Some have theorised that a red dwarf star or brown dwarf called Nemesis, that supposedly orbits the Solar System at a distance of about two light years, has been behind mass extinctions on Earth in the past.

Its hypothetical orbit takes it through the Oort cloud (itself hypothetical), which sits on the outer boundary of the Solar System, about every 27 million years, and in doing so disturbs comets and other debris that are said make up the cloud, sending some Earth-wards, resulting in events such as the demise of the dinosaurs.

But another idea first put forward in the 1980s is that the Sun has a distant dark companion called Nemesis that sweeps through the Oort cloud every 27 million years or so, sending a deadly shower of comets our way. It’s this icy shower of death that causes the extinctions, or so the thinking goes.

While the theory doesn’t hold a great deal of water, a rogue star called Nemesis, that unleashes all sorts of mayhem across the Solar System, if nothing else, would make for a great science fiction storyline.

The mis-naming of the dinosaur formerly known as Brontosaurus – Apatosaurus is the correct title for the beast – came about as a result of a bitter dispute between two US paleontologists, Edward Drinker Cope, and Othniel Charles Marsh, in the mid 19th century.

Long story short, but as Cope and Marsh tried to out do each other in terms of discovering new dinosaur species, a set of Apatosaurus bones were erroneously classified as being those of an apparently new creature, a Brontosaurus.

One outgrowth of these “bone wars” was an unscientific competition between Cope and Marsh to see who could discover the most species of extinct beasts. In their rush to beat each other to the next find, the scientists often based their claims on incomplete or inaccurate data.

Stark changes in the appearance of some dinosaurs as they grew to maturity have lead scientists to classify fossils found in various stages of development as a number of other – possibly non-existent – dinosaurs, with Tyrannosaurus rex (T. rex) being a case in point.

The lean and graceful Nanotyrannus is one strong example. Thought to be a smaller relative of T. rex, the supposed species is now considered by many experts to be based on a misidentified fossil of a juvenile T. rex. The purported Nanotyrannus fossils have the look of a teenage T. rex, Horner said in the new documentary. That’s because T. rex‘s skull changed dramatically as it grew, he said. The skull morphed from an elongated shape to the more familiar, short snout and jaw, which could take in large quantities of food.

We know there is a finite supply of fossil fuels but has anyone stopped to think how much longer we can expect to unearth fossil specimens, such as dinosaur skeletons?

There are currently about 3,000 so-called “full” dinosaur specimens – complete or near-complete skeletons or just a complete or near-complete skull – in museums around the United States. Scientists estimate that there are at least triple this number as yet uncollected around the globe. It’s hard to say how long it will take to track these down. But currently we’re discovering new full specimens at a rate of about 14 per year. If we continue at that pace, it’s safe to say we won’t run out soon. (This rate is historically high – between 1970 and 1990, the rate was only six per year.)

Is it really possible to recreate a dinosaur from a… chicken embryo?

If you consider a chicken to be a “modern dinosaur”, and I suppose that’s not a completely absurd proposition, there are some (very remote) similarities between chickens and some dinosaurs, then it just be a viable (though not necessarily ethical) concern.

Horner was an advisor to the Jurassic Park movies, and right away he dismisses the idea of extracting 65 million year old DNA in enough quantity to reconstitute a dinosaur as clearly nothing but a fantasy. That’s simply not how it can be done. But he does have a grand, long-term plan for recreating a dinosaur.

An evolutionary supertree featuring 440 of the 600 known species of dinosaurs, shows how dinosaur evolution, which surged during their first 50 million years, virtually came to a stand still during the Cretaceous period.

It remained at that low level throughout the following Cretaceous period, a time of plenty in Earth’s terrestrial history in which flowering plants, lizards, snakes, birds and mammals all became much more numerous. Dinosaurs apparently did not take advantage of the abundant food supply that emerged during the Cretaceous Terrestrial Revolution

If you’re not moving forward (as a species), then you’re moving backwards?

Top 100 weirdest amphibians list launched.

The title of this list is enough to make anyone who loathes creepy-crawlies cringe. Top 100? You mean there are more of these creatures who didn’t make the top 100?

They have tentacles coming out of their heads, live underground for months on end, do not need to feed for up to 10 years, and survived whatever killed the dinosaurs. The Zoological Society of London in the UK has launched the top 100 list of the world’s weirdest, most wonderful and rarest amphibians. “They’re extraordinary survivors,” says Helen Meredith of ZSL. “Ninety percent of our top 100 amphibians survived the extinction of the dinosaurs.” Yet they are also in dire need of help to ensure they will continue to survive.

Whatever killed the dinosaurs? I wonder if these tentacled amphibians had anything to do with it?

Did Insects Kill the Dinosaurs?

Is it possible that creepy crawlies and insects, rather than an ice age, or a meteor hitting the planet, were in fact responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs?

The authors aren’t arguing that the dinos all died in a massive epidemic; rather, the constant wear and tear of illness weakened the dinosaurs so that other catastrophes, like comets and volcanoes, could have finished them off. Still, the Poinars couldn’t resist a bit of made-for-Hollywood drama. One great quote from the book: “The largest of the land animals, the dinosaurs, would have been locked in a life-or-death struggle with [insects] for survival.”

It could be the dinosaurs were vulnerable to insect borne diseases such as malaria, and that helped hasten their demise.

Dino Conspiracy Theory. Here’s an article opener, or hook, budding journalists should take note of:

The extinction of the dinosaurs has long been considered a crime committed by a lone gunman: an incoming asteroid that struck the earth 65 million years ago, filling the air with sun-blocking dust.

But was there a grassy knoll? Not quite…

Now, however, controversy is being stirred anew as evidence suggests that the asteroid might have had a partner in crime: volcanoes, massive ones, blasting clouds of toxic gas from the bowels of the earth and poisoning much of the planet’s life.

Lone gunman. Partner in crime. Nothing like borrowing from the lines of a conspiracy theory to put a new slant on the demise of the dinosaurs… +

Extreme Urban Retro: 10 Creative Steampunk Designs, Modifications and Inventions: what is steampunk? Our friend the Web Urbanist obliges with an answer…

Steampunk is a kind of speculative fiction that usually takes place in urban settings where the future meets the past: Victorian era inventions clash with often dark alternate realities. However, what started as a literary genre has since evolved into an art form with incredible real-life inventions, modifications and redesigns.

Wouldn’t mind getting my mitts on that steampunk style stratocaster though! +

Disabling Deprecated HTML Using CSS: it’s a good idea in theory… as a web designer you hand over standards compliant web templates to a client who promptly sets about adding all sorts of deprecated (or no longer current) HTML code into the mix.

A cleverly written style sheet will, in most cases, override any client “modifications”. Problem is, it still doesn’t stop the deprecated additions taking place, and won’t the result be an undesirable hotchpotch of redundant and “current” code? +

Young networkers turn off TV and log on to the web: this is the sort of trend that I could get excited about.

Europe’s internet users are spending 12 hours a week online, an hour more than last year, with 16- to 24-year-olds – a crucial audience for advertisers – increasingly logging on rather than watching TV.

But guess what they’re doing instead.

Social networking has taken off, with 42% of internet users regularly visiting sites such as Bebo and Facebook compared with 23% last year.

Facebook killed the video star? ;) +

Michael Lopp Webstock interview: the Apple software designer tackles the hard questions, the first in a series of interviews with some of the Webstock 2008 speakers. +