That preview image is NOT an artist’s recreation.

It is a photograph.

As yet unnamed Nodosaur, mid-/late-K, ca. 110,000,000 ya

… The body sank back-first onto the ocean floor, kicking up soupy mud that engulfed it. Minerals infiltrated the skin and armor and cradled its back, ensuring that the dead nodosaur would keep its true-to-life form as eons' worth of rock piled atop it.

… But already the fossil is providing new insights into the structure of nodosaurs' armor. Reconstructing armor usually requires educated guesswork, as the bony plates, called osteoderms, scatter early in the decaying process. Not only did the osteoderms on this nodosaur preserve in place, but so did traces of the scales in between.

What's more, sheaths once made of keratin—the same material that's in human fingernails—still coat many of the osteoderms, letting paleontologists see precisely how these sheaths exaggerated the armor's size and shape. "I've been calling this one the Rosetta stone for armor," says Donald Henderson, curator of dinosaurs at the Royal Tyrrell Museum.

The universe is awesome.

Shared Article from National Geographic

This Is the Best Dinosaur Fossil of Its Kind Ever Found

The 110 million-year-old fossil of a nodosaur preserves the animal's armor, skin, and what may have been its final meal.

Michael Greshko and Robert Clark @ nationalgeographic.com

I am sorry to hear that the three Auburn University women’s softball players who were arrested last month for marijuana possession and drug paraphenalia possession have been pressured into making a public apology.

Shared Article from OANow.com

Auburn softball players Fagan, Martin, Maresette issue apologies…

Suspended Auburn softball players Haley Fagan, Makayla Martin and Brittany Maresette, who were arrested in the early morning hours on April 20 for pos…

Josh Vitale @ oanow.com

I’m sorry to hear it because, of course, despite the arrest, despite all the moralistic posturing of the Auburn athletics bureaucracy, and despite the completely pointless humiliation of these three young women, they did absolutely nothing wrong. They have nothing to apologize for. There’s nothing wrong with smoking marijuana. There’s nothing wrong with having drug paraphenalia to help you smoke marijuana. It’s a common hobby, it’s certainly not the most harmful vice on the market, a lot of people do it, and people who do it aren’t hurting anybody. Haley Fagan, Makayla Martin, and Brittany Maresette should never have been arrested. What they did should not be a crime. There’s no need to apologize, and those who posture about it are next to impossible to take seriously; the fact is, there is nothing wrong with it. The only people who ought to be ashamed here are the cops and the bureaucrats who intend on punishing them for blowing off a bit of steam in a way that does not do a lick of harm to any identifiable victim.

End the War on Drugs. Release all political prisoners.