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My Notes on Massive Open Online Course:
Dinosaur Paleobiology
Dinosaur Paleobiology is a 12-lesson course teaching a comprehensive overview of non-avian dinosaurs. Topics covered: anatomy, eating, locomotion, growth, environmental and behavioral adaptations, origins and extinction. Lessons are delivered from museums, fossil-preparation labs and dig sites.
Notes on 5 Lectures I Watched in This Course:
How are Dinosaurs Different than Other Animals?
Dinosaur Skeletons
Saurischians: Sauropods, Theropods, and Prosauropods
Ornithischians
Determining Dinosaur Appearance
2 People I Have Learned About in this Course:
Gideon Mantall (1790-1852)
English geologist and palaeontologist whose attempts to reconstruct the structure and life of Iguanodon began the scientific study of dinosaurs
  • 1822 he was responsible for the discovery and identification of the first fossil teeth and later the full skeleton of an Iguanodon
Sir Richard Owen (1804-1892)
English biologist, comparative anatomist and paleontologist who coined the word Dinosauria (meaning "Terrible Reptile" or "Fearfully Great Reptile")
  • Owen is also remembered for his outspoken opposition to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, althought agreeing with Darwin that evolution occurred, he thought it was more complex than outlined in Darwin's On the Origin of Species
  • Owen's driving ambition, occasionally vicious temperament, and determination to succeed meant that he was not always popular with his fellow scientists
  • known for his campaign for the natural specimens in the British Museum to be given a new home, by making the Natural History Museum an institution for everyone, Owen transformed our expectations of what museums are for
3 Vocabulary Words I Learned in this Course:
backronym, n. a specially constructed acronym created to fit the letters of an existing word  ""The name for the synchrotron facility near Paris SOLEIL is a backronym for 'Source optimisée de lumière d’énergie intermédiaire du LURE', where LURE means 'Laboratoire pour l'utilisation du rayonnement électromagnétique'""
integument, n. [in-TEG-yoo-ment] the natural covering of an organism or an organ, such as its skin, husk, shell, or rind. It derives from integumentum, Latin for "covering"  "The mononykus is usually reconstructed with a covering of feathers. Indeed, in the fossil of its relative Shuvuuia feather traces were discovered, suggesting that Alvarezsauridae were among the theropod lineages with feathery or downy integument."
synchrotron, n. a particular type of cyclic particle accelerator in which the guiding magnetic field, or bending of the particles into a closed path, is time-dependent, being synchronized to a particle beam of increasing kinetic energy  "Paleontologists use many tools, from hamers and chisels, to CT scanners and synchrotrons."