Latest news with #Drumheller
CTV News
29-05-2025
- General
- CTV News
Chubby cheeks? How a local paleontology student discovered a new muscle in dino jaws
Research by University of Alberta student Henry Sharpe shows dinosaurs may have had chubby cheek muscles. CTV News Edmonton's Jeremy Thompson has the details. Research by University of Alberta student Henry Sharpe shows dinosaurs may have had chubby cheek muscles. CTV News Edmonton's Jeremy Thompson has the details. Dinosaurs may have had chubby cheeks instead of horns, new research shows Our understanding of how dinosaurs looked and lived is evolving thanks to a recent discovery by a University of Alberta grad student. Paleontology master's student Henry Sharpe has found a new jaw muscle that could help complete the picture of how dinosaurs dined. Sharpe said he was working on his undergrad when something jumped out at him while studying a duck-billed dinosaur from Drumheller named Gary. 'I was looking at the cheekbone,' Sharpe said. 'And I was just thinking, 'This doesn't look right. There's this big kind of triangle coming down from it. There shouldn't be anything there.' 'It almost looks like a muscle attachment.' Henry Sharpe dinosaur muscle Henry Sharpe points to a triangular structure on a dinosaur skull. This particular shape led him to the discovery of a new jaw muscle many dinosaurs appear to have had. (Jeremy Thompson/CTV News Edmonton) Sharpe explained that, normally, in an animal without a cheek muscle, there is a straight line from the jawbone to the back of the skull. Gary's skull, with a flange on the jaw, got him thinking. But, because whole dino heads are rare, he had to scale down to start investigating. 'Thankfully, most of what we find are isolated bones,' Sharpe said. 'So I just took isolated cheek bones and isolated jaw bones … cutting them open to see if I could find any evidence in the internal structure of the bone.' Muscles and tendons are soft tissue, meaning they would have been long gone a long, long time ago. However, Sharpe said, they leave enough of a mark to see millions of years later in large animals like dinosaurs. 'Connective tissues, like muscles and ligaments, will insert fibres, collagen fibres, into the bone itself,' he said. 'When the muscle degrades and all that stuff falls away … the fibres will still be in the bone.' Dinosaur bone muscle Connective tissue, like muscles, leave fibres inside bone that can be seen millions of years later under a microscope. (Jeremy Thompson/CTV News Edmonton) Sharpe said the more he looked at similarly shaped jaw bones, the more he found the fibre marks. When he shared his research with other paleontologists, they started finding the same thing. 'We brought all our findings together, we mapped it out in the dinosaur family tree, and we just found it was the same everywhere,' he added. 'It was a bit of a 'eureka' moment.' The discovery, Sharpe said, helps better understand how dinosaurs ate and calls into question the long-standing practice of modeling dino musculature after their closest living relatives. 'It's supposed to be you only reconstruct a muscle in dinosaurs if it's present in birds and present in crocodiles,' Sharpe said. 'We've provided an example of the traditional way of doing it, maybe not being so accurate, and we need to be a little bit more creative in how we go about reconstructing these things, because it has implications for not only what they looked like, but how they were going about chewing.' Dinosaur cheek muscle This rendering by University of Alberta paleontology student Henry Sharpe shows a previously undiscovered jaw muscle detailed in new research. (Supplied) Sharpe and his peers had their findings published in a scientific journal. While it's a big breakthrough, the cheek muscle is more a passion project for Sharpe as he works on his master's thesis on underwater reptiles. He hopes the research inspires more paleontologists to follow up on the findings – and perhaps consider there could be other similar discoveries ready to be found in dino remains. 'We want to make sure we're not missing anything because we're trying to be too restrictive with how we reconstruct (musculature and ligaments),' he said. 'We have to be more creative. 'We have to start looking at the bones first, and our modern relatives maybe second, because it's the bones that tell us the stories.' With files from CTV News Edmonton's Jeremy Thompson
CBC
24-05-2025
- Business
- CBC
Is Moose Jaw the next vacation hotspot? How Canadian tourism might benefit from Canada-U.S. rift
Keith Fowke of Winnipeg often takes his family south of the border for a holiday. But with ongoing tariff unpredictability and annexation threats coming from U.S. President Donald Trump, Fowke says he won't step foot in the country this year. Instead, he's planning a family road trip, possibly to the Royal Tyrrell Museum — a.k.a. the Dinosaur Museum — in Drumheller, Alta. "You know, going on the No. 1 highway, that's a very Canadian thing to do. And, you know, there's some smaller communities around Drumheller, so we can plan things out a little bit," Fowke told CBC Radio's Cost of Living. "We're going to spend our dollars in Canada where, you know, people might be having economic hard times and we want to put our dollars where it can help Canadians." Fowke isn't the only one. The last few months have shown a drastic drop in Canadian travel across the border, whether for business or pleasure. And many in the domestic tourism industry — including in Fowke's hometown — say some of the less obvious locations, including small towns, could benefit the most. "I believe in both Canada and the U.S., when they're thinking of travelling to Canadian cities, they quite often think of MTV: Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver," said Tyler Walsh, director of marketing for Winnipeg's economic development including tourism. "And it's cities like Winnipeg that I think have to work a little bit harder, and maybe be a little more creative, to really make an impact." Canadians 'afraid to go to the U.S.' Christine Chettiar runs a bed and breakfast in Bathurst, N.B., that can accommodate about 30 people at a time. She says she's currently fully booked for the summer, which doesn't usually happen until the end of August. Canadians "are afraid to go to the U.S.," she said bluntly. "I have some clients that ... say, 'Well, you know, we're not going to travel to the U.S.,' because ... they hear on the news they might lock you up." Reports of checkpoints being set up along the U.S.-Canada border, and one Canadian's tale of being detained for 11 days by U.S. immigration, have further fuelled travel fears. Chettiar herself shelved what would have been a regular trip to see friends in Miami. The Trump factor, she says, is affecting where people on both sides of the border are planning to stay. "I think he's a lunatic," she said. "U.S. people are very, very nice people and we have good friends there. We have family there, and so they are coming to visit us instead." Wayne Smith, a professor of tourism at Toronto Metropolitan University, says people are taking the change in cross-border relations to search for something a little more off the beaten track this summer. "You can go to Toronto anytime, you can go to Vancouver anytime, but you're not always going to go to, you know, Wawa [in northern Ontario]. And [those that do are] getting an experience that's very different," he said. Beyond MTV (Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver) Several cities are calibrating their ad campaigns to take advantage. Take Winnipeg, which describes itself as "Canada's middle child" in a new tourism campaign. It even includes a mascot named Winnie Fred, who is shaped like the city's boundaries, that appears on billboards. "There's a little of a wink and a nod and obviously a sense of humour with this whole thing that we're very excited," said Walsh. Recent tourism ads for Newfoundland and Labrador feature expected images like icebergs, but they also focus on the province's small-town residents most likely to be taking in tourist dollars. The plan appears to be working. Marine Atlantic, the ferry service that takes visitors to the west coast of Newfoundland, told Cost of Living it has 7,000 more bookings compared to this time last year. Steve Crocker, the province's minister of tourism, culture, arts and recreation, says it's a "bucket-list destination" for many Canadians, and that since so many of them are reconsidering plans to visit the U.S., they're finally making plans to mark it off their list. "You are affecting really local businesses, mom-and-pop shops, businesses with, you know, two and three and four employees," said Crocker. "That's who you will spend a lot of your time supporting if you come to Newfoundland and Labrador." Wooing American tourists, too Moose Jaw, Sask., is also taking a cheeky tone in its tourism push this year — but it features Mayor James Murdock promoting the city to possible American tourists. The video features Mac the Moose — a giant sculpture that at 10.36 metres is recognized as the largest moose in the world — and the city's moniker as "Canada's most notorious city." That's mostly a reference to its underground tunnels, which have been the focus of many rumours, including one that gangsters like Al Capone used them to smuggle booze during Prohibition. Donna Fritzke, the city's director of tourism, says visits last year contributed $134 million to the local economy, with about $18 million coming specifically from Americans. But she's also seeing growing interest among Canadians. "We're really excited about it, because from what we've been hearing, people do want to stay closer to home and visit, you know, their own backyard." Dennis Campbell, CEO of the Ambassatours Grey Line, which runs boat cruises and sightseeing tours across the Maritimes, says business has been up by around 40 per cent overall compared to last year. The biggest increase is from Canadian tourists, followed by Europeans and then Americans. Part of that is the favourable exchange rate, due to the weak Canadian dollar right now. But in the past few weeks, he said he's had to entertain unusual questions from Americans, although perhaps understandable given the current political climate. "We've started to get the question from several of the customers saying, 'Will we be welcome?' And of course, the answer is, 'Yes, of course you will,'" he said. "As Canadians, as Maritimers, that's who we are. And we're just very, very friendly, hospitable people. It's in our DNA. And so even in challenging times, it's nice to see that people stand by their values and continue to be welcoming to our friends and visitors from everywhere." Keith Fowke in Winnipeg says he's still in the early phases of planning all the stops for his summer road trip, but he knows one thing: he won't be alone staying closer to home. "Now is a good time to get off our butts and go see our local tourism spots," he said.
CBC
19-05-2025
- Science
- CBC
Royal Tyrrell marks 40th anniversary with groundbreaking dinosaur discoveries
A new exhibit is putting a few of the Royal Tyrrell Museum's most game-changing specimens in the spotlight. Breakthroughs, a collection of five ancient fossils, showcases everything from feathers on theropods to the feeding habits of tyrannosaurs, with these specimens representing only a small portion of the iconic Drumheller museum's collection. The exhibit serves to illustrate "the literal breakthroughs in scientific discovery that we've made at this institution," said Lisa Making, the museum's executive director. "We really want to highlight what makes Alberta such a unique place for paleontology in the world, but also what the Royal Tyrrell Museum has done over the last 40 years in elevating the science of paleontology around the world," she said. Five groundbreaking fossils Picking only five of the museum's many specimens, the majority of which aren't even on display, was a challenging task, said Craig Scott, director of preservation and research at the Royal Tyrrell Museum. Ultimately, the team narrowed the focus of Breakthroughs on fossils from the Cretaceous period, spanning from approximately 143 million years ago to the extinction of the dinosaurs around 66 million years ago. "This highlights a very specific period of time, which happens to be the best represented period of time in the province," said Scott, who holds a doctorate from the University of Alberta. "We're lucky to have such great representation from this time, and so these specimens represent the very best of that time." The exhibit's only non-dinosaur specimen is a mosasaur, a large marine carnivore that may be familiar to fans of the Jurassic World film series. The exhibit showcases a young Mosasaurus missouriensis so well-preserved that even its cartilage, typically too soft to be fossilized, and its last meal, large fish bones, were left behind after the animal's death around 75 million years ago. "The specimen is exquisite, the preservation unbelievable," said Scott. A fossilized Ornithomimus, an ostrich-like theropod, is another eye-catching element of the exhibit. The fossil, found in Dinosaur Provincial Park in 1995, was so well-preserved that technicians were able to find evidence of feathers on the animal's arms. "It represents the first North American dinosaur to show evidence of feathers," said Scott. Proving that bipedal dinosaurs like Ornithomimus had feathers helped further bridge the gap between birds and dinosaurs. "These animals likely have feathers on their forelimbs," said Scott. "Those were obviously not being used for flight, these are far too big. They were probably used for signaling mates like you see in modern birds." Scott considers Borealopelta markmitchelli, an armoured herbivore that lived 110 million years ago, the crown jewel of the exhibit. WATCH | Albertan ankylosaur is the world's most well-preserved armoured dinosaur: Meet one of the world's best-preserved dinosaurs | Dinosaur Cold Case 5 years ago Duration 0:58 Upon being unearthed in 2011, the Fort McMurray fossil made waves worldwide — and is still being studied — for the remarkable circumstances under which it was preserved. "The conditions at the time of death had to be perfect," said Scott. The dinosaur, which most likely washed out to sea after its death and was quickly buried on the sea floor, was so well-preserved that vegetation and even charcoal were found in its stomach. "Most importantly, it had to be covered up very, very quickly with sediment, before it could be scavenged and its remains disarticulated," said Scott, emphasizing the one-of-a-kind nature of this particular fossil. Rounding out the exhibit is a nesting site uncovered in 1987 that contains the eggs of a herbivorous dinosaur called Hypacrosaurus stebingeri — eggs in which embryos were found preserved — and the remains of a young Gorgosaurus libratus, which upon its discovery in 2009 was the first tyrannosaur to be found with prey still preserved in its digestive system. Museum continuing to make an impact As the only museum in Canada to focus solely on the study of ancient life, the Royal Tyrrell has been considered a must-visit destination by dinosaur enthusiasts across the world since it opened in 1985. One such person, Roger Palmer, visited the museum as part of a trip from the United Kingdom. "We have an area there called the Jurassic Coast, which is famous for its fossils, but this completely outclasses anything that you can see there," said Palmer. He had flown to Canada to visit family in B.C., but found himself headed to southeastern Alberta to experience the unveiling of Breakthroughs at the Royal Tyrrell on Friday. "I didn't have the faintest idea that there was this incredible richness of history here, that the depth, the quality and the quantity of what you see here just takes your breath away," said Palmer. It's those kinds of responses that Making hopes to hear from visitors for a long time. "Forty years is a remarkable milestone, but as humans, we look at it as middle-aged," she said. She sees much room for growth for the Royal Tyrrell, particularly around improved infrastructure and expanding the organization's footprint. "When we were built, nobody anticipated we'd be welcoming half a million visitors from 150 countries," she said. "So we're at capacity with our collection, with our visitors. We want to grow and accommodate and continue to show off the remarkable resources that are here in the province." With approximately 2,500 specimens added to the museum's collection last year alone, the museum is monitoring its growth and looking at how to best continue providing its programming to visitors from around the world. Handling that growth remains a challenge for the museum's team, but to Making it's worth it. "The moment you come down into the galleries and you start watching people, you start interacting with people, you see kids and the look of wonder on their faces and the excitement," she said. "It just renews that passion and reinforces the joy of the work that we get to do here every day."
CBC
19-05-2025
- Science
- CBC
Royal Tyrrell marks 40th anniversary with groundbreaking dinosaur discoveries
New | Amir Said | CBC News | Posted: May 19, 2025 4:25 PM | Last Updated: Just now Alberta museum highlights contributions to paleontology with Breakthroughs exhibit Image | Breakthroughs Caption: This fossilized Gorgosaurus libratus, which upon its discovery in 2009 was the first tyrannosaur to be found with prey still preserved in its digestive system, is one of five specimens on display at the Royal Tyrrell Museum's Breakthroughs exhibit. (Radja Mahamba/Radio-Canada) A new exhibit is putting a few of the Royal Tyrrell Museum's most game-changing specimens in the spotlight. Breakthroughs, a collection of five ancient fossils, showcases everything from feathers on theropods to the feeding habits of tyrannosaurs, with these specimens representing only a small portion of the iconic Drumheller museum's collection. The exhibit serves to illustrate "the literal breakthroughs in scientific discovery that we've made at this institution," said Lisa Making, the museum's executive director. "We really want to highlight what makes Alberta such a unique place for paleontology in the world, but also what the Royal Tyrrell Museum has done over the last 40 years in elevating the science of paleontology around the world," she said. Five groundbreaking fossils Picking only five of the museum's many specimens, the majority of which aren't even on display, was a challenging task, said Craig Scott, director of preservation and research at the Royal Tyrrell Museum. Ultimately, the team narrowed the focus of Breakthroughs on fossils from the Cretaceous period, spanning from approximately 143 million years ago to the extinction of the dinosaurs around 66 million years ago. "This highlights a very specific period of time, which happens to be the best represented period of time in the province," said Scott, who holds a doctorate from the University of Alberta. "We're lucky to have such great representation from this time, and so these specimens represent the very best of that time." The exhibit's only non-dinosaur specimen is a mosasaur, a large marine carnivore that may be familiar to fans of the Jurassic World film series. Image | Breakthroughs Caption: Mosasaurus missouriensis could be found in the inland seas of what is now Alberta. Experts believe this marine reptile could grow up to nine metres in length, with the head alone possibly over a metre long — though this particular specimen is significantly smaller and is believed to have been a young animal. (Radja Mahamba/Radio-Canada) Open Image in New Tab The exhibit showcases a young Mosasaurus missouriensis so well-preserved that even its cartilage, typically too soft to be fossilized, and its last meal, large fish bones, were left behind after the animal's death around 75 million years ago. "The specimen is exquisite, the preservation unbelievable," said Scott. A fossilized Ornithomimus, an ostrich-like theropod, is another eye-catching element of the exhibit. The fossil, found in Dinosaur Provincial Park in 1995, was so well-preserved that technicians were able to find evidence of feathers on the animal's arms. Image | Breakthroughs Caption: Ornithomimus, a theropod that lived in Western Canada during the Cretaceous period. With its bird-like beak and what scientists believe to have been feathers, this dinosaur would be reminiscent of an ostrich today. (Radja Mahamba/Radio-Canada) Open Image in New Tab "It represents the first North American dinosaur to show evidence of feathers," said Scott. Proving that bipedal dinosaurs like Ornithomimus had feathers helped further bridge the gap between birds and dinosaurs. Why birds were the only dinosaurs that survived mass extinction "These animals likely have feathers on their forelimbs," said Scott. "Those were obviously not being used for flight, these are far too big. They were probably used for signaling mates like you see in modern birds." Scott considers Borealopelta markmitchelli, an armoured herbivore that lived 110 million years ago, the crown jewel of the exhibit. WATCH | Albertan ankylosaur is the world's most well-preserved armoured dinosaur: Media Video | The Nature of Things : Meet one of the world's best-preserved dinosaurs | Dinosaur Cold Case Caption: Borealopelta fossilized so perfectly that we can see every inch of its armour and skin in 3D, 110 million years after its death. Open Full Embed in New Tab Loading external pages may require significantly more data usage than loading CBC Lite story pages. Upon being unearthed in 2011, the Fort McMurray fossil made waves worldwide — and is still being studied — for the remarkable circumstances under which it was preserved. "The conditions at the time of death had to be perfect," said Scott. The dinosaur, which most likely washed out to sea after its death and was quickly buried on the sea floor, was so well-preserved that vegetation and even charcoal were found in its stomach. "Most importantly, it had to be covered up very, very quickly with sediment, before it could be scavenged and its remains disarticulated," said Scott, emphasizing the one-of-a-kind nature of this particular fossil. Rounding out the exhibit is a nesting site uncovered in 1987 that contains the eggs of a herbivorous dinosaur called Hypacrosaurus stebingeri — eggs in which embryos were found preserved — and the remains of a young Gorgosaurus libratus, which upon its discovery in 2009 was the first tyrannosaur to be found with prey still preserved in its digestive system. Museum continuing to make an impact As the only museum in Canada to focus solely on the study of ancient life, the Royal Tyrrell has been considered a must-visit destination by dinosaur enthusiasts across the world since it opened in 1985. One such person, Roger Palmer, visited the museum as part of a trip from the United Kingdom. "We have an area there called the Jurassic Coast, which is famous for its fossils, but this completely outclasses anything that you can see there," said Palmer. He had flown to Canada to visit family in B.C., but found himself headed to southeastern Alberta to experience the unveiling of Breakthroughs at the Royal Tyrrell on Friday. "I didn't have the faintest idea that there was this incredible richness of history here, that the depth, the quality and the quantity of what you see here just takes your breath away," said Palmer. It's those kinds of responses that Making hopes to hear from visitors for a long time. "40 years is a remarkable milestone, but as humans, we look at it as middle-aged," she said. She sees much room for growth for the Royal Tyrrell, particularly around improved infrastructure and expanding the organization's footprint. "When we were built, nobody anticipated we'd be welcoming half a million visitors from 150 countries," she said. "So we're at capacity with our collection, with our visitors. We want to grow and accommodate and continue to show off the remarkable resources that are here in the province." With approximately 2,500 specimens added to the museum's collection last year alone, the museum is monitoring its growth and looking at how to best continue providing its programming to visitors from around the world. Handling that growth remains a challenge for the museum's team, but to Making it's worth it. "The moment you come down into the galleries and you start watching people, you start interacting with people, you see kids and the look of wonder on their faces and the excitement," she said. "It just renews that passion and reinforces the joy of the work that we get to do here every day."
Yahoo
09-02-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
PennDOT crews prepared as winter storm hits PA
(WBRE/WYOU) — Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) crews spent all day preparing for the storm by pre-treating highways, monitoring conditions, and getting plows ready to go. Before the wintry mix even hit the ground, PennDOT crews were already in full preparation mode. Winter storm moves in for Super Bowl weekend 'We're continuously monitoring the weather, maintaining that situational awareness, with this storm we're getting a mixture of snow and ice which makes it a little bit trickier to make sure we're utilizing the right material at the right time,' said PennDOT District 4 Acting Maintenance Services Engineer Kaitlyn Drumheller. Officials say when ice is involved, they will focus more on treating roads rather than plowing since ice isn't always plowable. 'During a storm, you'll see our operators spreading a different combination of salt to help melt the snow and ice-skid, to add that friction to the surface, and then also, we're pre-wetting it so when they are spreading that material, it stays within the roadway surface,' Drumheller explained. VIDEO: Snow already falling across NEPA PennDOT also activated its Incident Command Center (ICC) where crews get a bird's eye view of roads across the state, allowing them to track problem areas in real-time. 'So you'll have individuals monitoring our traffic cameras, monitoring speed restrictions, talking with our actual county folks that are going to be on the ground driving the routes to determine when restrictions need to go into place and what kind of support they need from us at the district office to actual out in the field personnel,' Drumheller continued. PennDOT announces speed restrictions as winter storm rolls into PA While PennDOT was preparing, so were residents like Bill Thomas from Scranton, stocking up on salt to stay ahead of the storm. 'Just getting ready for it, gotta get some salt and get ready to clean it up,' Thomas said. 'So you're getting rock salt, you have your shovels, you're all good?' 28/22 News Reporter Kathryn Oleary asked. 'Yeah yeah, pretty well set,' Thomas replied. Crews will continue plowing through the night to keep roads clear, but PennDOT asks drivers to avoid unnecessary travel. If you must be on the road, keep speed restrictions in mind so you and other drivers on the roads stay safe. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
