Dinosaur sporting ‘wings’ on head found

 

Triceratops are passe. Here comes a new horned dinosaur and its cranial ornamentation is even more flowery than the three-horned dinosaur the world had earlier come to know, reveals a new study.

A study of the recently discovered species, Mercuriceratops gemini, provides more details on this flashy dinosaur which possessed not only the standard trifecta of facial horns but also a giant, wing-like frill protruding from the back of its skull.The research is based on fossil evidence collected from Montana and Alberta, Canada.The dinosaur’s name, Mercuriceratops, is a combination of “Mercury” — the Roman God best known for his winged helmet — and “ceratops,” a Greek word meaning “horned face”.

“The butterfly shaped frill, or neck shield, of Mercuriceratops is unlike anything we have seen before,” said David Evans, curator of vertebrate paleontology at Royal Ontario Museum in Canada.

“Mercuriceratops shows that evolution gave rise to much greater variation in horned dinosaur headgear than we had previously suspected,” he added.Mercuriceratops gemini lived about 77 million years ago, during the Late Cretaceous Period, and was approximately 6 metres long and weighed more than 2 tonnes, Live Science reported.

The findings appeared in the journal Naturwissenschaften.

Gene critical for brain development identified

 

Researchers have identified a gene which is required for the proper development of a healthy cerebellum, a master control centre in the brain for balance, fine motor control and complex physical movements.Researchers have found that a specific gene, called Snf2h, plays an important role in the development of the cerebellum.Athletes and artists perform their extraordinary feats relying on the cerebellum. The cerebellum is critical for the everyday tasks and activities that we perform, such as walking, eating and driving a car.By removing Snf2h, researchers found that the cerebellum was smaller than normal, and balance and refined movements were compromised.Led by Dr. David Picketts, a senior scientist at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute and professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Ottawa, the team described the Snf2h gene, which is found in our brain’s neural stem cells and functions as a master regulator.

When they removed this gene early on in a mouse’s development, its cerebellum only grew to one-third the normal size.It also had difficulty walking, balancing and coordinating its movements, something called cerebellar ataxia that is a component of many neurodegenerative diseases.“As these cerebellar stem cells divide, on their journey toward becoming specialised neurons, this master gene is responsible for deciding which genes are turned on and which genes are packed tightly away,” said Picketts.“Without Snf2h there to keep things organised, genes that should be packed away are left turned on, while other genes are not properly activated.“This disorganisation within the cell’s nucleus results in a neuron that doesn’t perform very well — like a car running on five cylinders instead of six,” he said.The cerebellum contains roughly half the neurons found in the brain. It also develops in response to external stimuli.So, as we practice tasks, certain genes or groups of genes are turned on and off, which strengthens these circuits and helps to stabilise or perfect the task being undertaken.

The researchers found that the Snf2h gene orchestrates this complex and ongoing process. These master genes, which adapt to external cues to adjust the genes they turn on and off, are known as epigenetic regulators.

“These epigenetic regulators are known to affect memory, behaviour and learning,” said Picketts.

“Without Snf2h, not enough cerebellar neurons are produced, and the ones that are produced do not respond and adapt as well to external signals.“They also show a progressively disorganised gene expression profile that results in cerebellar ataxia and the premature death of the animal,” he said.

The study was published in the journal Nature Communications.