Scientists in Toronto have named a newly identified dinosaur after a monster from the original "Ghostbusters" film. The Royal Ontario Museum said it acquired the skeleton of Zuul crurivastator last year. The name references Zuul, a dog-like monster that terrorizes characters played by Sigourney Weaver and Rick Moranis in the 1984 movie. The museum said scientists picked the name Zuul based on the features of its head, which includes a short, rounded snout and prominent horns behind the eyes. The skeleton of the armored dinosaur was excavated from the Judith River Formation in Montana. Scientists say it's one of the best preserved ankylosaurs ever found, with a complete skull and tail club and preserved soft tissues.
Bleaching found in another coral reef
As concerns grow over the condition of Australia's Great Barrier Reef, which has endured widespread coral bleaching in the past several years, scientists are finding similar damage on reefs all over the world. Now, a recent expedition to the Chagos Archipelago, a collection of at least 60 small islands in the Indian Ocean, has revealed devastating coral bleaching and coral death there, too. The reef is believed to have suffered back-to-back bleaching events in 2015 and 2016. These events were brought on by unusually warm conditions, likely influenced by climate change and an unusually severe El Niño effect in 2015.
How are rats with no Y chromosome male?
In most mammals, biological sex is determined by a lottery between two letters: X and Y, the sex chromosomes. But there are rare, mysterious exceptions: A small number of rodents have no Y chromosomes, yet are born as either females or males, not hermaphrodites. In a study published in Science Advances, Japanese scientists suggested that cells of the endangered Amami spiny rat are sexually flexible and capable of adapting to either ovaries or testes. When the researchers injected stem cells derived from a female rat into male embryos of laboratory mice, the cells developed into and survived as sperm precursors in adult males. The result was surprising since scientists have never been able to generate mature sperm from female stem cells, largely because sperm production normally requires the Y chromosome.
After 90 million years, a family for Louie
Since the early 1990s, Baby Louie has been an orphan. The 90-million-year-old fossilized dinosaur embryo was found among a clutch of supersize eggs in Henan province, in central China. Now, researchers have determined that Baby Louie belonged to a group of large, birdlike dinosaurs known as giant oviraptorosaurs. They resembled cassowaries and ostriches, but were about as heavy as a rhino and as tall as an elephant.
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