Re: This week's Nature...

["Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <th81@umail.umd.edu>]

At 11:19 PM 9/23/98 EDT, Mary Kirkaldy wrote:
>th81@umail.umd.edu wrote:
>>  ...is, according to the "Next Issue" blurb of the Sept. 17 issue, supposed
>>  to have an article concerning matters "inside _Archaeopteryx_".  Should be
>>  interesting.
>
>Nature 395, 374 - 376 (9/24/98):  "Postcranial pneumatization in 
>Archaeopteryx" -  BROOKS B. BRITT, PETER J. MAKOVICKY,
>JACQUES GAUTHIER & NIELS BONDE 

Congrats to Brooks, Peter, Jacques & Niels for an important new paper.
Let's not hear any more about "solid boned _Archaeopteryx_" anymore, shall
we... :-)

Other papers of interest in this week's Nature:

The cover girl is a new specimen of coelacanth, found alive 10,000 km away
from the previous known population (in the Comoros, off Africa).  The new
Indonensian population indicates that _Latimeria_ is less rare than previous
thought.

 M V Erdmann, R L Caldwell & M K Moosa.  Indonesian 'king of the sea'
discovered (Scientific Correspondence) p. 335 

For those into the Precambrian...
J A Brandes, N Z Boctor, G D Cody, B A Cooper, R M Hazen & H S Yoder Jr.
Abiotic nitrogen reduction on the early Earth (Letter to Nature) p. 365 

Or into models of extinction...
J W Kirchner & A Weil. No fractals in fossil extinction statistics
(Scientific Correspondence) p. 337 

For astronomy (and hard science fiction) fans: evidence that stable
planetary systems can form around both stars in a binary system (there had
been some debate as to whether such would be torn apart by the gravitation
of the two stars).

L F Rodríguez, P D'Alessio, D J Wilner, P T P Ho, J M Torelles, S Curiel, Y
Gómez, S Lizano, A Pedlar, J Cantó & A C Raga.  Compact protoplanetary disks
around the stars of a young binary system (Letter to Nature) p. 355

Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
Vertebrate Paleontologist     Webpage: http://www.geol.umd.edu
Dept. of Geology              Email:tholtz@geol.umd.edu
University of Maryland        Phone:301-405-4084
College Park, MD  20742       Fax:  301-314-9661