Happy birthday, Niger Sauropod Project

      

The current volunteer fossil prep team (left to right, Matthew, Craig and Kieran) with sauropod limb bones. Photo by Mark Graham

Today marks the 2 year anniversary of the Niger sauropod project. It was two years ago today that the NHM’s fossil preparator Mark Graham got his new volunteer prep team- Rose, Erica, Nick and myself- started on preparing the fossilised bones of an enormous sauropod dinosaur that the museum had collected in the 1980s. I can still remember my excitement at being chosen from among the many applicants!

Two years on and I’m still here, now joined by Matthew and Craig. We’re currently working on the gigantic limb bones- pictured above are the two femurs (thigh bones), the longest bones in the animal’s body. With about 2 thirds of the work done, we hope to have the project finished by this time next year.

Erica still volunteers with us, but has moved over to the conservation side- an area that I have sadly neglected so far on this blog. I hope to rectify this in the near future by reporting on some of the many and varied conservation projects going on in the lab.

If you’re reading this blog for the first time, you can catch up on previous updates to the sauropod project here:

http://conservation.myspecies.info/node/6  (Introduction)
http://conservation.myspecies.info/node/7  (Plaster jackets)
http://conservation.myspecies.info/node/10 (Matrix removal)
http://conservation.myspecies.info/node/13  (Adhesives and repair)

Kieran Miles has thoroughly enjoyed the last 2 years with the fossil prep team, and looks forward to more!


Comments

Submitted by Sebastian (not verified) on

Fantastic progression of the OpenSocial line. This is the kind of foawrrd thinking we need in social media. I've outlined some ideas on the service, am developing a resource page, and have a gadget list already posted.In my opinion, if you're a webmaster looking to integrate social solutions, give this beta a long look, it's on the right track.

Submitted by Buy (not verified) on

Today 10/23/12 is the first time I have accessed the new wbesite. This seems so easy to find things. Would this be the best way to let people know that my husbands information (phone numbers, birthday) are incorrect in the calendar? He is Lewis Ed Hill and is Ambassador of Good Will for District 16. His cell phone is 270-625-4423, home phone 270-667-2030, and his burthday is July 3.

Submitted by Cleber (not verified) on

I agree that having a gmenrnoevt standard is important to things like log in, but as technology is progressing, will the gmenrnoevt be able to update its standards as fast as hackers are updating their techniques? I think that the gmenrnoevt will have a big job on their hands if they want to constantly monitor the technology of hackers, especially if many websites are connected via log in. Because if someone finds a way to hack it, many websites could be breached

Submitted by Georgie (not verified) on

I mean that it looks like BrowserID does the email verification shlffue once and then you can close the mailbox but keep on using BrowserID with no assurance that the email address still works. Maybe I've misread something.So far, it's mainly Google and Yahoo that don't give any sort of a homepage address for their users in the openID login process although they often actually have pages for many of their users, including on Yahoo's Flickr and Google's Blogspot. Even the specific ID services like claimID and MyOpenID seem to provide useful homepages.There are usability issues with HTTP and certificate authentication so far, but they are completely fixable by Mozilla for their browsers. Thank you for sharing the link to the toolbar login control: I'd not seen that before and it seems OK but it doesn't seem to integrate HTTP or cert auth. It's still rather frustrating to see them promoting another half-arsed login method before making what they already have usable first, then seeing if BrowserID is still needed.No, I don’t plan to be one of the early adopters.

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Scratchpads developed and conceived by (alphabetical): Ed Baker, Katherine Bouton Alice Heaton Dimitris Koureas, Laurence Livermore, Dave Roberts, Simon Rycroft, Ben Scott, Vince Smith