New Dinosaur Species Discovered
Canadian scientists have discovered a new horned species of dinosaur: Spicylpeus shipporum (spi-CLIP-ee-us ship-OR-um). The Canadian Museum of Nature unveiled the fossils of the creature on Wednesday.
Bill Shipp named the dinosaur Judith “after the rocky area of his ranch where it was found, known as the Judith River formation.” The name for the dinosaur comes from the combination of two Latin words for “spiked shield,” and in honor of the Shipp family.
According to Dr. David Evans of the Royal Ontario Museum, the dinosaur was at least 10 years old at the time of its death. Interestingly, although it was a young dinosaur, it showed signs of arthritis and a bone infection called osteomyelitis.
Addressing the high expenses for scholarly journals
The Libraries and Cultural Resources (LCR) is going to be hosting a presentation by “one of the country’s leading experts on scholarly publishing” named Vincent Larivière.
He will present a “ground-breaking study into academic journal use at Université de Montréal (UdeM) which combined usage statistics and citation indexes with a qualitative survey of faculty on their preferred journals.” It created a “paradigm shift” at UdeM in their negotiations with publishers.
For instance, UdeM will now only keep 6.6 percent of an individual publisher’s material because that material accounts for approximately 42% of the total downloads. Expenses are a modern issue at universities. Tom Hickerson, vice-provost of UdeM, said, “At the University of Calgary, every time the dollar drops by a penny, $100,000 in academic journal funds is lost.”
The Next Canadian Astronaut
The next Canadian astronaut has been announced as David Saint-Jacques. Navdeep Bains, Minister of Science and Innovation, at a news conference during Monday morning, described the qualifications of Mr. Saint-Jacque and “pretty impressive.”
He is an engineer, doctor, and astrophysicist. Jeremy Hansen is the other active Canadian astronaut. They will fly by 2019 and 2024. Saint-Jacques was selected out of a total candidate pool of 8,000 individuals.
Saint-Jacques is looking forward to “seeing the world floating in space just like in that photo I saw when I was a child.”
A native British Columbian, Scott Douglas Jacobsen is an AU undergrad and AUSU Councillor. He researches and runs In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, and In-Sight Publishing.
