My colleague and good friend Dr. Davide Pisani is making waves around the world this morning on foot of the news of his collaboration with scientists in Bristol, Glasgow, Germany and China.  He has produced (using our high performance computing resources here in Maynooth) a complete “supertree” of dinosaurs.  A supertree is a dendrogram depicting the relationships between different organisms.  So, for instance, if we were to construct a supertree of mammals, we would find humans and chimpanzees very close together, whereas, humans and echidnas would be far apart on this supertree.

Anyway, what they discovered is that early in the diversification of dinosaurs, the rate of diversification was pretty rapid and then it stabilised until their extinction.

It is a lovely piece of work and it provided a nice insight intodiversification and extinction, both subjects being of considerable importance today in an era where mass extinction is happening.

You can get the press release here.  Here is the supertree for your perusal:

The story has been carried by all these nice folk:

http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/science_technology/dinosaurs+ran+out+of+steam/2354192?intcmp=rss_news_itnnews
http://www.examiner.ie/irishexaminer/pages/story.aspx-qqqg=world-qqqm=world-qqqa=world-qqqid=68079-qqqx=1.asp
http://www.irishexaminer.com/text/story.asp?j=mhgbqlgbcwgbgb&p=36763zx&n=3676380
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1037423/Dinosaurs-ran-evolutionary-steam-extinct.html
http://news.scotsman.com/scitech/Dinosaurs-ran-out-of-stamina.4313919.jp
http://www.inthenews.co.uk/news/dinosaur-supertree-unveils-evolution-secrets-$1232953.htm
http://www.france24.com/20080723-dino-diversity-had-long-pedigree-says-study?pop=TRUE
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2008/07/23/2311791.htm?site=catalyst&topic=latest
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2008/07/23/2311791.htm?site=science&topic=ancient
http://news.theage.com.au/world/dinosaur-diversity-had-a-long-pedigree-20080723-3jj0.html
http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/news/Dinosaurs-adapt-scientists/article-232231-detail/article.html
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2008/212017945453.html <http://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2008/212017945453.html>
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/115829.php <http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/115829.php>
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/2098
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/afp/20080722/tsc-science-palaeontology-dinosaurs-c2ff8aa_1.html
http://www.lifestyleextra.com/ShowStory.asp?story=QO2352050I&news_headline=new_study_gives_fresh_dinosaur_insight
http://news.nabou.com/sci-tech/
http://ukpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5h2GCBET7XzBMaryBOBErGNs0E6qg