Gigantic 'shark-toothed' dinosaur discovered in Uzbekistan

Gigantic 'shark-toothed' dinosaur discovered in Uzbekistan | 'Swimming head' with circular mouth terrorized Cambrian seas | Why do we grind our teeth? Created for {EMAIL} | [Web Version]( September 8, 2021 CONNECT WITH LIVESCIENCE  [Facebook]( [Twitter](  [LIVESCIENCE]( [LIVESCIENCE]( Amazing science every day [SIGN UP]( ⋅ [WEBSITE]( [] Top Science News [] [Gigantic 'shark-toothed' dinosaur discovered in Uzbekistan]( [Gigantic 'shark-toothed' dinosaur discovered in Uzbekistan]( (Julius Csotonyi) About 90 million years ago, a gigantic apex predator — a meat-eating dinosaur with serrated shark-like teeth — prowled what is now Uzbekistan, according to a new study of the behemoth's jawbone. The 26-foot-long (8 meters) beast weighed 2,200 pounds (1,000 kilograms), making it longer than an African elephant and heavier than a bison. Researchers named it Ulughbegsaurus uzbekistanensis, after Ulugh Beg, a 15th-century astronomer, mathematician and sultan from what is now Uzbekistan. What caught scientists by surprise was that the dinosaur was much larger — twice the length and more than five times heavier — than its ecosystem's previously known apex predator: a tyrannosaur, the researchers found. Full Story: [LiveScience]( (9/8) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( [] History & Archaeology [] ['Swimming head' with circular mouth terrorized Cambrian seas]( ['Swimming head' with circular mouth terrorized Cambrian seas]( (Animation by Lars Fields, copyright Royal Ontario Museum) A creature with a massive head shield, sand-raking claws and a circular tooth-filled mouth swept across the ocean bottom half-a-billion years ago, hoovering up prey like a living Roomba. Measuring nearly 2 feet (50 centimeters) long, Titanokorys gainesi — a newfound genus and species — had a flattened body and a broad head that made up approximately two-thirds of its total length, researchers reported in a new study. Titanokorys was one of the biggest ocean predators of the Cambrian period (543 million to 490 million years ago) and is the largest-known Cambrian seafloor predator, according to a new study. Compared with most other sea life at the time, its size was "absolutely mind-boggling," lead study author Jean-Bernard Caron, a curator of invertebrate palaeontology at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) in Toronto, said in a statement. Full Story: [LiveScience]( (9/8) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( [] Life’s Little Mysteries [] [Why do we grind our teeth?]( [Why do we grind our teeth?]( (Dreet Production via Getty Images) Take a moment to recognize the tension in your body. Are your shoulders hunched? Are your eyes squeezed tight? Are your teeth clenched shut? The latter, teeth clenching, is a medical condition called bruxism. And for some people, it can cause real problems, such as headaches, jaw pain and damaged teeth. There are two types of bruxism, said Katayoun Omrani, a dentist who specializes in orofacial pain at the Cedars-Sinai Pain Center in Los Angeles: awake bruxism and sleep bruxism. As the terms suggest, awake bruxism is when people clench their teeth while awake, and sleep bruxism is when they clench or grind them while asleep. Full Story: [LiveScience]( (9/4) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( [] Math & Physics [] [1st sign of elusive 'triangle singularity' shows particles swapping identities in mid-flight]( [1st sign of elusive 'triangle singularity' shows particles swapping identities in mid-flight]( (All About Space Magazine via Getty Images) Physicists sifting through old particle accelerator data have found evidence of a highly-elusive, never-before-seen process: a so-called triangle singularity. First envisioned by Russian physicist Lev Landau in the 1950s, a triangle singularity refers to a rare subatomic process where particles exchange identities before flying away from each other. In this scenario, two particles — called kaons — form two corners of the triangle, while the particles they swap form the third point on the triangle. "The particles involved exchanged quarks and changed their identities in the process," study co-author Bernhard Ketzer, of the Helmholtz Institute for Radiation and Nuclear Physics at the University of Bonn, said in a statement. Full Story: [LiveScience]( (9/8) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( [] Curious Creatures [] [This Australian bird's cry sounds just like a human baby]( [This Australian bird's cry sounds just like a human baby]( (Taronga Zoo Sydney) The wails coming from an enclosure at Taronga Zoo Sydney in Australia may sound like the cries of a human baby. But don't be alarmed. It's just a trickster resident: A brown, long-tailed bird named Echo has learned how to mimic the shrieks and shrills of human babies. Taronga Zoo Sydney posted a video of the impressive bird on Twitter on Aug. 30. "Bet you weren't expecting this wake-up call," the zoo tweeted. "You're not hearing things, our resident lyrebird Echo has the AMAZING ability to replicate a variety of calls - including a baby's cry." Echo is a superb lyrebird (Menura novaehollandiae), an Australian bird named for the shape of its tail during courting, according to Britannica. The tail looks like an instrument known as a lyre — a U-shaped stringed instrument that was popular in ancient Greece. Full Story: [LiveScience]( (9/7) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( [] [Cheetahs battle raging river in stunning photo. Did they survive?]( [Cheetahs battle raging river in stunning photo. Did they survive?]( (Buddhilini de Soyza / Wildlife Photographer of the Year) A stunning photo captures a group of cheetahs, the world's fastest land sprinters, struggling to swim through a raging river in Kenya. The group of male cheetahs was fording the Talek River in the Maasai Mara National Reserve in an effort to access better hunting grounds. The striking photo is one of the highly commended entries in the 2021 Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. Buddhilini de Soyza, an investment banker and amateur photographer, took the photo on a trip to Kenya in January 2020 while with her husband and a Maasai guide, after spending several hours watching the cheetahs pace up and down the river bank. Suddenly, the lead cheetah jumped into the water, and the rest followed. Full Story: [LiveScience]( (9/8) [LinkedIn]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Email]( [] Daily Quiz [] POLL QUESTION: Is every spiderweb unique? 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