Latest news with #WillyWonka
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Scientists Drilled for Geothermal Energy. They Hit a 67-Million-Year-Old Dinosaur Instead.
Here's what you'll learn when you read this story: The Denver Museum of Nature & Science discovered a dinosaur fossil buried in its own parking lot. The partial bone of a plant-eating dinosaur is the oldest and deepest dinosaur fossil ever found in Denver. The museum is a well-known dinosaur buff destination, and has multiple full-size dinosaur skeletons on display. When a museum popular with dinosaur enthusiasts went digging in its own parking lot, the dinosaur fossil their team found didn't have far to travel to make it into an exhibit. The Denver Museum of Nature & Science located a roughly 67.5-million-year-old partial dinosaur bone 763 feet below its own parking lot—the oldest and deepest ever found in Denver. 'This partial vertebra from a plant-eating dinosaur offers an extraordinary glimpse into prehistoric Denver and the animals that inhabited this area,' the museum wrote in a statement. Museum staff weren't looking for dinosaur bones to add to an exhibit when they started digging. Instead, crews were conducting geothermal test drilling to assess the viability of switching from natural gas to geothermal energy. While the equipment was out, they added some scientific coring to their process in the hopes of 'better understand[ing] the geology of the Denver Basin.' That led to the unexpected fossil. The coring hole, just two inches wide, was only supposed to help experts study the soil. There was no expectation of locating something as wild as a dinosaur fossil. 'Finding a dinosaur bone in a core is like hitting a hole in one from the Moon,' James Hagadorn, the museum's curator of geology, told the Associated Press. 'It's like winning the Willy Wonka factory. It's incredible, it's super rare.' The museum said that only two other similar coring samples in the entire world have produced fossils. Neither of those, however, were at the site of a dinosaur museum. The discovery has been dated to the late Cretaceous period, roughly 1.5 million years before the extinction of dinosaurs, and the bone was found alongside fossilized vegetation. 'This animal was living in what was probably a swampy environment that would have been heavily vegetated at the time,' Patrick O'Connor, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the museum, told the AP. The dinosaur experts believe—as Erin LaCount, director of education programs at the Dinosaur Ridge track site near Denver, told the AP—that the fossil was from a small dinosaur, possibly a duck-billed dinosaur, a thescelosaurus, or another similar-sized dinosaur. Still, there's not enough evidence to distinguish with certainty what type of dinosaur was located. Not everyone was as excited about the find as the folks in Denver. When the AP contacted Thomas Williamson, curator of paleontology at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science in Albuquerque, he agreed it was an unexpected discovery, but said it was one without much value because there's no real way to determine what species of dinosaur was found. 'It's a surprise, I guess,' he said. 'Scientifically, it's not that exciting.' Folks in Denver, though, may oppose that view. With the fossil now on display in the museum's Discovering Teen Rex exhibit, Hagadorn said he'd love to excavate the entire parking lot to find the rest of the dinosaur. 'But I don't think that's going to fly,' he said, 'because we really need parking.' You Might Also Like The Do's and Don'ts of Using Painter's Tape The Best Portable BBQ Grills for Cooking Anywhere Can a Smart Watch Prolong Your Life? Solve the daily Crossword
Eater
4 days ago
- General
- Eater
Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream Isn't Good If It Isn't Bright Green
is a senior reporter at covering restaurant trends, home cooking advice, and all the food you can't escape on your TikTok FYP. Previously, she worked for Bon Appétit and VICE's Munchies. A hill I will die on is that mint chocolate chip ice cream doesn't hit right when it's not green. And by green, I don't mean the sickly tinge of ice cream infused with mint leaves au naturel, whose relationship to color is like La Croix's relationship to flavor (a whisper at best). I desire the saturated green we'd otherwise associate with toothpaste or — maybe more appetizing — Martha Stewart's jadeite collection. Mint chocolate chip should be bright, vibrant, and somewhat fantastical. Remember being young and trying a food that you knew intellectually could not exist in nature, and were therefore fascinated by? The first time you relished a blue raspberry Jolly Rancher or sipped a Baja Blast? This was how you understood ingenuity and what allowed the story of Willy Wonka to take hold. Ice cream has the power to unlock that childlike pleasure. In the modern age of highbrow ice cream, I find myself more and more often returning to the ice cream I wanted as a kid, not a hoity-toity reinterpretation of the same memory. Bad news for me, however: Earlier this week, a group of American ice cream makers voluntarily pledged to eliminate certified artificial colors from their ice creams by the end of 2027. The members agreeing to these terms are responsible for the vast majority of ice cream sold in the United States. This means goodbye Blue 1, which gives Friendly's mint chocolate chip its signature hue (in addition to the annatto and turmeric), as well as Red 3, Green 3, Blue 2, Yellow 5, Yellow 6, and the much-maligned Red 40. Ice cream trucks will never be the same. Real mint chipheads know that this cultural shift has been building for a while; it's gotten harder to find properly vivid, artificially green mint ice cream as consumer tastes prioritize 'natural' options. Of course, there is new motivation for the crackdown on dyes: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has made eliminating synthetic dyes and other food additives a priority in his new role as Secretary of Health and Human Services. In response, major food producers like Kraft Heinz and Nestlé are now working to remove artificial dyes from their products within the next few years. There is some hope for those of us who want ice cream that looks a little fake, however. The Food & Drug Administration is slowly approving new colors derived from natural sources for use in food, including, most recently, gardenia (genipin) blue. Sign up for Eater's newsletter The freshest news from the food world every day Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Otago Daily Times
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Otago Daily Times
Student's vegan chocolate a hit
Unlike Willy Wonka, chocolate-maker Lucian Petherick blends into a crowd. And that is the way he likes it. If people knew the unassuming 18-year-old University of Otago food sciences and chemistry student had designed his own chocolate bar, he might get swarmed by confectionery lovers. "Everyone keeps asking me for some." His Hokey Pokey Gold block of chocolate recently won him an NZQA Top Scholar award in technology and proved so popular with taste testers that Wellington-based craft vegan chocolate company Wonderland Chocolate has geared up to produce it in commercial quantities. "It's a vegan chocolate, so it's made with a cashew milk base, not a dairy milk base," he said. "I chose a specific cocoa bean with a really nice honey, raisiny, milky sort of flavour and turned it into chocolate. "And then that was combined with a hokey pokey that I made using a whole lot of trial and error to create this sort of hokey pokey crunchy chocolate. "I did more than 30 different hokey pokeys, trying to create the perfect hokey pokey for this chocolate bar." He said he designed the chocolate as part of his food science and food technology year 13 scholarship project last year. "I'm really passionate about sustainability, and the option came up to work with this vegan chocolate company and I just thought, you know, it seemed ideal — it seemed like an amazing opportunity to make my own chocolate bar. "I love chocolate. "I'd have it for breakfast, lunch and dinner, if I could. Wouldn't everyone?" He said only 25 blocks of the chocolate were made, and he had already eaten four of them. The remainder were in storage for shelf-life testing. The plan was for the chocolate to be commercially produced, and it was expected to hit selected supermarket shelves around the country about Christmas. "And if it's popular enough, they'll increase production, so it can go to a wider market. "It'll be really popular with vegan people because there's not a lot of chocolate options out there for vegans. "Some vegan milk chocolate is not the nicest. Even dark chocolate's nicer than that. "I think this chocolate is genuinely excellent, and I'm saying that as someone who is not a vegan." Despite his major input, Mr Petherick would not receive a cent from sales of the chocolate. But that did not bother him in the least. Either way, it was a sweet deal, he said. "I just feel so lucky because it's not often that you get to turn dreams into a reality like this. "It was amazing. It doesn't happen that often. "When I talk to people from the food science course that I'm currently doing at the university, I see that I'm getting to do things that they haven't been able to do, especially not as a high school student. "There are third-year students and PhD students that I talk to, that think it's a really amazing thing." As for his next chocolatey invention, he is remaining tight-lipped.
Arab Times
12-07-2025
- Science
- Arab Times
A dino museum makes a find deep under its own parking lot
DENVER, July 12, (AP): A Denver museum known for its dinosaur displays has made a fossil bone discovery closer to home than anyone ever expected, under its own parking lot. It came from a hole drilled more than 750 feet (230 meters) deep to study geothermal heating potential for the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. The museum is popular with dinosaur enthusiasts of all ages. Full-size dinosaur skeletons amaze kiddos barely knee-high to a parent, much less to a Tyrannosaurus. This latest find is not so visually impressive. Even so, the odds of finding the hockey-puck-shaped fossil sample were impressively small. With a bore only a couple of inches (5 centimeters) wide, museum officials struggled to describe just how unlikely it was to hit a dinosaur, even in a region with a fair number of such fossils. "Finding a dinosaur bone in a core is like hitting a hole in one from the moon. It's like winning the Willy Wonka factory. It's incredible, it's super rare,' said James Hagadorn, the museum's curator of geology. Only two similar finds have been noted in bore hole samples anywhere in the world, not to mention on the grounds of a dinosaur museum, according to museum officials. A vertebra of a smallish, plant-eating dinosaur is believed to be the source. It lived in the late Cretaceous period around 67.5 million years ago. An asteroid impact brought the long era of dinosaurs to an end around 66 million years ago, according to scientists. Fossilized vegetation also was found in the bore hole near the bone. "This animal was living in what was probably a swampy environment that would have been heavily vegetated at the time,' said Patrick O'Connor, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. Dinosaur discoveries in the area over the years include portions of Tyrannosaurus rex and triceratops-type fossils. This one is Denver's deepest and oldest yet, O'Connor said. Other experts in the field vouched for the find's legitimacy but with mixed reactions. "It's a surprise, I guess. Scientifically it's not that exciting,' said Thomas Williamson, curator of paleontology at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science in Albuquerque. There was no way to tell exactly what species of dinosaur it was, Williamson noted. The find is "absolutely legit and VERY COOL!' Erin LaCount, director of education programs at the Dinosaur Ridge track site just west of Denver, said by email. The fossil's shape suggests it was a duck-billed dinosaur or thescelosaurus, a smaller but somewhat similar species, LaCount noted. The bore-hole fossil is now on display in the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, of course, but there are no plans to look for more under the parking lot. "I would love to dig a 763-foot (233-meter) hole in the parking lot to excavate that dinosaur, the rest of it. But I don't think that's going to fly because we really need parking,' Hagadorn said.
New York Post
11-07-2025
- Science
- New York Post
Denver dino museum makes a find deep under own parking lot, Like ‘a hole in one from the moon.'
DENVER (AP) — A Denver museum known for its dinosaur displays has made a fossil bone discovery closer to home than anyone ever expected, under its own parking lot. It came from a hole drilled more than 750 feet (230 meters) deep to study geothermal heating potential for the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. 5 Ornithopod vertebra fossil in a core sample. AP 5 Boxes of cores from the City Park core drilling in the parking lot at Denver Museum of Nature and Science. AP The museum is popular with dinosaur enthusiasts of all ages. Full-size dinosaur skeletons amaze kiddos barely knee-high to a parent, much less to a Tyrannosaurus. This latest find is not so visually impressive. Even so, the odds of finding the hockey-puck-shaped fossil sample were impressively small. With a bore only a couple of inches (5 centimeters) wide, museum officials struggled to describe just how unlikely it was to hit a dinosaur, even in a region with a fair number of such fossils. 'Finding a dinosaur bone in a core is like hitting a hole in one from the moon. It's like winning the Willy Wonka factory. It's incredible, it's super rare,' said James Hagadorn, the museum's curator of geology. Only two similar finds have been noted in bore hole samples anywhere in the world, not to mention on the grounds of a dinosaur museum, according to museum officials. A vertebra of a smallish, plant-eating dinosaur is believed to be the source. It lived in the late Cretaceous period around 67.5 million years ago. An asteroid impact brought the long era of dinosaurs to an end around 66 million years ago, according to scientists. 5 Only two similar finds have been noted in bore hole samples anywhere in the world, not to mention on the grounds of a dinosaur museum, according to museum officials. AP 5 A vertebra of a smallish, plant-eating dinosaur is believed to be the source. AP Fossilized vegetation also was found in the bore hole near the bone. 'This animal was living in what was probably a swampy environment that would have been heavily vegetated at the time,' said Patrick O'Connor, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. Dinosaur discoveries in the area over the years include portions of Tyrannosaurus rex and triceratops-type fossils. This one is Denver's deepest and oldest yet, O'Connor said. Other experts in the field vouched for the find's legitimacy but with mixed reactions. 'It's a surprise, I guess. Scientifically it's not that exciting,' said Thomas Williamson, curator of paleontology at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science in Albuquerque. There was no way to tell exactly what species of dinosaur it was, Williamson noted. 5 Geologist James Hagadorn closes boxes of core rock samples. AP The find is 'absolutely legit and VERY COOL!' Erin LaCount, director of education programs at the Dinosaur Ridge track site just west of Denver, said by email. The fossil's shape suggests it was a duck-billed dinosaur or thescelosaurus, a smaller but somewhat similar species, LaCount noted. The bore-hole fossil is now on display in the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, of course, but there are no plans to look for more under the parking lot. 'I would love to dig a 763-foot (233-meter) hole in the parking lot to excavate that dinosaur, the rest of it. But I don't think that's going to fly because we really need parking,' Hagadorn said.
