PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Footprints discovered from the last dinosaurs to walk on UK soil

2021-06-18
(Press-News.org) Footprints from at least six different species of dinosaur - the very last dinosaurs to walk on UK soil 110 million years ago - have been found in Kent, a new report has announced.

The discovery of dinosaur footprints by a curator from Hastings Museum and Art Gallery and a scientist from the University of Portsmouth is the last record of dinosaurs in Britain.

The footprints were discovered in the cliffs and on the foreshore in Folkestone, Kent, where stormy conditions affect the cliff and coastal waters, and are constantly revealing new fossils.

Professor of Palaeobiology, David Martill, said: "This is the first time dinosaur footprints have been found in strata known as the 'Folkestone Formation' and it's quite an extraordinary discovery because these dinosaurs would have been the last to roam in this country before becoming extinct.

"They were walking around close to where the White Cliffs of Dover are now - next time you're on a ferry and you see those magnificent cliffs just imagine that!"

The footprint fossils formed by sediment filling the impression left behind when a dinosaur's foot pushes into the ground, which then preserves it.

The footprints are from a variety of dinosaurs, which shows there was a relatively high diversity of dinosaurs in southern England at the end of the Early Cretaceous period, 110 million years ago.

They are thought to be from ankylosaurs, rugged-looking armoured dinosaurs which were like living tanks; theropods, three-toed flesh-eating dinosaurs like the Tyrannosaurus rex; and ornithopods, plant-eating 'bird-hipped' dinosaurs so-called because of their pelvic structure being a little bit similar to birds.

Philip Hadland, Collections and Engagement Curator at the Hastings Museum and Art Gallery is lead author on the paper. He said: "Back in 2011, I came across unusual impressions in the rock formation at Folkestone. They seemed to be repeating and all I could think was they might be footprints. "This was at odds with what most geologists say about the rocks here, but I went looking for more footprints and as the tides revealed more by erosion, I found even better ones. More work was needed to convince the scientific community of their validity, so I teamed up with experts at the University of Portsmouth to verify what I'd found." Most of the findings are isolated footprints, but one discovery comprises six footprints - making a 'trackway', which is more than one consecutive print from the same animal.

This trackway of prints are similar in size to an elephant footprint and have been identified as likely to be an Ornithopodichnus, of which similar, but smaller-sized footprints have also been found in China from the same time period.

The largest footprint found - measuring 80 cm in width and 65 cm in length - has been identified as belonging to an Iguanodon-like dinosaur. Iguanodons were also plant-eaters, grew up to 10 metres long and walked on both two legs or on all fours.

Professor Martill said: "To find such an array of species in one place is fascinating. These dinosaurs probably took advantage of the tidal exposures on coastal foreshores, perhaps foraging for food or taking advantage of clear migration routes."

In the Late Cretaceous period, this part of Kent, and indeed much of the United Kingdom was beneath a shallow sea, but this study also shows unequivocally that the Folkestone Formation was inter-tidal.

Mr Hadland said: "Aside from finding that dinosaurs went to the seaside just like their modern relatives the birds, we have also found new evidence that changes the interpretation of the geology of the Folkestone Formation strata.

"It just goes to show that what has been previously published about the geology of an area isn't always correct and new insights can be made. There is also the potential for almost anyone to make a discovery that adds to scientific knowledge from publicly accessible geological sites."

The paper is published in Proceedings of the Geologists' Association and some of the footprints are currently on display at Folkestone Museum.

INFORMATION:



ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Phytoplankton -- the discovery of a missing link

2021-06-18
Biologists have identified a family of algae as a living missing link in the microscopic domain. Over the course of evolutionary time, marine microorganisms have undergone an immense range of diversification. This applies in particular to the group known as dinophytes. Also known as dinoflagellates, these unicellular algae can account for a significant fraction of the phytoplankton in the oceans, and their ecological and economic significance is correspondingly high. A team of researchers led by Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich biologist Professor Marc Gottschling now reports the identification of a missing link between the two major phylogenetic groups of dinophytes, ...

Irritable bowel syndrome endoscopically identifiable from mucosal biofilms

2021-06-18
One in six women and one in twelve men in Austria suffers from some form of IBS - therefore around one million people in all. Using currently available techniques, it is only possible to diagnose IBS by a process of elimination. Most people suffering from irritable bowel syndrome only go to their doctor when they have severe symptoms such as constipation, diarrhoea, abdominal pain, or a change in bowel motion. Researchers from the Department of Medicine III of the Medical University of Vienna and the University of Vienna have now shown that, in most cases, IBS is associated with bacterial biofilms ...

Baseline medication use is associated with COVID-19 severity in people with rheumatic diseases

2021-06-18
Due to sample size limitations, previous studies of DMARD use and COVID-19 outcomes have combined several different rheumatic diseases and medications, and investigated a single outcome- for example, the risk of hospitalization. EULAR has given financial support to a global project collecting information on SARS-CoV-2 infection in people with rheumatic diseases. The COVID-19 Global Rheumatology Alliance physician-reported registry launched in March 2020 to collect data on adults with rheumatic disease and confirmed or presumptive COVID-19. This analysis from Jeffrey Sparks, Zachary Wallace, and colleagues aimed to investigate the associations between baseline use of biologic or ...

Climate warming can influence fungal communities on oak leaves across the growing season

Climate warming can influence fungal communities on oak leaves across the growing season
2021-06-18
Climate warming plays a larger role than plant genes in influencing the number and identity of fungal species on oak leaves, especially in autumn. Recently published in the journal New Phytologist, this research by ecologists sheds light on how warming and tree genes affect the dynamics of fungal communities across the season. "One of our major findings was that elevated temperature decreased the number of fungal species and changed their community composition, especially in the late season" says Maria Faticov, a researcher at the Department of Ecology, Environment and Plant Sciences (DEEP) at Stockholm University. Plants host thousands of microscopic organisms and leaves are no exception. ...

First trial of faecal microbiota transplantation for people with active peripheral psoriatic arthritis shows no advantage

2021-06-18
In this proof-of-concept study, Maja Skov Kragsnaes and colleagues evaluated efficacy and safety of FMT in people with psoriatic arthritis (PsA). PsA is an inflammatory arthritis that causes a person's joints to become stiff and painful. It is often found people with the skin condition psoriasis, and there is also a link between PsA and inflammatory bowel disease or gastrointestinal symptoms. This double-blind, parallel-group, sham-controlled, superiority trial randomly allocated31adults with active peripheral PsAd espite ongoing treatment with methotrexate to one gastroscopic-guided FMT procedure, or sham transplantation into the duodenum. The transplants (50 g faeces) came from one of four healthy, anonymous stool ...

Wind and waves: A step toward better control of heavy-lift crane vessels

2021-06-18
Massive heavy-lift crane vessels, capable of hauling thousands of tons, navigate the rough waves and strong winds offshore to construct wind turbines and oil fields in the ocean. An international team of researchers has developed a new modeling system to help improve the control, and ultimately the safety, of such vessels. They published their approach in the April issue in IEEE/CAA Journal of Automatica Sinica. "Dynamic positioning allows the ship to stay fixed in a certain location, by acting on the thruster," said paper author Simone Baldi, professor in the School of Mathematics and School of Cyber Science and Engineering, Southeast University in China, and guest with the Delft Center for System and Control, Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. This positioning operation ...

Sweet sorghum: Sweet promise for the environment

Sweet sorghum: Sweet promise for the environment
2021-06-18
Sweet sorghum can be used to produce biogas, biofuels, and novel polymers. In addition, it can help replace phosphate fertilizers. A new sweet sorghum variety developed at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) accumulates particularly high amounts of sugar and thrives under local conditions. As the scientists reported in the Industrial Crops & Products journal, sugar transport and sugar accumulation are related to the structure of the plants' vessels. This was the result of a comparison between sweet and grain sorghums. (DOI: 10.1016/j.indcrop.2021.113550) As the world's population grows, the demand for food, raw materials, and energy is also on the rise. This increases the burden on the environment and the climate. One strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is to grow so-called ...

Imaging at the tip of a needle

Imaging at the tip of a needle
2021-06-18
Scientists have developed a new technique that could revolutionise medical imaging procedures using light. A team of physicists, led by Dr David Phillips from the University of Exeter, have pioneered a new way in which to control light that has been scrambled by passage through a single hair-thin strand of optical fibre. These ultra-thin fibres hold much promise for the next generation of medical endoscopes - enabling high-resolution imaging deep inside the body at the tip of a needle. Conventional endoscopes are millimetres wide and have limited resolution - so cannot be used to inspect individual cells. Single optical fibres are approximately 10x narrower and can enable much higher-resolution imaging - enough to examine the features of individual ...

Proliferation of electric vehicles based on high-performance, low-cost sodium-ion battery

Proliferation of electric vehicles based on high-performance, low-cost sodium-ion battery
2021-06-18
Various automobile companies are preparing to shift from internal combustion (IC) engine vehicles to electric vehicles (EVs). However, due to higher cost, EVs are not as easily accessible to consumers; hence, several governments are subsidizing EVs to promote sales. For EV costs to compete with those of IC engine vehicles, their batteries, which account for about 30% of their cost, must be more economical than that of IC-based vehicles. The Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) has announced that Dr. Sang-Ok Kim's team at the Center for Energy Storage Research had developed a novel, high-performance, economical anode material for use in sodium-ion secondary batteries, which are ...

Elderly patients are not at increased risk of serious infections with new disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs compared to conventional synthetic treatments

2021-06-18
New classes of drugs are biologic disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (bDMARDs) and Januskinase inhibitors (JAKi). At the 2021 EULAR congress, Strangfeld and colleagues shared new data assessing the effects of these medications on the risk of serious infections in elderly people with RA. RA is an inflammatory autoimmune disease that causes pain, swelling, and stiffness in the joints, but it also affects other organ systems through underlying systemic inflammation, causing for example cardiovascular diseases or fatigue. RABBIT is a prospective, observational cohort study in Germany. ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Andrew Siemion to receive the SETI Institute’s 2024 Drake Award

New study shows how the Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus enters our cells

Neoadjuvant chemotherapy proves effective for locally advanced penile squamous cell carcinoma

Study flips treatment paradigm in bilateral Wilms tumor, shows resistance to chemotherapy may point toward favorable outcomes

Doctors received approximately $12.1 billion from drug and device makers between 2013-2022

Discovery suggests new strategy against follicular lymphoma

Making the future too bright: how wishful thinking can point us in the wrong direction

Ochsner Health named to Newsweek’s America’s Greatest Workplaces 2024 for Job Starters

Three-year study of young stars with NASA’s Hubble enters new chapter

North Carolina takes the lead in PFAs research with Collaboratory’s $3 million investment to expand the state’s research capacity

Is it the school, or the students?

Exploring the relationship between HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis and the incidence of chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis – findings from Denmark

Music: Song lyrics have become simpler and more repetitive since 1980

Environment: More than half of Colorado River’s water used to irrigate crops

When inequality is more than “skin-deep”: Social status leaves traces in the epigenome of spotted hyenas in Tanzania

Study explores the future of at-home cancer treatment

First performance standards published to measure the effectiveness of lifestyle medicine treatments

To keep volunteers, connect them

Suppressing boredom at work hurts future productivity, study shows

Older brain cells linger unexpectedly before their death

Clear shift in arterial diseases in diabetes

Celebrating half a century of pioneering excellence: EBMT marks its 50th anniversary

Ancient DNA reveals the appearance of a 6th century Chinese emperor

DNA study IDs descendants of George Washington from unmarked remains, findings to aid service member IDs going back to World War II

Familial Alzheimer’s disease transferred via bone marrow transplant in mice

Perspectives of oncologists on the ethical implications of using AI for cancer care

Industry payments to US physicians by specialty and product type

Andrew E. Place, MD, PhD appointed as Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center Vice President, Pediatric Chief Medical Officer

COVID-19 antibody discovery could explain long COVID

Wild plants face viral surprise

[Press-News.org] Footprints discovered from the last dinosaurs to walk on UK soil