Monster swallows monster: fossil reveals doubly fatal Triassic encounter

California, US: In a warm shallow sea about 240 million years ago in what is now southwestern China, a large dolphin-like marine reptile attacked and swallowed an almost equally big lizard-like marine reptile in a savage encounter that left both beasts dead.

Scientists on Thursday described a fossil unearthed in China's Guizhou Province that reveals this Triassic Period drama in exceptional detail and changes the understanding of "megapredation" in prehistoric seas. While it long has been presumed that large apex predators preyed upon other big animals - megapredation is defined as feeding on prey of human size or larger - the Chinese fossil represents the first direct evidence of it, as demonstrated by a prehistoric animal's stomach contents.

The fossil shows the skeleton of a 15-foot-long (5 meters) Guizhouichthyosaurus, a type of marine reptile called an ichthyosaur. Its body design married elements of a dolphin and a tiger shark though it lacked a dorsal fin, also boasting four strong flippers and a mouth full of powerful but blunt teeth.

Inside its stomach was the torso of a 12-foot-long (4 meters) Xinpusaurus, a type of marine reptile called an a thalattosaur. Its body design resembled a komodo dragon with four paddling limbs and teeth equipped for crushing shells. The Xinpusaurus was beheaded in the melee and its tail severed.

The Guizhouichthyosaurus literally may have bitten off more than it could chew. "There was a fight between the two and that must have been pretty fierce," said paleobiologist and study co-author Ryosuke Motani of the University of California, Davis.

"This predator is not a snake, so it's not as good as as good at swallowing so you have to use the inertia or maybe use the gravity to push it (prey) down ... when you do that, you don't have total control and could easily explain the damage of the neck," added Motani. The fossil bore evidence of this broken neck. The prey in the stomach showed little signs of digestion, indicating the ichthyosaur died soon after swallowing it.

It is among the more dramatic fossils on record, joining others such as one showing the Cretaceous Period dinosaurs Velociraptor and Protoceratops locked in combat and another of the large Cretaceous fish Xiphactinus that had swallowed whole another sizeable fish.

Guizhouichthyosaurus was the largest-known marine predator of its time, about 10 million years before dinosaurs appeared. Its teeth, however, were not the type thought to be needed for megapredation: blunt rather than having cutting edges for slicing flesh.

Independence Day of India : How Indian newspapers reported on 15 August 1947

New Delhi: The significance of the occasion was not lost on newspapers that captured the events using memorable headlines and photographs as journalists quickly wrote the first draft of history in August 1947. India’s Independence Day was a historic occasion not just because hundreds of millions of Indians were getting their freedom after centuries of British rule but also because it gave a lot of hope to countries in Asia and Africa they were still suffering under colonial European oppression.

The enormity of the occasion was not lost on newspapers that captured the events unfolding before them using memorable headlines and photographs as reporters quickly wrote the first draft of history. While independence was an obvious occasion of joy and hope, the press was also mindful of the fact that millions of people had been rendered homeless in the Partition.  

The reporters and editors working for the newspapers at the time must have surely hoped that after August 15, freedom of press would become an integral feature of the newly independent nation whose leaders had pledged to follow a democratic system of government.

Here’s a look at how some of the English language newspapers reported the events of mid-August, 73 years ago.

The Times of India, the country’s leading English daily, had a banner headline running across the front page, proclaiming: “BIRTH OF INDIA’S FREEDOM”. The stories on the front page describe scenes of jubilation and celebration in Delhi and Bombay, and substantial coverage is also given to Pakistan, which had celebrated its independence day on August 14.

The Hindustan Times ran with a two-deck headline, saying “INDIA INDEPENDENT: BRITISH RULE ENDS”. On the paper’s masthead, there’s a private appeal to help refugees, indicating how Delhi was turning into a shelter for Punjabis fleeing the violence in Pakistan.

The front page of the Statesman bubbles with the heady enthusiasm of independence. Anandabazar Patrika seems to be in awe of the fact that the unrest in Calcutta has quietened on the occasion of Independence Day. In the Pioneer, the celebrations have given way to a more sober look at the challenges facing the nation. Courtesy: timesnownews.

Body of civil rights icon John Lewis crosses Bloody Sunday bridge one last time

Selma, Alabama, US: The body of civil rights icon John Lewis crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Sunday, July 26, decades after his "Bloody Sunday" beating there drew a national spotlight to the struggle for racial equality.

A military honor guard carried his American flag-draped casket from Brown Chapel AME Church to a horse-drawn carriage, which crossed the rose-petal strewn bridge where the battering of Lewis by a white state trooper during a voting rights demonstration in 1965 became a focal point of the movement. The carriage driver wore black top hat and a white face mask to guard against spread of the coronavirus.

Hundreds of people singing civil rights anthems watched "The Final Crossing" event. It was part of a multi-day celebration of the life of the congressman, whose body will lie in state at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Monday. After his casket crossed the bridge, it was saluted by mask-wearing Black and white Alabama state troopers.

Lewis, who died on July 17 at age 80 after a battle with pancreatic cancer, was a fiercely determined champion of nonviolent protest and was inspired by civil rights giant Martin Luther King, Jr.

Lewis, an Alabama sharecropper's son who strove for equality for Blacks in an America grappling with racial bigotry and segregation, played an outsized role in U.S. politics for six decades, first elected in 1986 to represent Georgia in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The Edmund Pettus Bridge was a searing symbol of the civil rights struggle. On March 7, 1965 non-violent demonstrators calling for voting rights regardless of race marched across the bridge and were met by club-swinging Alabama state troopers at the direction of segregationist Alabama Governor George Wallace. Lewis was beaten so badly on what is now referred to as "Bloody Sunday" that his scars were visible decades later.

The brutality of "Bloody Sunday" inspired President Lyndon Johnson to demand Congress approve legislation removing barriers to Black voting, and lawmakers passed the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Currently, amid national anti-racism protests and a movement to abolish Confederate monuments and symbols, calls have grown to rename the bridge that is named for Edmund Pettus, who fought in the Confederate Army and robbed African-Americans of their right to vote after Reconstruction. Barack Obama, the first Black U.S. president, awarded Lewis the presidential medal of freedom, America's highest civilian honor, in 2011.

Woolly mammoth skeleton found in lake in Russia's Arctic

Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous: Russian scientists are poring over the stunningly well-preserved bones of an adult wooly mammoth that roamed the earth at least 10,000 years ago, after local inhabitants discovered its remains in the shallows of a north Siberian lake.

Part of its skull, several ribs and foreleg bones, some with soft tissue still attached to them, were retrieved from Russia's remote Yamal peninsula above the Arctic circle on July 23. Scientists are still searching the site for other bones. Similar finds in Russia's vast Siberian region have happened with increasing regularity as climate change warming the Arctic at a faster pace than the rest of the world has thawed the ground in some areas long locked in permafrost.

Scientists circulated images in December of a prehistoric puppy, thought to be 18,000 years old, that was found in the permafrost region of Russia's Far East in 2018. The mammoth remains are at least 10,000 years old, although researchers don't yet know exactly when it walked the earth or how old it was when it died, said Dmitry Frolov, director of the Scientific Centre for Arctic studies.

Researchers have found mammoth fossils dating from up to 30,000 years ago in Russia, he said. Yevgeniya Khozyainova, a scientist from a local museum, said it was unusual to find so many bones belonging to a single species and to know where they came from. "Of course, we'd like to find the remaining parts, to understand how complete a find it is. Whenever there is soft tissue left behind, it is valuable material to study," she said.