News You Can Bruise for 2004 June 8

When I was a little kid my father brought back from a business trip a novelty copy of the Las Vegas Sun that said in huge Pearl-Harbor type "LEONARD RICHARDSON DISCOVERS DINOSAUR". I was amazed at this (there is a picture in my scrapbook of me being amazed; Mom, is there any chance you could scan it/photograph it so I can use it as a visual aid?). I don't remember ever noticing the real-world narrative problems created by the existence of this newspaper: I hadn't actually discovered any dinosaur for the Sun to report on, and if there was some other Leonard Richardson who'd discovered dinosaur then the novelty of the newspaper was limited to a coincidence of names. I probably treated it like a newspaper from the future.

Well, my career plans changed and I'm not likely to discover any dinosaur soon, but I did discover this dinosaur news website fair and square. It's from National Geographic and it descends into software-bug or cross-promotional news that has nothing to do with dinosaurs, but up at the top are arrayed for my vicarious enjoyment all the dinosaurs other people, sweatier than myself, have been discovering. Artists' renderings and everything.

I'd like to see a nice concise expose of the dinosaur discovery pipeline where people find the bones, analyse them, write the paper for Nature, get the artists' renderings done. Who pays for the artists' renderings?

Also, can you still get those novelty newspapers done or has that racket been shut down by humorless lawyers, driving you to use desktop publishing or make fake CNN web pages?