Grandparent scam: London, Ont., senior beats fraudsters not once, but twice
It was a typical Tuesday for Mabel Beharrell, 84, until she got the call that would turn her world upside down. Her teenaged grandson was in trouble and needed her help.
A new study has offered what it says is the first physical evidence showing dinosaurs from the Triassic period regularly endured freezing conditions, allowing them to survive and eventually supersede other species on the planet.
The study, published in the journal Science Advances on July 1, looks at the circumstances surrounding the Triassic-Jurassic Extinction 202 million years ago, which killed off a number of large reptiles and led to the eventual takeover of dinosaurs.
During the extinction event, researchers say cold snaps killed off many cold-blooded reptiles.
Through studying footprints and rock fragments in a remote desert of the Junggar Basin in northwest China, the researchers say Triassic dinosaurs, a relatively minor group populating Earth's polar regions, survived the "evolutionary bottleneck and spread out."
"Dinosaurs were there during the Triassic under the radar all the time," Paul Olsen, a geologist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and lead author of the study, said in a statement.
"The key to their eventual dominance was very simple. They were fundamentally cold-adapted animals. When it got cold everywhere, they were ready, and other animals weren't."
Dinosaurs are thought to have first appeared about 231 million years ago during the Triassic period in temperate southern latitudes, the researchers say.
At the time, most of Earth's land was joined together as one giant continent known as Pangaea.
Dinosaurs made it to the far north about 214 million years ago and until the mass extinction, reptiles dominated the planet's tropical and subtropical regions.
While atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide then were at or above 2,000 parts per million or five times today's levels resulting in "intense" temperatures, the researchers say climate models suggest higher latitudes did experience seasonal temperature declines and would have received little sunlight much of the year.
By the end of the Triassic period, the researchers say massive volcanic eruptions potentially lasting hundreds of years killed more than three-quarters of all terrestrial and marine life on the planet.
The eruptions also would have caused carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere to rise, creating deadly temperature spikes and making ocean waters too acidic for many lifeforms.
But the researchers say the eruptions also would have released sulfur aerosols, capable of deflecting sunlight and causing repeated "global volcanic winters" lasting a decade and possibly longer.
Not only were Triassic dinosaurs able to survive under these conditions, the researchers say evidence has shown many if not all non-avian dinosaurs also had primitive feathers that would have been used mainly as insulation. Many dinosaurs also are believed to have been warm blooded and possessed high metabolisms.
"There is a stereotype that dinosaurs always lived in lush tropical jungles, but this new research shows that the higher latitudes would have been freezing and even covered in ice during parts of the year," Stephen Brusatte, a professor of paleontology and evolution at the University of Edinburgh, said.
"Dinosaurs living at high latitudes just so happened to already have winter coats [while] many of their Triassic competitors died out."
As for the physical evidence supporting their study, the researchers looked at fine-grained sandstone and siltstone formations left behind in the sediments of shallow ancient lake bottoms in the Junggar Basin, formed 206 million years ago during the late Triassic. At the time, the basin would have been located above the Arctic Circle.
Footprints show dinosaurs were present along the shorelines, while pebbles about 1.5 centimetres wide, found far from any apparent shoreline, offered evidence of "ice-rafted debris," they say.
Ice-rafted debris forms when ice builds against a coastal landmass and takes in bits of underlying rock, the researchers say.
The ice eventually detaches and drifts away. As it melts, the rocks fall off and mix in with the sediment.
The researchers say the pebbles were likely picked up during the winter when lake waters froze and floated away as the weather warmed.
"This shows that these areas froze regularly, and the dinosaurs did just fine," study co-author Dennis Kent, a geologist at Lamont-Doherty, said.
The researchers say more work is needed to find fossils in former polar areas, such as the Junggar Basin.
It was a typical Tuesday for Mabel Beharrell, 84, until she got the call that would turn her world upside down. Her teenaged grandson was in trouble and needed her help.
The deaths of four people on a farm near the Saskatchewan village of Neudorf have been confirmed a murder-suicide.
Genetic analysis has shed light on a long-standing mystery surrounding the fates of U.S. President George Washington's younger brother Samuel and his kin.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump is officially selling a copy of the Bible themed to Lee Greenwood’s famous song, 'God Bless the USA.' But the concept of a Bible covered in the American flag has raised concern among religious circles.
The Parole Board of Canada has granted full parole to one of three men convicted in the brutal murders of three McDonald's restaurant workers in Cape Breton more than 30 years ago.
Rainfall warnings of up to 90 millimetres and other alerts have been issued for six Canadian provinces, according to the latest forecasts.
Ontario released its annual sunshine list Thursday afternoon, noting that the largest year-over-year increases were in hospitals, municipalities, and post-secondary sectors.
A bus carrying worshippers headed to an Easter festival plunged off a bridge on a mountain pass and burst into flames in South Africa on Thursday, killing at least 45 people, authorities said.
Calgary police have shut down a number of bridges into and out of the downtown core as officers deal with a distraught individual.
B.C. conservation officers recently seized a nine-foot-long Burmese python from a home in Chilliwack.
A New Brunswicker will go to bed Thursday night much richer than he was Wednesday after collecting on a winning lottery ticket he let sit on his bedroom dresser for nearly a year.
The Ontario government is introducing changes to auto-insurance, but some experts say the move is ill-advised.
A Toronto restaurant introduced a surprising new rule that reduced the cost of a meal and raised the salaries of staff.
Newfoundland’s unique version of the Pine Marten has grown out of its threatened designation.
A Toronto man is out $12,000 after falling victim to a deepfake cryptocurrency scam that appeared to involve Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
It started small with a little pop tab collection to simply raise some money for charity and help someone — but it didn’t take long for word to get out that 10-year-old Jace Weber from Mildmay, Ont. was quickly building up a large supply of aluminum pop tabs.
There’s a group of people in Saskatoon that proudly call themselves dumpster divers, and they’re turning the city’s trash into treasure.
Ontario is facing a larger than anticipated deficit but the Doug Ford government still plans to balance its books before the next provincial election.