Examples of these challenges varied, from finding the best path across a patch of desert to avoid getting the expedition vehicles stuck in the sand, to navigating the stacks of paperwork and forms required to bring the skeletal remains from the middle of the Sahara Desert back to a laboratory in Chicago.

Once in the lab, one of the challenges that the team faced was working with the extremely fragile skull bones, still in the rock they were buried in 110 million years ago.  Usually, to make a model of the skull structure, plastic casts are made from impressions of the original bone. This would have been impossible to do without damaging some of the original bones. In facing the challenge of recreating the delicate bones of the skull, the team developed a technique that used computer imaging to recreate a very accurate model of the shape and surface of these extremely fragile bones.

The team used medical CT scanning machines to make computerized 3-D images of the bones. Using these computer images, the team could recreate the actual structure of the skull bones without causing undue damage to the originals.  An unexpected result of this information yielded the shape of the space occupied by the brain of the animal. While studying the position of the part of the brain that controls balance, the team discovered that the animal actually walked around with its snout pointing downward, instead of forward.  This was a major discovery in the world of paleontology. In this example, scientists were able to make an unexpected discovery because of the data they gathered from the solution to an unexpected challenge.  The innovative solution developed by paleontologists demonstrates how when a scientist is faced with a novel challenge, they must find a solution that best fits the nature of the problem.

Matt writes down his questions about Nigersaurus at the Nigersaurus Delegation pre-trip training.

REFLECTIONS OF A DELEGATE

11/12/07
What are your goals for yourself during this unveiling?
My goals for this trip are to: 1) get to know my fellow delegates better—I want to know where they see themselves in the role of a scientist, what goals they have, and what gets them excited about learning; 2) also, I want to learn a lot about how scientific discoveries become accessible to the public through press announcements like the one we will be participants in.

11/14/07
I told my friend that I was going to the unveiling of a new dinosaur species and she asked, “Why should I care?” What should I tell her?
Because it’s cool, first of all. Second, this is an opportunity for me to see how scientists communicate. It is a chance to observe and participate in the conversations of science actually happening before my eyes. The scientific process is a culmination of tens of individuals, hundreds of plans, and thousands of hours spent asking questions and searching for answers, and I will be able to witness the finished product of many peoples’ hard work. Who knows? It might end up in a book someday.

11/15/07
I used to think…But now I know…
I used to think that tiger seals were smaller, like the size of a large dog, but now I know they are up to 12 feet long.

Matt and Kassandra review information about Nigersaurus
and brainstorm about potential project topics.
Photo M. E. Perez

Matt and Quyeisha learn about the dynamics of fluid motion
at the National Air and Space Museum.
Photo K. Atman

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