Wikipedia:Main Page history/2022 November 24
From today's featured article
Phosphatodraco is a genus of azhdarchid pterosaur that lived during the Late Cretaceous in what is now Morocco. In 2000, a pterosaur specimen consisting of five neck vertebrae was discovered in the Ouled Abdoun phosphatic basin. The specimen was made the holotype of the new genus and species Phosphatodraco mauritanicus in 2003. It is one of the last known pterosaurs, and its neck is one of the best preserved among the azhdarchids. Due to the fragmentary nature of the holotype vertebrae, it is unclear how Phosphatodraco is distinguished from other azhdarchids and how large it was: it may have had a wingspan of either 4 m (13 ft) or 5 m (16 ft). Its neck may have been 865 mm (2 ft 10 in) long. It would have had a proportionally long neck, small body, and long limbs, compared to other pterosaurs. The diversity in pterosaur taxa in the Ouled Abdoun Basin, including Phosphatodraco, right before the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event suggests the extinction of pterosaurs happened abruptly. (Full article...)
Did you know ...
- ... that the New Zealand mollusc Eatoniella mortoni (pictured) can thrive in extreme carbon dioxide-rich environments, making it a subject for the study of ocean acidification?
- ... that the global coalition to save Abu Simbel, Philae and many other temples led to the creation of the modern list of World Heritage Sites?
- ... that spatial inequality refers to the unequal distribution of income and resources across geographical regions?
- ... that an interdisciplinary study concluded that the Motilla del Azuer was built during the 4.2-kiloyear BP aridification event, in a long period of severe drought?
- ... that Grumman Aerospace built its own power plant because it was cheaper than buying electricity from utilities?
- ... that academics called MoSys's 1T-SRAM a misnomer with "a catchy name"?
- ... that to protest against the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Billie Eilish performed a song that criticizes abusive men in power?
- ... that María Urquides was the "Mother of Bilingual Education"?
In the news
- An earthquake centred near Cianjur in Indonesia's West Java kills at least 271 people and injures more than 2,000 others.
- In Canadian football, the Toronto Argonauts defeat the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in the Grey Cup (MVP Hénoc Muamba pictured).
- The International System of Units officially recognizes the metric prefixes quetta-, ronna-, ronto-, and quecto-.
- NASA's Artemis 1 is successfully launched on an uncrewed test flight to the Moon.
On this day
November 24: Thanksgiving in the United States (2022)
- 1859 – British naturalist Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species was first published, and sold out its initial print run on the first day.
- 1941 – The Holocaust: The Theresienstadt Ghetto was founded as a waystation to Nazi extermination camps and a "retirement settlement" for elderly and prominent Jews to mislead their communities about the Final Solution.
- 1971 – After collecting a ransom payout of $200,000, D. B. Cooper (depicted) parachuted out of the rear stairway of the airplane he had hijacked over the Pacific Northwest and disappeared.
- 2015 – A Russian Sukhoi Su-24 attack aircraft was shot down by a Turkish fighter jet after the former allegedly strayed into Turkish airspace and ignored warnings to change course.
- Zachary Taylor (b. 1784)
- Arundhati Roy (b. 1961)
- Goo Hara (d. 2019)
Today's featured picture
The turkey is a large bird in the genus Meleagris, native to North America. There are two extant turkey species: the wild turkey (M. gallopavo) of eastern and central North America and the ocellated turkey (M. ocellata) of the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. This photograph, taken at Deer Island Preserve in Novato, California, depicts a male Rio Grande wild turkey (M. g. intermedia) strutting – the courtship display, in which the snood (the erectile, fleshy protuberance on the forehead) engorges with blood, becomes redder and elongates, hanging well below the beak. Photograph credit: Frank Schulenburg
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