College student finds 65-million-year-old fossil of Triceratops skull in North Dakota badlands
North Dakota: A California college student majoring in biology just found something rare and special.
In the badlands of North Dakota the fifth-year student from the University of California, Merced found the 65-million-year-old fossil of a partial Triceratops skull among plant fossils from the Cretaceous period.
“I can’t quite express my excitement in the moment when we uncovered the skull,” the student, Harrison Duran, said in his school’s release. “I’ve been obsessed with dinosaurs since I was a kid, so it was a pretty big deal.”
Harrison Duran said, “I’ve been obsessed with dinosaurs since I was a kid.” (University of California, Merced)
USA Today reported that the dino skull was found in the Hell's Creek formation, which spans Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming, where dinosaurs roamed anywhere from 100.5 to 23 million years ago.
Duran found the fossil with "experienced excavator" Michael Kjelland, a biology professor at Mayville State University in North Dakota.
There is already discussions about where the find can be exhibited.
“The goal is to use this find as an educational opportunity, not just reserve [it] in a private collection somewhere so only a handful of people can see her," Kjelland said.
Courtesy: www.foxnews.com
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Confident we are going to win Kerala: Shashi Tharoor
New Delhi (PTI): Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Thursday expressed confidence in the victory of the United Democratic Front (UDF) in Kerala, saying the Congress-led alliance will win more than 75 seats out of the total 140 in the state.
Tharoor, who hails from Kerala, said he was not surprised to see the results of the exit polls, most of which predicted a victory for the UDF that has been out of power for 10 years in the state.
"We have been on the ground. I have campaigned in 59 constituencies across 12 districts out of 14. I was very confident we are going to win.
"Everything that I have picked up from not just my party colleagues and workers but also from other observers, media and others have always convinced me that we were going to score a comfortable win of above 75 seats. And all the (exit) polls have confirmed the same thing," he told reporters here.
The Thiruvananthapuram MP said he was not surprised to see the results of the exit polls but in general he was not a big fan of exit polls in India.
"Because ours is not purely a homogenous society. We have to take into account gender issue, caste issue, class issue, regional disparities. You never get a convincingly large enough sample to give an accurate poll and now there is the additional complication that we have heard about in West Bengal this year that many people are unwilling to answer the questions of the pollsters," he said.
The Congress leader said normally, it used to be below 10 per cent that people said that they would not answer.
"Even if you are a reputable exit pollster, in Bengal, one polling company has said 60 per cent of people refused to answer. So, what is the worth of a poll where 60 per cent of your respondents have not answered," he said.
Several exit polls on Wednesday predicted a comeback by the Congress-led UDF in Kerala after 10 years, dethroning the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF).
Polling for the 140-member Kerala assembly was held on April 9. Results of assembly elections in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Puducherry, besides Kerala, will be announced on May 4.
