Fossil Friday Roundup: April 22, 2016

Happy Earth Day!

Papers:

• Heart fossilization is possible and informs the evolution of cardiac outflow tract in vertebrates. Open Access in eLife.
• Vertebral development in Paleozoic and Mesozoic tetrapods revealed by paleohistological data. Open Access in PLOS ONE.
• A Centrosaurine (Dinosauria: Ceratopsia) from the Aguja Formation (Late Campanian) of Northern Coahuila, Mexico. Open Access in PLOS ONE.
• Anatomy and osteohistology of the basal hadrosaurid dinosaur Eotrachodon from the uppermost Santonian (Cretaceous) of southern Appalachia. Open Access in PeerJ.
• Yelmochelys rosarioae gen. et sp. nov., a stem kinosternid (Testudines; Kinosternidae) from the Late Cretaceous of Coahuila, Mexico. Open Access in PaleoBios.

News:

• Does eliminating grant deadlines at NSF give you a better chance of being funded? Perhaps, according to this article over at Science.
• 13-million-year-old ‘storyteller’ crocodylian fossils show evidence for parallel evolution (featured image) (link)
• Baby titanosaurs were able to fend for themselves from birth, by Patrick Monahan for Science
• Were dinosaurs really thriving before that huge asteroid wiped them out? (link)
• Making tracks through the Dinosaur Diamond, by Martin Lockley for Earth Magazine.
• A 26 million year old whale song, by Jon Tennant for Discover Magazine. (shameless..)

Around the Blogosphere:

• “Even a poo can be a magical treasure chest of knowledge.” Corkboard of Curiosities investigates the importance of taphonomy, in the latest entry from this entertaining (and informative) comic.
• Caitlin Syme tells us about a day in the life of a paleontology Ph.D. student.
• John Hawks celebrates the free availability of 3D surface scans for Australopithecus sediba, now available via MorphoSource.
• Advice for scientists who are working to get their research into the news media often assume access to an institutional press office. But what if you don’t have this? Not to fear!
• Liz Martin-Silverstone, writing at PalaeoCast, sums up new research into the extinction of small carnivorous dinosaurs at the close of the Cretaceous.

Do you have some news, a blog, or something just plain cool you want to share with the PLOS Paleo Community? Email it to us at paleocommunity@plos.org or tweet it to us at @PLOSPaleo.