A blog about humans finding a dinosaur. These are the headlines that should be written every day, if only to clarify the distinction between “news” and “blog”.
The blog is called “Dinosaur Found in the Wild,” but it’s actually about a very different kind of dinosaur. The blog is not about dinosaurs that once were and now are not; the blog is about dinosaurs that once were and still are.
The blog’s main character is a girl named Wendy, who is making a documentary about a dinosaur that has never existed. She is following a trail of clues left by her grandfather, who was an explorer in Africa in the 1930s and 40s. He was looking for fossils and would bring back pieces to sell on the black market.
Wendy is convinced these fossils are real. Her father disagrees. But Wendy persists in her belief. She goes to Kenya to meet an old man who says he saw her grandfather sell some of the fossils. This doesn’t prove anything, but it suggests that the fossils might be real, and so Wendy wants to go back to Kenya to try to find them herself.
Wendy’s story probably sounds improbable—until you consider what she has to go through in order to find out whether or not it is true: she has to survive, unprotected in hostile territory, for days without food or water; she has to survive, unprotected, for days with no shelter or protection from
It was a big day for the blog Dinosaur Watch. Earlier that morning, one of its commenters had pointed out a photo of an extinct creature. The commenters were all excited. Then the professor posted a video of the creature in the wild, and the comments blew up.
The dinosaur was not only real – he was also an inflatable dinosaur costume.
That’s when the blogger got into trouble with his editors at the University of South Florida, who said it wasn’t news at all, but rather a blog about costumes and movies like Jurassic Park. “It is definitely not breaking news,” wrote one editor, “because we’ve been covering this for years.”
The blogger told her, “Breaking news is when we discover a new species.” She replied, ‘It’s not news to us.’ It felt like she was saying my commenters don’t know how to read.”
All blogs are about humans, but this one focuses on what we have found. It is a break from the human-centric norm.
This is an interesting choice. Humans are often said to be the only species with a built-in desire for storytelling, which explains why writers, who are mostly humans, make up stories that interest us. But clearly that’s not true: humans may have a natural desire for storytelling, but it’s not their only desire. They also like to eat and sleep, and the blog is unlikely to get many comments from people who don’t find hunting dinosaurs interesting.
The blog has an obvious bias towards news about dinosaurs because it has been set up by someone who works in science journalism. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be set up by someone else; nor does it mean that every science blog needs to be written by someone whose main interest is dinosaurs.
It all started when I was researching the big dinosaur news that made the rounds the other day. The paper said that a full-grown T-Rex skeleton had been discovered in northern China. It was sitting in a Chinese shop, still intact and apparently undamaged, and it looked as if it had never roamed anywhere at all.
But here’s the thing: I couldn’t find any news reports of such a find anywhere on the net. No one had seen it, no one knew anything about it. No one had ever heard of it. It was like some secret, some incredibly important piece of information that I just knew was out there somewhere but I couldn’t find…
And then it hit me: what if someone else already knew about this fossil? What if they were keeping it a secret and were trying to keep me from finding out about it?
It’s just like the UFO sightings you see on TV. People watch them, but everyone knows they’re false. But then there are these little things that slip through that are true….
You know what? I’m going to go out there myself, and see if I can get any details on this dinosaur.
… it’s not just that this dinosaur is alive and well, but that we’ve found it. We have a new species to name. This is exciting for more reasons than one. It suggests that the whole thing about extinction was wrong. It suggests that we are in fact a very old species, and that the dinosaurs could have survived for millions of years after the asteroid hit. And it suggests that civilization is not merely possible, but probable as well.
This was an interesting discovery to make, and there will be more to come from it – we expect to discover many more species in the future. But what’s really important is how this may change how we see ourselves in the world, how we see our place in the universe, and how we view our own potential as a species.
It seems likely that there are other civilizations out there. And if they’re out there, they must be aware of us; they must know exactly who humans are and what we’re capable of. They must know us better than we know ourselves. They must know us better than we know each other…
The dinosaur suit is first seen in the background of a scene where the children are forming a dinosaur by combining a horse and an elephant. This is the same scene with which we met the children in “A Dinosaur in the Family.” The dinosaur costume is an important symbol of adventure, freedom, and exploration.
First, the children have to get the costume. The costume looks like it could be difficult to get. The children must first earn money and then purchase it. Delia must sell her doll to Peter in order for them to be able to buy it. Peter does not want to sell his doll because he wants to keep it as a memento for his father who has recently died. He feels that if he sells it now, he might never see his father again as he has been told that his father will be gone for a long time.
Second, the children must wear the costume. They must put on the suit before they can go exploring outside. Wearing this costume will give them confidence and allow them to explore their environment freely without being limited by what they think they should do or what other people are telling them they should do. It is also important that they don’t put on this suit until after they have earned enough money so that Delia can