True Dino Colour Revealed

This passage was written based on the facts gleaned from related articles which were published on the National Geographic official website. For more information, please visit http://www.nationalgeographic.com

Crichton and Spielberg might not be thrilled with the prospect of a total brush over of the twentieth century international hit Jurassic Park-films and novels alike-but to paleontologists Li Quanguo and Jakob Vinther, this was a once-in-a-lifetime discovery as compelling as winning the Oscars, because for the first time in history, scientists had decoded the full body colour patterns of a dinosaur, bringing dino colours from the realm of art into the realm of science.
        The subject of the new study-the 155-million-year-old Anchiornis huxleyi-turned out to have looked something like a woodpecker the size of a chicken, with black-and-white spangled wings and a rusty red crown.

Dino-pecker: picture of Anchiornis huxleyi-the first dio to have its full body scientifically normal.

Fossil protofeathers of Anchiornis huxleyi preserved in an ochre-coloured slab of mudstone, discovered by the Li-Vinther team.

                           

The subject of the Feb 4, 2010, science study-Anchiornis huxleyi.

                             

Anchiornis's complicated pattern of reddish brown, black, grey and white feathers are quite similar to the silver-spangled Hamburg chicken, a domestic breed of ornamental chicken.

        The new revelation was an one-ups from last week's announcement of the unearthing of fossilized melanosomes-pigments-bearing organelles-in the filament-like "protofeathers" of Sinosauropteryx. Add in the complementary findings of this nano-sized packeted pigments in the fossil bird feathers-a study reported by Vinther in 2008-and you could put to rest once and for all the long debate of dinosaurs' cognate with modern birds.

                                  

An artist's reconstruction using new data shows dinosaur Sinosauropteryx with striped tails and orange black feather.

                                         

Sinosauropteryx, a turkey-sized carnivorous dinosaur, is the first dinosaur-excluding birds-to have its colour scientifically established.

A model of Sinosauropteryx prima, a birdlike dinosaur with feathers.

        An organelle containing the colour-associated pigment melanin, melanosomes were the stacked structures which gave modern birds their irisdescent feathers. The two most ubiquitous type of melanosomes were eumelanin, the rodlike pigment associated with black and grey feathers, and phaeomelanin, found in reddish brown to yellow feathers with a round shape. A lack of melanosomes made white. Ergo, by analysing melanosomes collected from various places on a single specimen, and comparing their sizes, densities, shapes and arrangements with those in the feathers of living birds-as was completed by the Anchiornis team-there you have it: a scientifically precise, fully-coloured rendering of a dinosaur.

Fossilised dinosaur Sinosauropteryx, showing its striped tail and fine hairlike filaments-their protofeathers.

A close examination of melanosomes, a subcellular structure that contain the pigment melanin.

       Not surprisingly, a breakthrough as significant as this had set the wheel to scientifically colour dinosaurs in motion. Other contender against the Li-Vinther team (the Anchiornis team) in the race was a team led by Fucheng Zhang and Mike Benton (the Sinosauropteryx team). No doubt, it was an eye-opener-akin to going back in time and capturing a true dinosaur's picture close up, where one's childlike awe over teh mysterious beasts was sullied by the realization that they weren't magic after all.

        For all the insatiable imaginations it had sparked, the discovery of true colours of dinosaurs posed questions we didn't even know how to ask. For starters, why feathers evolved in the first place? What role did colours play in the prehistoric life-camouflage, visual communication, sexual display or territoriality? How do these behaviours pertained to modern birds?

Two photos of Archaeopteryx dinosaur fossils, showing its overall birdlike shape (right) and a single feather (left).

The feathery scene created in the late 2000s shows what look like giant turkeys (the firaffe-sized oviraptor, Gigantoraptor) fucing off against a menacing meat-eater. This Lanzendorf Prize winning artwork shows how far paleoartist, Luis Rey has come in his depiction of birdlike dinosaurs.

        In some ways, the story is just opening up, and we couldn't predict where it would be headed.

A Sleepless Night

It was late at night. In fact, it was three in the morning.
        But it wasn't any night.
        Tonight, Anne felt inspired. Perhaps it was the aftermath of finishing a novel. She was always overwhelmed by a cloud of emotions in succession of burying her nose in a book without food, drinks, or occassionally, bath, for days, as if she had developed a sense of divinity all of a sudden. Why did she always felt like she had to do something in the face of spur-of-the-moment emotional seizures? After all, she thought discouragingly, this book wasn't even a page-turner, but one of those teenage novels, which she had outgrown years ago and discarded in a dusty, web-woven corner of her bookshelves. One of Anne's quirks was rigging up these long-forgotten troves and savouring them again, bit by bit, with as much details given as a lady would to her wedding albums: the only living evidence of her youth and beauty and once-in-a-lifetime glories which were nothing now but sepia memories.
        God, she had been overthinking again. But how couldn't she? Now that all the hues and cries of chinese new year were over, and absolutely nothing else to look forward to except another heart-wrenching home-leaving episode a few months away, even Bill Gates couldn't pay her enough to bring a smile to her face.
        Her conscious always got the better of her. What else did she wanted? All her dreams came true, from securing a scholarship towards realising her dream career to acing her A-levels, that was all a girl could ever dreamed of.
        But then, there was always a fraction of difference between being perfect in the eyes of the world and in spite of it. The first part was easy-she always knew who she had to be in the face of the society: the future doctor, the perfect daughter, the straight-A student. It was the latter part-her wanting part-that was unapproachable. Because deep down in her heart, she couldn't resist fantasizing herself being the little girl forever. Ironically, she found herself caught between the Wendy conundrum: to stay, or to leave Neverland?

The Last Lunar

The fireworks were so beautiful it took her breathe away.
        It was this exact moment, standing alone in her front drive, watching the night sky lit up as bright as day, that bestowed this first day of the lunar year the stroke of magic. Anne sucked in the cool night breeze, the faint hint of burning crackers, candles and joss sticks at the edge of it soothed her nerves. 
        Back inside, a conglomerate of sound waves mixed and mingled-the pounds and beats of new year songs; greetings and wishings of the hosts and celebrities on screen; peals of shouts and laughter-blocking one another so that everything and nothing was being said at once. Not that it bothered her anyway. Instead, an odd comfort settled inside her. Anne realised it wasn't so much the mood of celebration was in the air as the sheer familiarity of it all. Even with her eyes closed, Anne could picture the shrine set elaborately with fruits and flowers and sweets; the kitchen stored to the brim with pineapple tarts, bee hives, kuih kapit and kuih bakul; the sparks of firecrackers charring the driveway's cemented ground.
        She didn't even need to count down to anticipate the stroke of midnight. On cue, a loud bang exploded. A white beam sliced through the overhead darkness and hemmorrhaged into a flood of bright illumination which was a palette of red, blue, green and purple. Then, just as seamlessly as it had started, it was over. But Anne knew better. Several seconds later, an entourage of sparks burst forth from all directions without a slight hiatus in between, like butterflies freed from a bottle, so that she was warmly surrounded by a world of hues.
        Peculiarly enough, Anne was reminded of the ancient parable of the Pandora Box-of how all forbidden human emotions were freed into the world, and how hope was the last thing you were left with when you had lost everything in life.
        Anne sighed deeply. Next year-and the five years in succession-she wouldn't be standing in her driveway. Instead, she would be miles away wishing she was anywhere but there. It wasn't so much the missing out of the celebrations as the absence of familiarity which scared her. The idea of losing her family, her friends, her home, and everything she had grown up with was too hard to stomach. By then, all Anne could look to was the only thing left in the world for her: hope. The hope that all bitterness would eventually passed; the hope that she could survive-and turned out a better person.
        "Hey, sis. Wanna light up these ground-skitters?" Her little sister was holding up a packet of rolled-up explosives-a kind of firecrackers which buzzed around the ground when lighted-and a lighter.
        "Sure." she laughed, and joined in the fun, more than ever determined to savour every last moment she had on this place she called home.