Finally in 3-D: A Dinosaurâs All-Purpose Orifice
This cloaca is more than 100 million years old, and it did a lot of work for this extinct species.
A reconstruction of Psittacosaurus showing how the cloacal vent might have been used for signaling during courtship.Credit.Bob Nicholls/Paleocreations.com 2020
Jan. 19, 2021
The worldâs oldest known all-purpose orifice sits in a fossil display case in the Senckenberg Natural History Museum in Frankfurt, Germany, so close to the glass that enshrines it that you can âput your face up to it, like this,â said Jakob Vinther, a paleontologist at the University of Bristol in England, holding his hand a couple inches from his nose.
science writer. pretty good moniker. mary roach. she s written about the science of sex and the curious science of life of the void. her latest book out this week is gulp: adventures on the elementary canal . it s one of those words i always saw written, but had a hard time. elementary. you can say it however you want. how did you decide on this topic? okay, i m going to tell you this. i was talking with a reader who happened to be a gastrointerologist. we were talking about the whole digestive tract. he says he goes, think of it. nobody appreciates their digestive tract. the human anus, this is a rim of muscle, the nerve that can discriminate between solid, liquid, and gas and selectively decide what to let go.
gastrointerologist. he says he goes, think of it. nobody appreciates their digestive tract. the human anus, this is a rim of muscle, the nerve that can discredi discriminate between solid, liquid, and gas and selectively decide what to let go. he was like no one appreciates their parts, okay? it s pretty miraculous. maybe you don t want to talk about it. you said people like what they eat rather than eat what they like. what does that mean? that has to do with the fact that we talk about if someone s a picky eater and trying to change people s eating habits, if you get somebody to just eat it a few times, they ll say they like it. there s a study about women in this women s college who, they ask them do you like evaporated milk? and only 15% said they liked it. they fed it to them 16 times and they asked them, do you like evaporated milk?