AFP – A stunningly intact 220-million-year-old fossil found in southwestern China appears to have settled a long-simmering debate over reptile evolution: how did turtles get their shell?

LiveScience.com – A half-shell turtle species that swam in China’s coastal waters 220 million years ago is the oldest turtle known to date, a new analysis of fossils reveals.

Reuters – Researchers in China have unearthed fossils of the most primitive turtle to date, a creature with teeth, a fully formed belly shell and a back shell that appeared to be just evolving.

Beneath an unassuming hill on the sweeping property where Bennett and Jessica Bramson live lays a mystery 150 million years old

Footprints found on Skye and in Wyoming, in the US, were left by the same dinosaurs or a similar species, recently-published research has found

Curators have re-created the office of Joseph Leidy, the academy scientist who identified the bones 150 years ago, complete with a vintage microscope and his handsome wooden desk

A Portuguese bulldozer driver who is selling a dinosaur fossil he found online has been criticised by experts for refusing to hand the bones over to a museum

Herald-Citizen, Cookville, TN – It may not look like much now, but there’s a lot in store for the historic Wilson Sporting Goods factory building in Cookeville’s West Side — one in particular that is expected to become a major tourism draw for the area.

Plans for a dinosaur museum highlight the renovations and upgrades planned for the former manufacturing plant. The factory is currently divided into seven different spaces with the idea to house galleries for local artists, professional offices, an international grocery store and even a basement tavern in the more than 18,000-square-foot space.

The building was purchased in May by local partnership K & R Partners and could house tenants as soon as the end of this month. It has been named the Wilson Complex.

"This building is so unique, and it will be evolving as tenants come in," said Jim Williams, a local architect who is working as a design consultant with the owners. "We want to make it more of an icon, but to also have an element that complements some of the surrounding architecture that is also historically significant."

While it’s hard to visualize the changes that will take place and what could possibly end up being housed inside, there’s no question that the renovation itself is a huge undertaking.

The first set of visible changes included the replacement of all the building’s old windows, which had been painted over. A new door has been added at the Cedar Avenue entrance and workers are spray painting the ceiling jet black.

In the next few weeks, the floors will be stripped and painted and the electrical and plumbing work completed. There is also the paving of the parking lots planned for the front and back of the building, and work hasn’t even begun on the 3,500-square-foot basement area, now used for storage, but may be transformed into a “Cheer’s” like tavern.

“A lot of people would be intimidated by this project,” Williams said. “It will set a precedence for Cookeville anyway.”

The building’s major tenant is a dinosaur museum, which will display authentic fossils from digs across the country. It will also provide hands-on exhibits, full-sized assembled bones of several species of dinosaurs, including the T-Rex, and a walk through prehistoric times.

The curator, Paleontologist Jerry Jacene, has been involved in dinosaur digs around the world. The museum will take up about a 7,000-square-foot space in the east-facing portion of the building.

“We’re hoping the dinosaur museum will be a draw,” for people in Nashville and Knoxville and those traveling along Interstate 40, Williams said. “It will be something for all ages. He (Jacene) feels very confident it will grow.”
http://www.herald-citizen.com/index.cfm?event=news.view&id=7881EF3F-19B9-E2E2-67955C89198FAD1A

AP – Bringing “Jurassic Park” one step closer to reality, scientists have deciphered much of the genetic code of the woolly mammoth, a feat they say could allow them to recreate the shaggy, prehistoric beast in as little as a decade or two.

Reuters – Bolivian farmer Primo Rivera had long wondered about the dents in a rocky hill near his home. Paleontologists solved the mystery this month: they are fossilized dinosaur footprints — the oldest in Bolivia.