Of Dinosaurs and Mathematics: Providing Solid Evidence for
Paleontological Theory  Fri, 06/13/2014 - 3:58pm Kathleen Estes,
Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology  Artistic rendering
of Leptoceratops, a likely relative of Serendipaceratops
arthurcclarkei. Courtesy of Peter TruslerDinosaurs and
mathematics do not seem like an obvious pair, but for Professor
Robert Sinclair and his Mathematical Biology Unit, they are a
logical match. Sinclair was part of a team that recently
published a paper in Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of
Palaeontology that reexamined the classification of a dinosaur
bone found in Australia. Using his expertise in mathematics,
Sinclair was able to help the paleontologists reclassify a
single arm bone as belonging to a dinosaur family previously
believed not to have existed in the Southern Hemisphere.
Sinclair contributed to an international, interdisciplinary
collaboration that may lead to revisions in the current thinking
about how continents were connected in the ancient worl