SCIENCE: A new debate breaks out over the mighty Spinosaurus

All-private space mission announced; remembering another NASA ‘hidden figure’; EVs on the rise; when will COVID mutate into something less harmful? [SCIENCE AND ENVIRONMENT]( [VIEW ONLINE]( [SCIENCE AND ENVIRONMENT]( [National Geographic]( [THE BIG QUESTION:]( [DID A FEARSOME GIANT DINOSAUR EAT LIKE A STORK?]( Wednesday, January 27, 2021 ILLUSTRATION BY ROBERT NICHOLLS By [Victoria Jaggard]( SCIENCE executive editor As cliché as it must sound, I cannot get enough of [Les Miserables](. It’s the stage musical that captured my heart as an angsty tween and made me yearn to be a Broadway star. But it turns out that the author of the source novel, Victor Hugo, [is also attributed with a quote]( that perfectly captures my adult day job: “Science says the first word on everything, and the last word on nothing.” Perhaps no creature lives up to that statement better than the predatory dinosaur Spinosaurus (pictured above). Science got the first word on this remarkable beast in the early 1900s, when a German paleontologist formally named the genus based on bizarre fossils found in the Egyptian desert. The dinosaur has had a rocky road since then—those initial fossils were later destroyed in a World War II bombing raid, and it took decades for paleontologists to find enough additional bones to piece together its most probable looks and lifestyle. It was worth the wait, though. In 2014, a team led by National Geographic Explorer [Nizar Ibrahim]( [unveiled a new, stunningly preserved skeleton]( found in Morocco, which they argued bore all the traits of a dinosaur that spent most of its time in the water. Their case was bolstered in 2020, when additional bones revealed for the first time that Spinosaurus [had a tail shaped like a paddle](. But as weighty as their case may be, it’s certainly not the last word on the subject. Enter paleontologists Tom Holtz and David Hone, who analyzed a number of anatomical features on the most recently found fossils and came to a different conclusion. Rather than being a “river monster” that hunted prey while submerged, they say Spinosaurus was a river-wader, a lurking terror that used its long neck to snap up fish like a heron or a stork. “We agree that the tail of Spinosaurus could have aided in its swimming,” [Holtz tells our Michael Greshko](. “But its efficiency doesn’t even reach the level of burst ambushers like crocodilians, much less pursuers.” Ibrahim and his colleagues are undeterred, sticking to their argument that Spinosaurus could have hunted slower moving prey while swimming. Ibrahim even hints at more fossil clues on the horizon that will further back up their “river monster” theory. But the honest answer is that we may never know for sure what this strange animal was doing in the river systems of Cretaceous North Africa—and that’s kind of the beauty of science. People gather the evidence and they make their best interpretations, and with each new piece of the puzzle, we keep learning more about the world around us. If there ever is a last word, that would mean we have nothing left to discover, and that would be a sad day indeed. For more than 133 years, the National Geographic Society has supported Explorers like [Nizar Ibrahim]( on paleontological digs throughout the world. Help continue the work of great explorers at [natgeo.org/give](. TODAY IN A MINUTE COVID-19, beyond a vaccine: At some point, the deadly coronavirus will mutate into a much less harmful virus. But scientists don’t know how many years that will take, or if other variants will delay that process. “It’s not something that will just vanish out of the window,” says [Roy Anderson]( an infectious disease epidemiologist at Imperial College London. Michael Greshko’s [essential story on COVID’s post-pandemic life]( has been our most popular this week. Also, here’s [where coronavirus cases are rising and falling in the U.S](. A visit to the ISS: A private space company will take four people to the International Space Station next year in the first-ever entirely private orbital space mission. Axiom Space announced Tuesday that retired NASA astronaut Michael López-Alegría will command the four-member mission, which also includes an American real estate and tech entrepreneur, a former Israeli fighter pilot, and a Canadian investor and philanthropist. It will be piloted by the U.S. tech entrepreneur, Larry Connor, who at 71 will be the second oldest person sent into space, [reports Space.com](. We asked, you answered: Last week, we mentioned that more than half of American adults under 45 [take climate change into account]( on deciding where to live (or whether to move.) So, too, do many of our readers above 45. Reader Ginny Hamburg said when she and her husband retired, they moved north from Boston to Vermont because of climate change. “What we were not prepared to face were increasingly hotter summers further south,” she writes. Nancy J. Palmer, of Oakfield, New York, has installed solar panels and a tankless water heater, and has eaten a meatless diet for decades. “Just wanted to let you know that some people over 44 are savvy about the environment,” she writes. Point taken! PHOTOGRAPH BY U.S. NAVAL RESEARCH LABORATORY Another hidden figure: Inspired as a kid by Buck Rogers comics, George Carruthers dreamed of space—and of seeing it more precisely. Carruthers, one of NASA’s few Black astrophysicists, designed telescopes used in space. One proved the existence of molecular hydrogen in between stars and galaxies. Another went to the moon on Apollo 16—and presumably is still there. Carruthers died on December 26 in a hospital in Washington, D.C., [the New York Times reported](. He was 81. (Pictured above, Carruthers, at right, examines the gold-plated ultraviolet camera/spectrograph he developed for Apollo 16. At left, William Conway, a project manager at the Naval Research Institute.) INSTAGRAM PHOTO OF THE DAY PHOTOGRAPH BY [@CIRILJAZBEC]( The benefits of a human-made glacier: How do you solve a water problem as the glaciers recede in the Himalaya? Spraying water in the air when temperatures are below freezing creates giant ice stupas, such as the Shara ice stupa (pictured above) in the Ladakh region. The ice stupas have helped the northern Ladakh mountain communities, storing winter meltwater and slowly releasing it for the critical growing season in early spring. Two National Geographic Society Explorers, researcher [Arati Kumar-Rao]( and photographer Ciril Jazbec, collaborated for a National Geographic article—and Jazbec is doing followup work on environmental degradation in Switzerland. Subscriber exclusive: [This DIY glacier is one way to fight climate change]( THE NIGHT SKIES ILLUSTRATION BY ANDREW FAZEKAS The wolf moon: Look toward the east after sunset on Thursday for the full moonrise. Known as the wolf moon, January’s full moon got its name because this was traditionally the time of year when hungry wolves were thought to howl more often. Watch as the silvery orb climbs high in the southern sky overnight, caught between the celestial claws of Cancer, the crab constellation. By Friday night the moon will have glided over to a brighter constellation, Leo the lion, which will appear to rise in the northeast. Keen-eyed sky-watchers will notice that the moon will be sandwiched between two of the brightest stars in this celestial cat. Blue-white Regulus marks the heart of the lion, while yellow-colored Algieba appears in its mane. Algeiba is actually two stars that can be seen separated through small backyard telescopes. Interested in stargazing? Here are [the best opportunities this year](. — [Andrew Fazekas]( THE BIG TAKEAWAY PHOTOGRAPH BY JUSTIN SULLIVAN, GETTY Is the future, um, now? It’s not like Nat Geo’s Craig Welch doesn’t want electric vehicles, it’s just that he’s been hearing about their supposed takeover of the vehicle market for soooooo long. In 2019, he and photographer David Guttenfelder went on what they thought of as [a Great American Road Trip to the Future]( cross-country trip in electric cars. It wasn’t always smooth—it involved major detours to find charging stations (one, pictured above), which were occasionally blocked by F-150s. Last week Craig [revisited the subject of EVs]( came away thinking that the future might be a whole lot closer. “The right mix of regulation, consumer incentives, and research support might just be enough to spur dramatic acceleration,” Craig writes. In fact, Ford says its new electric F-150 will be significantly cheaper to own than its gas-powered original. [HOP IN AND READ]( IN A FEW WORDS [QUOTE] Whenever we create a technology, it’s to improve our lives, but it can have unforeseen side effects that we then have to mitigate. That’s humanity’s push and pull, that love-hate relationship. Ernest Cline Novelist; [Ready Player One]( [Ready Player Two]( From ‘[He Was ‘Raised by Screens.’ Look How Well He Turned Out!]( DID A FRIEND FORWARD THIS NEWSLETTER? On Thursday, Rachael Bale covers the latest in animal news. If you’re not a subscriber, [sign up here]( to also get Whitney Johnson on photography, Debra Adams Simmons on history, and George Stone on travel. THE LAST GLIMPSE GRAPHIC BY MARKOS KAY What do viruses look like up close? In the latest National Geographic magazine, we explored the history of viruses and produced massively magnified views of some of them. “Cells are considered the foundation of life, but viruses—with all their genetic diversity—may share in that role,” [write Jason Treat, Mesa Schumacher, and Eve Conant](. The images are scary and a little dreamy (pictured above), like those of jellyfish. [SUBSCRIBER EXCLUSIVE]( This newsletter has been curated and edited by David Beard, with photo selections by Jen Tse. 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