Giant dinosaur had tennis ball-sized brain
London: A giant dinosaur – as long as a double decker bus – that lived about 72 million years ago had a brain just 6.3cm big, say UK scientists who have described one of the most complete sauropod dinosaur braincases ever found in Europe.
The finding could help scientists uncover some of the mysteries of how dinosaur brains operated, including their intellectual and sensory abilities. Researchers have digitally reconstructed the cavity where the brain lay, the passages of the cranial nerves and certain blood vessels as well as the labyrinth of the inner ear.
The work was done by a team led by a senior research fellow Dr Fabien Knoll from The University of Manchester. Skulls, and particularly the braincases, are very fragile so not many have survived. That is not the case with this find, which is remarkably complete.
The skull, from a titanosaur, a type of sauropod, was found at a dig site in eastern Spain in 2007 and experts have spent the last few years studying it, ‘mirror.co.uk’ reported.
“This is such a rare finding that is why it is so exciting. Usually we find vertebrae or other bones, very rarely the braincase and this one is complete,” Knoll said. “Currently we know very little about the brain of dinosaurs. Research such as this is fundamental if we want to get an idea about the cognitive skills of these animals or if they had keen hearing or good eyesight and plenty of other information,” Knoll said. The study shows that its brain fitted in a diminutive cavity of only 6.3 cm in length. Knoll, who made the first digital reconstruction of a dinosaur endocranial cavity in the late 1990s, said: “In a few years’ time if more finds like this come to light and, above all, if they are studied with the modern imaging technologies then we could really start to understand more about dinosaur brains.” (PTI)
Soon, clothes that track body movements
Melbourne: Researchers have created stretchable and electrically conductive fibres that can be braided and knitted using traditional techniques to create wearable garments that monitor human movement.
The ability to arrange different types of fibres with predetermined spatial organisation gives us the colour, vibrancy and comfort we encounter in traditional textiles. By replacing conventional fibres with those that can conduct electricity, researchers can allow for monitoring of human movement using wearable garments, and even to store the energy required to power such a function.
Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science researchers have created new fibre structures and used traditional knitting and braiding techniques to introduce both of these capabilities to wearable structures. A knitted textile based on the polymeric composite fibres, produced at the Australian National Fabrication Facility, is highly sensitive, stable and able to detect a wide range of human movement. The team demonstrated a working device with remote sensing capabilities using a knee sleeve prototype of the fabric that ‘talks’ to a commercial wireless receiver.
These fibres are not only stretchable but also conduct electricity.
This combination of properties allows the fibres to respond to body movement. For energy storage the materials that make up a battery have been braided into appropriate arrangements to deliver energy storage capabilities, researchers said.
“We are able to take fundamental advances in materials science and engineering and to realise wearable structures for use in sports training and rehabilitation applications,” said ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science (ACES) Director Gordon Wallace. (PTI)
