Wildlife in Egypt - Types of Egyptian Animals
Hesperornis Regalis
Hesperornis was a large flightless bird that swam in the oceans and snared fish with a tooth-lined beak. Its small wings were held close in to the body and were of little use beyond possibly helping it steer through the water. Instead, Hesperornis relied on its powerful hind legs and webbed feet to chase prey and evade predators in the Cretaceous seas. A flattened tail may have helped the bird change depth and direction underwater.
In fact, Hesperornis was so adapted to diving and swimming that walking on land was an awkward proposition at best. Presumably, the bird only ventured onto solid ground to breed and lay eggs. Neither water nor land were safe for Hesperornis: Dinosaurs were terrestrial threats, and the aquatic mosasaur giant Tylosaurus was known to consider Hesperornis a tasty meal.
On the water, a long, slender neck gave Hesperornis a silhouette similar to a modern-day grebe. It probably fed and bred much like a penguin.
Fossil Hunter Attempting Another Go At Getting State Fossil Named
Fossil hunter Alan Detrich, Overbrook, is pictured with a 17-foot Mosasaur, he discovered several years ago in Gove County, Kansas. Detrich, who has uncovered various dinosaur fossils says it took him a year to clean and set the Mosasaur within masonry molding plaster as it is seen. Nick Krug/Journal-World Photo
If you take a walk around Alan Detrich's barn outside of Lawrence, you're going to come across a few things lying about that are generally reserved for glass cases in fancy museums.
There are remains of prehistoric creatures, some the size of small boulders, scattered all about. "Dinosaur bone, dinosaur bone, dinosaur bone," Detrich said, each intonation accompanied with a casual pointing of his finger.
Knee-deep as ever in those artifacts, Detrich, a retired oil investor and antique businessman, has been a fossil hunter for about 28 years. For 12, he's tried to get the state of Kansas to recognize a state fossil, and now, in one last push, he's dedicating one more year to the cause before giving it up.
Kansas is one of 11 states that do not have a state fossil or dinosaur. Even the District of Columbia has one.
"This is my last try," said Detrich, 66 years old with gray hair in a ponytail. "If this does not succeed, the guy that picks up the baton after me is going to have to carry it because at some point you gotta realize that people do not want what you're recommending."
The beast he wishes to anoint: the mosasaur, a large, swimming reptile predator common to Kansas when it was submerged by an inland sea millions of years ago. Detrich has a two-pronged strategy involving two sets of mosasaur skeletons and lobbying the state legislature.
One of those mosasaurs, at 17 and a half feet long, is all shined and ready for the eyes of the public. It is coiled up in what he calls "the death pose," and Detrich wants to display it somewhere soon so its many teeth and gnarly claw-like bones of its flippers can stir public support.
In the meantime, Detrich plans on approaching state representatives while preparing his other 20-foot-long mosasaur for its ideal home – the Kansas Statehouse. He said the skeletons of both mosasaurs are 75 to 80 percent complete.
Detrich and, separately, Leonard Krishtalka, director of the of Kansas University's Natural History Museum and Biodiversity Institute, said declaring the mosasaur the state fossil could promote education and tourism to Kansas because of its monstrous qualities and the abundance of fossils in the western part of the state.
"When it comes to mosasaurs, Kansas certainly has the goods," Krishtalka said. "Other museums, from the United States and other countries, have collected mosasaurs from [Kansas]."
Said Detrich: "If we can use these monsters as instruments of education, let's do it, because it excites young people and if it excites them they're going to want to read about them."
Krishtalka, who has met Detrich over the course several collaborations, said Detrich has not asked for help on the campaign, but that the museum would "certainly endorse the mosasaur" as the state fossil.
Detrich has made a career out of finding and selling fossils to both museums and private buyers. In 2004, he offered to give the state a fossil of a Xiphactinus addax, a predatory bony fish, in an attempt to get anything recognized as the state fossil. He asked for a tax deduction in return. The state didn't bite.
When asked if he would give one of his mosasaurs to the state for a price this time around, he said he might, in order to ensure it's properly taken care of. But then he added, "They could probably twist my arm and I could probably give it to them."
The state has until next October, or the deal is off the table.
World Health Organization, Experts Reach Landmark Agreement On How To Define Airborne Diseases
The World Health Organization and around 500 experts have agreed for the first time what it means for a disease to spread through the air, in a bid to avoid the confusion early in the COVID-19 pandemic that some scientists have said cost lives.
The Geneva-based U.N. Health agency released a technical document on the topic on Thursday. It said it was the first step towards working out how to better prevent this kind of transmission, both for existing diseases like measles and for future pandemic threats.
The document concludes that the descriptor "through the air" can be used for infectious diseases where the main type of transmission involves the pathogen traveling through the air or being suspended in the air, in line with other terms such as "waterborne" diseases, which are understood across disciplines and by the public.
WHO DIRECTOR CALLS FOR WORLD PANDEMIC TREATY TO PREPARE FOR DISEASE X
Almost 500 experts contributed to the definition, including physicists, public health professionals and engineers, many of whom disagreed bitterly over the topic in the past.
The World Health Organization and around 500 experts have agreed for the first time what it means for a disease to spread through the air, in a bid to avoid the confusion early in the COVID-19 pandemic that some scientists have said cost lives. (REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File Photo)
Agencies have historically required high levels of proof before calling diseases airborne, which required very stringent containment measures; the new definition says the risk of exposure and severity of disease should also be considered.
Past disagreements also centered around whether infectious particles were "droplets" or "aerosols" based on size, which the new definition moves away from.
During the early days of COVID in 2020, around 200 aerosol scientists publicly complained that the WHO had failed to warn people of the risk that the virus could spread through the air. This led to an overemphasis on measures like handwashing to stop the virus, rather than focusing on ventilation, they said.
By July 2020, the agency said there was "evidence emerging" of airborne spread, but its then chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan – who began the process to get a definition – later said the WHO should have been more forceful "much earlier".
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Her successor, Jeremy Farrar, said in an interview that the new definition was about more than COVID, but he added that at the beginning of the pandemic there was a lack of evidence available and experts including the WHO acted in "good faith". At that time, he was head of the Wellcome Trust charity and advised the British government on the pandemic.
Farrar said getting the definition agreed among experts from all disciplines would allow discussions to begin about issues such as ventilation in many different settings, from hospitals to schools.
He compared it to the realization that blood-borne viruses like HIV or hepatitis B could be spread by medics not wearing gloves during procedures.
"When I started out, medical students, nurses, doctors, none of us wore gloves to take blood," he told Reuters. "Now it is unthinkable that you wouldn't wear gloves. But that came because everyone agreed on what the issue was, they agreed on the terminology… [The change in practice] came later."
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