Tag Archives: pre reptile

Pre-reptile may be earliest known to walk upright on all fours

Wandering an arid region of the ancient supercontinent of Pangea about 260-million years ago, the pre-reptile Bunostegos akokanensis is the oldest known creature to have walked upright on all fours, according to a newly published study.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — A newly published analysis of the bones of Bunostegos akokanensis, a 260-million-year-old pre-reptile, finds that it likely stood upright on all fours like a cow or a hippo, making it the earliest known creature to do so. (more…)

Read More

Heavy Flavor Tracker for STAR

New Detector System from Berkeley Lab for Quark-Gluon Plasma Studies May Lead to Better Understanding of Early Universe

In the first few microseconds after the big bang, the universe was a superhot, superdense primordial soup of “quarks” and “gluons,” particles of matter and carriers of force respectively. This quark-gluon plasma cooled almost instantly but it’s brief existence set the stage for the universe we know today. To better understand how our universe evolved, scientists are re-creating a quark-gluon plasma in giant particle accelerators such as the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), where an elaborate experiment called “STAR,” for Solenoidal Tracker at RHIC, has been collecting and analyzing data for the past decade. The STAR experiment is now poised for a major upgrade with the introduction of a new particle detector system, called the “Heavy Flavor Tracker,” that is the most advanced of its kind in the world. (more…)

Read More