Dinosaurs, and the Stories They Tell

A herd of teenage dinosaurs died a grisly death together, but their remains — the first discovery of whole skeletons of a population being preserved together — are a gold mine for researchers.

Also in today’s links: use of technology increases, and more.

• A professor says that educating her students on the negative impact of using their laptops in class prompted them to stop surfing. It’s a small sample size, and no clear way to know that the kids didn’t just stop because they realized their teacher was onto them. But it’s an intriguing idea as to whether there is a connection between performance and in-class laptop use, besides the residual effect of annoying the professor.
• And speaking of pervasive electronics use, a new report says mobile devices to access the Internet has more than doubled from January ’08 to January ’09.
• If digital cameras have maxed out at 12 megapixels, the camera and technology companies will have to find a new area in which to compete. It might be software, it might be editing tools, it might be something completely different.
• Six tiny bones have identified the smallest meat-eating dinosaur in North America, which was the size of a small chicken, leading researchers to believe that reptiles, rather than mammals, filled the small-predator niche.