Sterling Nesbitt
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Sterling Nesbitt
Sterling Nesbitt (born March 25, 1982, in Mesa, Arizona) is an American paleontologist best known for his work on the origin and early evolutionary patterns of archosaurs. He is currently an associate professor at Virginia Tech in the Department of Geosciences. Biography Sterling Nesbitt received his B.A. in integrative biology with a minor in geology from the University of California Berkeley in 2004. He received his PhD from Columbia University in 2009, completing the majority of his research at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. He subsequently held postdoctoral researcher positions at the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Washington, and the Field Museum. He is currently an associate professor in thDepartment of Geosciencesat Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia. He is also a research associate/affiliate of the American Museum of Natural History, the Vertebrate Paleontology Lab at The University of Texas at Austin, the Virginia Museum of Nat ...
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Mesa, Arizona
Mesa ( ) is a city in Maricopa County, Arizona, Maricopa County, in the U.S. state of Arizona. It is the most populous city in the East Valley (Phoenix metropolitan area), East Valley section of the Phoenix Metropolitan Area. It is bordered by Tempe, Arizona, Tempe on the west, the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community on the north, Chandler, Arizona, Chandler and Gilbert, Arizona, Gilbert on the south along with Queen Creek, Arizona, Queen Creek, and Apache Junction on the east. Mesa is the third-largest city in Arizona after Phoenix, Arizona, Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona, Tucson, the List of United States cities by population, 37th-largest city in the US, and the largest city that is not a county seat. The city is home to 504,258 people as of 2020 according to the Census Bureau, which makes it more populous than Minneapolis, St. Louis, and Miami. Mesa has been described as "America's most Conservatism in the United States, conservative city". More than 40,000 students are ...
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Current Biology
''Current Biology'' is a biweekly peer-reviewed scientific journal that covers all areas of biology, especially molecular biology, cell biology, genetics, neurobiology, ecology, and evolutionary biology. The journal includes research articles, various types of review articles, as well as an editorial magazine section. The journal was established in 1991 by the Current Science group, acquired by Elsevier in 1998 and has since 2001 been part of Cell Press, a subdivision of Elsevier. According to ''Journal Citation Reports'', the journal has a 2020 impact factor The impact factor (IF) or journal impact factor (JIF) of an academic journal is a scientometric index calculated by Clarivate that reflects the yearly mean number of citations of articles published in the last two years in a given journal, as i ... of 10.834. It was categorized as a "high impact journal" by the Superfund Research Program. References External links * Biology journals English-language journals Cell ...
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Vivaron
''Vivaron'' is a genus of rauisuchid known from the Late Triassic (middle Norian) Chinle Formation in New Mexico. It is the second rauisuchid known from the southwestern United States, and it highlights the wide biogeographic range similar rauisuchid taxa occupied during the Late Triassic across Pangaea, despite the varied faunal assemblages at different latitudes. Discovery ''Vivaron'' was named in 2016 from material collected at the Hayden Quarry at Ghost Ranch, New Mexico in 2009. The locality is part of the Chinle Formation in the Petrified Forest Member, and dates to the middle Norian ~212 Ma, possibly representing one of the youngest known rauisuchids. Prior to its description, all Late Triassic rauisuchid material from Texas, Arizona and New Mexico had been referred to ''Postosuchus kirkpatricki''. However, the rauisuchid remains from Hayden Quarry could be clearly distinguished from ''Postosuchus'', and was erected as a new taxon ''Vivaron haydeni''. The generic epith ...
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Triopticus
''Triopticus'' is a genus of archosauriform reptile from the Late Triassic of Texas, United States. It contains a single species, ''Triopticus primus'', described in 2016 by Stocker ''et al''. It has an unusually domed head reminiscent of the later pachycephalosaurian dinosaurs in an example of convergent evolution. Description The portion of the head that is preserved shows remarkable similarities to the specialized heads of pachycephalosaurs. Five bosses, or rounded protuberances of bone are visible on the fossil, with one on the frontal bone and two pairs behind (respectively on the postorbital bone and the squamosal/parietal bones) separated by a shallow groove. The backmost pair of bosses form a thick shelf that stretches outwards and backwards over the rear end of the skull, comparable to the domes of pachycephalosaurs and the frills of ceratopsians. The bosses have very roughly textured surfaces, suggesting that they would have been covered by keratin in life. CT scans sh ...
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Litorosuchus
''Litorosuchus'' is a genus of armored, semiaquatic archosauriform reptile from the Middle Triassic of China, closely related to the morphologically similar '' Vancleavea''. It contains one species, ''L. somnii''. Description For an archosauriform, ''Litorosuchus'' was medium-sized at some in length. It shows clear adaptations to a semiaquatic lifestyle: the nasal opening is retracted and angled upwards, the tail is tall and long (about 60% of the animal's entire length), the scapula is short and broad, the feet are webbed (as shown by fossilized skin impressions), the neck is long and slender, and the snout is long, with many of the teeth being conical. In many of these ways, ''Litorosuchus'' resembles the similarly semiaquatic '' Vancleavea'' from North America. Like ''Vancleavea'', the body of ''Litorosuchus'' was covered in bony plates known as osteoderms, of which eight distinct types can be observed: two rows of rectangular-to-roundish semi-concave osteoderms with cent ...
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Teleocrater
''Teleocrater'' (meaning "completed basin", in reference to its closed acetabulum) is a genus of avemetatarsalian archosaur from the Middle Triassic Manda Formation of Tanzania. The name was coined by English paleontologist Alan Charig in his 1956 doctoral dissertation, but was only formally published in 2017 by Sterling Nesbitt and colleagues. The genus contains the type and only species ''T. rhadinus''. Uncertainty over the affinities of ''Teleocrater'' have persisted since Charig's initial publication; they were not resolved until Nesbitt ''et al.'' performed a phylogenetic analysis. They found that ''Teleocrater'' is most closely related to the similarly enigmatic ''Yarasuchus'', '' Dongusuchus'', and ''Spondylosoma'' in a group that was named the Aphanosauria. Aphanosauria was found to be the sister group of the Ornithodira, the group containing dinosaurs and pterosaurs. A carnivorous quadruped measuring long, ''Teleocrater'' is notable for its unusually long neck verte ...
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Avicranium
''Avicranium'' is a genus of extinct drepanosaur reptile known from the Chinle Formation of the late Triassic. The type species of ''Avicranium'' is ''Avicranium renestoi''. "''Avicranium''" is Latin for "bird cranium", in reference to its unusual bird-like skull, while "''renestoi''" references Silvio Renesto, a paleontologist known for studies of Italian drepanosaurs. Discovery The holotype and only known specimen of ''Avicranium'' is AMNH FARB 30834, a disarticulated skull attached to a few cervical (neck) vertebrae. This specimen hails from the ''Coelophysis'' (or Whitaker) quarry at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico, USA. This quarry belongs to the ' siltstone member' of the Chinle formation, which corresponds to the late Norian to early Rhaetian stages of the Triassic. Various unprepared blocks from this locality were excavated by American Museum of Natural History field parties during the 1940s. Long believed to only contain multiple specimens of the early dinosaur ''Coelophysis' ...
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Mandasuchus
''Mandasuchus'' is an extinct genus of loricatan pseudosuchian from the Manda Formation of Tanzania, which dates back to the Anisian stage of the Middle Triassic. Although this genus was first mentioned by Alan Charig in 1956,Charig, A. J. (1956). New Triassic archosaurs from Tanganyika, including ''Mandasuchus'' and ''Teleocrater'': Dissertation Abstracts. Cambridge University. a formal description was not published until 2018. History The name was first used in a 1956 doctoral dissertation by Alan J. Charig of the University of Cambridge, along with ''Teleocrater'', an archosaur formally named in 2017. Several well preserved specimens have been found, although there is little cranial material. The family Prestosuchidae was erected in 1967 by Alfred Romer to include ''Mandasuchus'' and three other formally named genera of "rauisuchians". Charig and two coauthors suggested in a 1965 study dealing with saurischians that ''Mandasuchus'' was a possible ancestor of the "prosauropod ...
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Suskityrannus
''Suskityrannus'' (meaning "coyote tyrant", ''suski'' meaning "coyote" in Zuni) is a genus of small tyrannosauroid theropod from the Late Cretaceous in southern Laramidia. It contains a single species, ''Suskityrannus hazelae,'' believed to have lived roughly 92 million years ago. The type specimen was found in the Turonian-age Moreno Hill Formation of the Zuni Basin in western New Mexico. Discovery and naming First mentioned as a small dromaeosaurid by Wolfe and Kirkland in their description of ''Zuniceratops'', ''Suskityrannus'' was informally referred to as the "Zuni coelurosaur", "Zuni tyrannosaur", and by the 2011 documentary ''Planet Dinosaur'' "Zunityrannus" prior to its scientific description. The original fossils were found by Robert Denton, a professional geologist from Virginia, and a native Mesa teen Sterling Nesbitt, who was a museum volunteer that came to a dig with paleontologist Doug Wolfe. In 2019 ''Suskityrannus'' was formally described as a genus of prim ...
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Scientific Reports
''Scientific Reports'' is a peer-reviewed open-access scientific mega journal published by Nature Portfolio, covering all areas of the natural sciences. The journal was established in 2011. The journal states that their aim is to assess solely the scientific validity of a submitted paper, rather than its perceived importance, significance, or impact. In September 2016, the journal became the largest in the world by number of articles, overtaking '' PLOS ONE''. Abstracting and indexing The journal is abstracted and indexed in the Chemical Abstracts Service, the Science Citation Index Expanded, and selectively in Index Medicus/MEDLINE/PubMed. According to the ''Journal Citation Reports'', the journal has a 2021 impact factor 4.996. Reviewing policy The ''Guide to Referees'' states that to be published, "a paper must be scientifically valid and technically sound in methodology and analysis", and reviewers have to ensure manuscripts "are not assessed based on their perceived impor ...
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Science (journal)
''Science'', also widely referred to as ''Science Magazine'', is the peer-reviewed academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and one of the world's top academic journals. It was first published in 1880, is currently circulated weekly and has a subscriber base of around 130,000. Because institutional subscriptions and online access serve a larger audience, its estimated readership is over 400,000 people. ''Science'' is based in Washington, D.C., United States, with a second office in Cambridge, UK. Contents The major focus of the journal is publishing important original scientific research and research reviews, but ''Science'' also publishes science-related news, opinions on science policy and other matters of interest to scientists and others who are concerned with the wide implications of science and technology. Unlike most scientific journals, which focus on a specific field, ''Science'' and its rival ''Nature (journal), Nature'' c ...
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Biological Sciences
Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary information encoded in genes, which can be transmitted to future generations. Another major theme is evolution, which explains the unity and diversity of life. Energy processing is also important to life as it allows organisms to move, grow, and reproduce. Finally, all organisms are able to regulate their own internal environments. Biologists are able to study life at multiple levels of organization, from the molecular biology of a cell to the anatomy and physiology of plants and animals, and evolution of populations.Based on definition from: Hence, there are multiple subdisciplines within biology, each defined by the nature of their research questions and the tools that they use. Like other scientists, biologists use the scientific metho ...
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