy that way because it provides an unambiguous and nearly systematic means of naming taxa. It's useful precisely because it's made of words from ancient forms of languages that are both well-known and rarely used. You get lots of words to use to name things, most of which haven't been used for anything else since toilets were still considered a really nifty and innovative idea. You're not going to encounter something like "Pogonomyrmex barbatus" in everyday speech; thus, when you hear it or read it, you know immediately that it's almost certainly the name of a species, and you can look it up and find out rather quickly that it's a a certain species of red harvester ant--not three or four species, and probably not a manufacturer of plumbing fixtures.
When you say Diplodocus, I know you're talking about a genus of dinosaur. If I didn't, I'd know you were talking about a genus of /something/ and I'd find out quickly that it's a dinosaur. If you said "Frank", you could be talking about all sorts of things. It'd be confusing, and you could have saved yourself some trouble by just naming the genus in classical Greek. Any old, arcane, but well-documented language people don't use much most places would do; I suppose old Persian, Akkadian, Sanskrit, ancient Hebrew, or classical Chinese would probably suffice as well.
«This dinosaur probably used its frill to attract mates»
Yes, that is now a scientific fact I guess. It must be true because that's what any drunk young labgeek would do with such a thing.
Reminds me of how the national Natural History museum in Washington (District of Columbia, USA) has a quite lenghty description of how and why the Easter Island statues were erected and why they face the land and not the sea and what was their role and how they were used in which celebrations, to what avail. Despite no-one actually knowing the first thing about any of it as the people who set them up mostly disappeared due to -maybe- ressource shortage and -for sure- european incursions without leaving any convincing cultural trace and next to no archeological clues (besides the statues themselves, that is). Pure gratuitous speculations presented as hard demonstrated facts. By the "largest museum in the world". And people wonder why some yanks don't trust science anymore.
Not that it matters anyway, as this "new" dinausor will probably be debunked as a complete fabrication from random bones in a few years. Or failing that, will be matched to something described 20 years ago by a european or asian lab (as US scientists have a nasty habit of only checking US scientific litterature). Or failing that, the name will be overturned to something more academic (and actually fitting in the -quite loose- naming standards) in 10 years time.
From the Smithsonian website, "The Smithsonian Institution, the world's largest museum complex". Note "complex".
Also, you must have been not paying attention whilst at the Smithsonian. An article published in 2007.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/The_Mystery_of_Easter_Island.html
Note the key conclusion "Scientists may never find a conclusive answer to when the Polynesians colonized the island and why the civilization collapsed so quickly".
As for mistakes in identifying dinosaurs, check out this link.
http://fossil.wikia.com/wiki/Special:Search?search=misidentification&go=1&x=0&y=0
You'll be pleased to know that Europeans and Asians make the list. Phew!
«From the Smithsonian website, "The Smithsonian Institution, the world's largest museum complex". Note "complex".»
And it is important because?
«Also, you must have been not paying attention whilst at the Smithsonian. An article published in 2007.»
Ah, I think you misread the paper as the sign in the museum clearly states that the statues are representations of the elders and look towards the land to protect their people and that they were the main actors of huge summer festivities in which the natives filled the eyes with corals and flowers to increase fertility. Plus some other stuff. From memory.
Or, oh wait, maybe, just maybe, the person writing the article was not the same as the person writing the sign in the actual museum? Maybe the largest museum (or "museum complex" if you like) in the world employs more than one single person after all?
«You'll be pleased to know that Europeans and Asians make the list.»
Well of course, I don't know why they wouldn't. If you re-read my post I think you'll find that I was singling out the US not for their mistakes but for their tendency to not read scientific reports from anywhere else in the world, leading to a periodic re-inventing of the wheel.
It happens in all fields, I imagine.
In the world of minerals, for example, mineral species names traditionally (with few exceptions) end in ITE (eg Fluorite, Calcite, Pyrite, etc.) A few hundred new minerals are found each year and are named after various things, places, important people etc.
At one point not long ago, a new mineral was found and they wanted to name it after John S. White, a former curator at the Smithsonian in the US. So some bright spark decided that they could just call it White.
Apparently the formal process went quite far, only stumbling when they got to the part of the physical description where it stated "Color: White is beige"
It's now called Whiteite
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