Dinosaurs

BUGAAN TSAV, Mongolia -- Pagmin Narmandakh shuffles through the Gobi desert in her bedroom slippers, marching over the bones of dinosaurs slumbering in an ancient seabed just below the silty surface.One of Mongolia's top paleontologists, she has been exploring the Gobi for more than 30 years. With her well-trained eye, she makes finding prehistoric relics seem easy. She has found giant tarbosaurs and tiny archaic turtles; today on her way to a dig in progress, she plucks 70-million-year-old mollusks from the sand as casually as picking seashells off the beach.

After being encased in rock for more than 115 million years, and stashed in boxes for another 140, Maryland's dinosaurs are finally getting their day in the spotlight.On Saturday, the Maryland Science Center will open what is believed to be the first exhibit anywhere on the giant reptiles that once made the Land of Pleasant Living their home.Amazingly, amid all the shopping malls and tract housing and industrial parks, the "terrible lizards" are still with us, often almost literally in our back yards.

David B. Weishampel makes an annual trek to the mist-shrouded Carpathian Mountains of Transylvania to hunt for the grave of a nasty character with a taste for blood.But the Johns Hopkins University paleontologist, regarded by his colleagues as one of the world's top dinosaur scientists, leaves his wooden stakes at home. He isn't hunting for Count Dracula, the fictional vampire.He's looking for the ancient bones of Romanian raptor, a meat-eating dinosaur whose incisors even the evil count might envy, along with a menagerie of other Cretaceous-era animals.

I fell in love with the book "Goosebumps: The Haunted Mask," by R.L. Stine. You should read this book because it is a very good book. If you have a little brother and really want to scare him, I would like you to read this book. It happened on Halloween Day.- Ashley Marshall, Grade 3,Pleasant Plain Elementary"Dinosaurs Before Dark," by Mary Pope Osborne, is a spectacular book. It is for 4th and 5th graders. The funny characters in this book are Jack Linsin, Annie Sweetline and Henry Sofer.

Welcome to Week 3 of the William Donald Schaefer campaign for comptroller. Official colors: Navy blue and orange. Official funny cap: "I'm a Wm. Donald Schaefer supporter and damn proud of it." Official disease: amnesia. How else to explain Schaefer's visit Wednesday to the 22nd annual J. Millard Tawes Crab Feast, where he rhapsodized about the Eastern Shore as if no one would remember that he once compared the region to an outdoor plumbing facility."Jurassic Park East" was the not-so-hip quip from former City Council President Walter S. Orlinsky earlier in the week, at Schaefer's first rally.

"My book is 'The Berenstain Bears Get Stage Fright' by Stan and Jan Berenstain. Brother and Sister Bear are in a school play just like children. I like the part when Brother forgot his lines and Sister helped him."Mimmo Cricchio Jr., Grade Pre-FirstCathedral of Mary Our Queen School" 'Cam Jansen and the Lost Tooth' by David A. Adler. I enjoyed the story because it was a mystery. The story takes place in the art room, a little bit on the bus and some in the classroom. The detective is a girl with three friends.

"One of my favorite books is 'The Lost World, Jurassic Park' by Gail Herman. It is the story about two groups of people who go to an island inhabited by dinosaurs. One group wants to bring the dinosaurs back to San Francisco to display them and make money. The other group is interested in keeping the dinosaurs alive and well on the island. There is a lot of action in this book and it teaches you facts about some dinosaurs."- Christopher Cruz, Grade 4Villa Cresta Elementary" 'Chocolate Fever' by Robert Kimmel Smith.

Ray Stanford's hobby is taking over his house.Hundreds, maybe thousands of rocks are heaped in knee-high windrows around his living room. Rock piles snake across the floor, under and over his furniture. Stacks of rocks have permanently usurped his kitchen stove."We don't even eat here, there are so many darn rocks in the house," Stanford said. His insurance company urged him to reinforce his floor beams. He did. But he won't get rid of the rocks.These rocks are pocked with footprints, traces of a lost world that flourished 105 million to 115 million years ago, during a time geologists call the Cretaceous period.

NEWARK, N.J. - Richard Olsson and Kenneth Miller are convinced the particles they dug up from a state park near Atlantic City, N.J., are no ordinary sand grains, but are remnants of an apocalypse that killed the dinosaurs.The two Rutgers University scientists say the grains condensed from a cloud of searing, vaporized rock that was kicked up when a giant asteroid slammed into the earth near Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. Traveling at 9,000 mph, the cloud took just 10 minutes to reach New Jersey, where it deposited the almost invisibly small, spherical grains in a layer 2 inches thick.

Steven Spielberg thought he was moving too fast. Several months ago, he told David Koepp, the screenwriter for "The Lost World: Jurassic Park," which Spielberg was making, that such sequels should wait at least four years, and possibly far longer, before even beginning production."

If the Maryland Science Center has anything to say about it, Baltimoreans will soon think of China as the home of more than chopsticks, serious ping pong players and the giant panda. By the end of the summer, it should also be known as the land of Mamenchisaurus, Szechuanosaurus and Monolophosaurus, not to mention Tuojiangosaurus and Psittacosaurus. Through Labor Day, dinosaurs from China will be invading Baltimore. And the folks at the Inner Harbor science center couldn't be happier. "Some of these have not been found anywhere else in the world," says Van Reiner, the center's president and chief executive.

If you liked the Jurassic Park movies but long for a more intimate look at dinosaurs stomping around in a bad mood, this could be your big chance. Starting tonight, Walking With Dinosaurs - The Live Experience kicks off the first of nine performances at 1st Mariner Arena, having played to mostly glowing reviews since opening in July. The $20 million show, based on the award-winning BBC television series, features 15 "live" dinosaurs, snarling fight scenes, lush scenery, erupting volcanos and a massive comet that slams into Earth and signals the end of the species.

THEATER `Purple' on the road The Color Purple - the story of Celie, a young black woman who endures abuse from men in her life and finds strength through the women around her - won a Pulitzer Prize as a novel by Alice Walker and received 11 Academy Award nominations as a film by Steven Spielberg. Now, the critically acclaimed classic heads to the stage in musical form at the France-Merrick Performing Arts Center's Hippodrome Theatre, during its first North American tour. Gospel recording artist Jeannette Bayardelle plays Celie, and former American Idol contestant LaToya London plays her sister, Nettie.

ME, Loana. You, Tumak." That was Raquel Welch's big line in One Million Years B.C. Her only line, in fact. As a screen incarnation of Woman in the Time of Dinosaurs -- human beings and dinosaurs never actually co-existed -- Miss Welch grunted and pantomimed her role. Her snarly cave girl catfight with Martine Beswick was especially evocative. Raquel, a proud Latina, was distressed to have to streak her hair blond as Loana, and certainly didn't think this movie was her ticket to stardom.

The asteroid strike that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago is often credited with prompting the rise of the mammals we see today - including primates like us. But a new study says the effects of the dinosaurs' demise have been greatly exaggerated. Modern-day mammals, researchers say, displayed an initial burst of evolutionary diversity up to 100 million years ago - while the dinosaurs were still roaming prehistoric swamps. And the mammals showed a second burst between 55 million and 35 million years ago - long after the dinosaurs had disappeared.

`Bizarre Beasts' exhibit Visit the National Geographic Museum in Washington and you may wonder whether you've stepped onto the set of the next Jurassic Park film. In addition to dinosaurs staring you down, you'll be confronted by numerous representations of odd and unusual creatures that once lived on Earth. The new interactive exhibit Bizarre Beasts, Past and Present showcases models of invertebrates, reptiles, amphibians, birds and enormous mammals. Created by sculptor Gary Staab, the exhibit also explores the evolution of these creatures and how they were able to adapt over time to varying environments.

We now know velociraptors were as feathery as ostriches. ... In 2026, the way we think of dinosaurs today is going to look quaint."- THOMAS HOLTZ, University of Maryland paleontologist, on our evolving views of dinosaurs [NEWHOUSE NEWS SERVICE]

Encyclopedia Prehistorica: Sharks and other Sea Monsters By Robert Sabuda & Matthew Reinhart Candlewick Press/$27.99 Award-winning pop-up artists Robert Sabuda and Matthew Reinhart are releasing the companion book to their fantastic, Encyclopedia Prehistorica: Dinosaurs, with an equally delightful read about sharks and underwater creatures from the ancient seas. It's tough not to rave about these children's books. They are imaginative, interesting, well-written and just plain fun. In addition, the art comes alive, with three-dimensional dinosaurs and sharks leaping off the page to grab your attention.

Critic's Pick-- Cloned dinosaurs become neat zoo attractions. Then they get loose in Jurassic Park (9 p.m.- midnight, USA). Laura Dern (above) stars.

Obesity More problems for heavy kids Children who are overweight face more than future health problems. They appear to have broken bones and joint problems more often during childhood than kids of normal weight, research suggests. "Kids and adults who are overweight are already having problems with their mobility, fractures, and joint pain," said Dr. Susan Yanovski, director of the obesity and eating disorders program at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.