Dinosaurs in color! I’ve got a story tomorrow in The New York Times on scientists who are using the microscopic structure of dinosaur feathers to figure out their colors.
My new article is just one chapter in a multi-part story. Back in September, I wrote in the Times about how paleontologists developed this method and used it to determine the color of a 47-million-year-old bird feather. On the blog, I promised you here to stay tuned, and now here we are.
The new paper is important, but, as I note in the article, the scientists analyzed a single sample from each fossil. They didn’t look at a large number of samples from a single specimen. Such an analysis could give a broader picture of the color pattern of a dinosaur.
Again, you may guess where this is going. And so, again, stay tuned…
[Update: Times link fixed]
Originally published January 27, 2010. Copyright 2010 Carl Zimmer.