A Work of Great Genus

Along with scientists downgrading Pluto to no longer being a planet, the other big scientific decision to erase something beloved from existence was when it was determined that the brontosaurus was not an actual genus of dinosaur, but rather the same as another sauropod.  (This was doubly insulting to the beasts -- being made extinct from an extinct species.)

But now, thanks to some intricate research, it turns out that maybe the brontosaurus is getting a second life and was its own actual genus after all.  And this comes from no less a source than Scientific American magazine. You can read the story here.

I don't know if the happiest people about this news is little grade school kids who love dinosaurs, or the Sinclair Oil Company.

(I had thought Sinclair might be extinct, as well, but it turns out this is a day for resurrection.  The company had been bought out by ARCO in 1976, but about 10 years ago was spun off and exists again on its own -- just like its famous logo.)

Hey, who knows?  Maybe Pluto has a chance now!

By the way, there is some offbeat, tangential,, personal interest to this discovery.  The brontosaurus was originally discovered in 1877 by paleontologist O.C. Marsh, and he named the genus two years later.  As it happens, Marsh is a character in the based-on-fact novel The Bone Feud written by my friend Wynne McLaughlin.