According to CNN.com, a 25-year old paleontology doctoral student from Yale University has discovered a complete, mummified dinosaur -- skin and all -- in the North Dakota badlands. Unearthed for the first time in 65 million years, the Edmontosaurus is one of only four such dinosaur mummies ever discovered in the history of...of ever.I have two thoughts about this story:
First, from a lay person's perspective, this is just about the coolest news I've heard in a long time. We've all been to the museum and seen the colossal dinosaur skeletons, but imagine being able to see a dinosaur essentially in the flesh -- how incredible is that?! This is exciting news for the dinosaur-obsessed kid in all of us.
Second, from an academic perspective, I wonder: does this kid get an automatic Ph.D. now or what? Seriously! Let's just dispense with the whole dissertation thing, shall we? I mean, he's only made one of the most significant discoveries in the entire history of his field -- shouldn't he just get an automatic degree now? On a related note, I also wonder whether his fellow grad students completely hate his guts. Talk about raising the bar!!
"So, what are you doing for your dissertation?"
"You know, I'm not quite sure. I was thinking about comparing the success rates of various excavation techniques, but I haven't totally decided. What did you do?"
"Me? Oh, it was no big deal -- I just made the most important contribution to paleontology in the last hundred years. No big whoop."
LOL! Although, on the down side, I suppose that discovering an in-tact, mummified dinosaur as a doctoral student doesn't leave one with a whole lot of opportunities for upward professional mobility. It's one thing for your first publication in grad school to be a solo-authored article in a top-tier journal...it's quite another to literally make world history. Hmmm...I wonder what Dr. Gellar would make of all this?
