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We’re just back from SVPCA 2013 in Edinburgh. The first part of the meeting was held at the Royal Society of Edinburgh, but on Friday we moved to the National Museums Scotland. Which is awesome. And free to the public.

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Remember at the start of the year, Matt and I had a contest to design a cover for a random book in half an hour?

Back in 2008, Matt and I were at the Museum Für Naturkunde Berlin.

I recently handled the revisions on a paper that hopefully will be in press very soon. One of the review comments was “Be very careful not to make ad hominem attacks”. I was a bit surprised to see that — I wasn’t aware that I’d made any — so I went back over the manuscript, and sure enough, there were no ad hom s in there. There was criticism, though, and I think that’s what the reviewer meant.

I was recently bemoaning the lack of published diplodocid cervical illustrations in dorsal view. Subsequently I mentioned that Upchurch et al. (2005) had illustrated five cervicals of an Apatosaurus specimen. I was overlooking one other paper that contains such an illustration. Which is a bit embarrassing, as it’s one of ours. In fact, it’s our most recent paper, Wedel and Taylor (2013) on sauropod neural spine bifurcation.

Every year I invest many days’ effort into preparing a 20-minute talk for SVPCA. Then I deliver it to maybe 80 people, and that’s the end — it’s over.

Last time, I asked if anyone has dorsal-view photos of the cervical vertebrae of Diplodocus . No responses yet, and I do urge you to chip in if you have any ideas. But here’s something to keep us positive: Apatosaurus cervicals!

In his classic monograph, Hatcher (1901) illustrated the cervical vertebrae of the Diplodocus carnegii holotype CM 84 with beautiful drawings: {.aligncenter .size-full .wp-image-8014 loading=“lazy” attachment-id=“8014” permalink=“http://svpow.com/papers-by-sv-powsketeers/wedel-and-taylor-2013-on-sauropod-neural-spine-bifurcation/wedel-and-taylor-2013-bifurcation-figure-13-diplodocus-cervicals-from-hatcher/”

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