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Today's featured article

   

Dinosaurs are vertebrates that have ranged from reptile-like to bird-like. Dinosaurs dominated the terrestrial ecosystem for over 160 million years from around 230 million years ago until 65 million years ago, at the end of the Cretaceous period, when all non-avian dinosaurs became extinct. Knowledge about dinosaurs comes from both fossil and non-fossil records, including fossilized bones, feces, trackways, gastroliths, User:Jonathan W/histJan06/feathers, impressions of skin, internal organs and soft tissues. Dinosaur remains have been found on every continent on Earth, including Antarctica, showing that all land masses were at one time connected in a super continent, called Pangaea. The on-going dinosaur renaissance began in the 1970s and was triggered, in part, by John Ostrom's discovery of Deinonychus, an active, vicious predator that may have been warm-blooded (homeothermic), in marked contrast to the prevailing image of dinosaurs as sluggish and cold-blooded. Vertebrate paleontology has also become a global science, with major new discoveries in previously unexploited regions, most significantly the amazingly well-preserved feathered dinosaurs in China, which have further solidified the link between dinosaurs and their living descendants, modern birds.

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Selected anniversaries

January 1: New Year's Day

• 1801 - Giuseppe Piazzi discovered the first known asteroid, 1 Ceres (pictured).
• 1801 - The Kingdom of Ireland merged with the Kingdom of Great Britain, adding St. Patrick's saltire to the Union Jack.
• 1818 - Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus, a science fiction by Mary Shelley, was first published in London.
• 1959 - President Fulgencio Batista of Cuba fled to the Dominican Republic as forces under Fidel Castro took control of Havana.
• 1995 - The World Trade Organization was created to replace the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.

Recent days: December 31 - December 30 - December 29

In the news

• Based on a July determination by the IERS, a leap second has been added to clocks as of midnight UTC.
• Police in the Indian city of Bangalore have launched a manhunt for the perpetrators of Wednesday's attack on the Indian Institute of Science.
• Andrew Illarionov, top economic advisor to Russian President Vladimir Putin, resigns after saying that Russia was "no longer a democratic country."
• The Free Aceh Movement disbands its military wing, ending 30 years of violence in Aceh, Indonesia.
• The Supreme Court of Libya overturns the convictions of six foreign medical professionals sentenced to death for allegedly spreading HIV.