#Xavier Buffa

[alphynix]

Drepanosaurs were a weird little group of tree-climbing Triassic reptiles with prehensile claw-tipped tails, chameleon-like bodies, humped backs, grasping feet, long necks, and somewhat bird-like skulls that may have been tipped with toothless beaks in some species.

Recently some of them have been recognized as also having adaptations for digging and ripping into insect nests, similar to modern anteaters, with highly specialized forelimb bones and a massively enlarged hoked claw on each hand.

And now we have another one of these digging drepanosaurs: Unguinychus onyx, whose name delightfully translates to "claw claw claw"!

Living in what is now New Mexico, USA during the late Triassic, around 215-208 million years ago, Unguinychus is only known from its enlarged hand claws but was probably similar in size to some of its close relatives, likely around 40cm long (~1'4").

Based on skin impressions from the early drepanosaur Kyrgyzsaurus it also would have been covered in small scales, possibly with a skin crest and a chameleon-like throat sac.

Drepanosaurs' evolutionary relationships are rather unclear, with various studies classifying them as an early branch of diapsid reptiles, as close relatives of the gliding kuehneosaurids, or as protorosaurian archosauromorphs. But recently another idea has been proposed, instead placing them slightly further up the archosauromorph evolutionary tree in the allokotosaur lineage close to trilophosaurids – and notably making them very closely related to fellow Triassic bird-headed weirdo Teraterpeton.

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References:

Alifanov, V. R., and E. N. Kurochkin. "Kyrgyzsaurus bukhanchenkoi gen. et sp. nov., a new reptile from the Triassic of southwestern Kyrgyzstan." Paleontological Journal 45 (2011): 639-647. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257843064_Kyrgyzsaurus_bukhanchenkoi_gen_et_sp_nov_a_New_Reptile_from_the_Triassic_of_Southwestern_Kyrgyzstan

Buffa, Valentin, et al. "‘Birds’ of two feathers: Avicranium renestoi and the paraphyly of bird-headed reptiles (Diapsida:‘Avicephala’)." Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society (2024): zlae050. https://doi.org/10.1093/zoolinnean/zlae050

Jenkins, Xavier A., et al. "Using manual ungual morphology to predict substrate use in the Drepanosauromorpha and the description of a new species." Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 40.5 (2020): e1810058. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344545876_Using_Manual_Ungual_Morphology_to_Predict_Substrate_Use_in_the_Drepanosauromorpha_and_the_Description_of_a_New_Species

Pugh, Isaac, et al. "A new drepanosauromorph (Diapsida) from East–Central New Mexico and diversity of drepanosaur morphology and ecology at the Upper Triassic Homestead Site at Garita Creek (Triassic: mid-Norian)." Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology (2024): e2363202. https://doi.org/10.1080/02724634.2024.2363202

[tonin-terets]

Peugeot 308 - Drawn by attraction from Mark Jenkinson on Vimeo.

It was a lot of fun to design and bring this little character to life with a brilliant team. Awesome work as ever with @gudnason and amazing CG work by the Mill. Huge thanks to my wonderful producer Giulia and to everyone who worked on this!

Production Company Movie Magic International Executive producer Giorgio Borghi Producer Giulia Buffa Director Mark Jenkinson DOP Ottar Gudnason 1st AD Ferran Rial 2nd AD: Jesus Espin Production Designer Jon Blud Stylist: Claudia Martins Wardrobe assist: Felipe Rojas / Natalia Castillo Arm Car: @car_shooting111 Marc Roca @x_moliner @montoliuxavier Precision Driver Dan Adams / Marc Sangra Stunt rider @natasha.duran 1st AC: Alex Benhamou 2nd AC Francesc Rubio VTR: Celia Abraira DIT: Sergi Aranda Key Grip: Xavi Gordi Gaffer: Ricard Pujol Car care Victor Sanchez Service Company Vivi Film EP: Fabrizio Vittucci / Carlos Soms Prod Manager: Serge Hernandez Shot on Sony Venice 2

Editor Quin Williams at Tenthree Global Head of Peugeot Marketing & Communications : Phil York Brand Content Director : Erika Bouteloup Brand Manager : Elodie Bugat Agency : OPEn Global Account Lead: Stéphane Boutier Global Business Director: Judith Romero Global Account Director : Lena Lieuvin Global Account Executive: Helia Bardon Chief Strategy Officer: Loïc Mercier Head of Planning: Nicolas Orsoni Creative Director: Stephane Lecoq Art Director: Jake Butler Copywriter: Nick Kugge Head of Production/agency producer: Patricia Lucas Agency post-producer: Florence Marquet Sound Designer : Fabrice Pouvreau

VFX Studio: THE MILL PARIS Executive Producer: Fabrice Damolini VFX Producer : Stéphanie Mollet VFX Supervisor et Flame: Alexis Baillia CG Supervisor: Mickael Girod Editing : Maxime Didelot Grading: Philip Hambi Modelling & Environment: Jaspreet Kay Dua, Tytouan Botte, Nicolas Du That Co Generalist: Guillaume Dadaglio Rigging: Marine Sisnaki, Alexandre Sauthier Animation : Alban lelièvre, Geoffroy Barbet Massin, Ludovic Martin, Hervé Anceau FX: Pierre Carcedo Lighting : Valentin Lesueur, François-Xavier Gonnet, Balthazar Bourguignon, Tytouan Botte Compositing : Ugo pierantoni, Fabrice Fernandez, Jordan Recoquillon, Killian Roy Flame : Alexis Baillia VFX Coordinator : Milan Vicet, Mathilde Cohen Selmon Assistant : Julie Rigaud, Chloé Charrier, Felix Fléchet, Naomie Dumas, Pauline Royo, Antoine Zimer, Maité Tamain VFX support: The Mill Bangalore Associate Production Manager: Rushikesh Shelar Production Coordinator: Raman Dhode, Srinivas Bandi, Nividita Dakua Compositing Supervisor: Venkata Siva Kumar Mannepalli Compositing Lead: Rajesh S Compositing Artist : Pavan Gurhalkar, Ragesh Ramchandran, Gopinathan Sekhar, Sudeep Bandi Asset Lead: Nishant Kumar Rigging Lead: Garlapati Yeswant Lighting Supervisor: Aritra Kumar Sarkar Lighting Artist: Trinath Sarkar, Romika Tiwari, Karan Patel, Sourabh Soni MMRA Supervisor: Elangovan Ganeshan MMRA Lead : Smijumon Viswanathan, Avaneetharan Karuppasamy MMRA Artist : Puppala Vinod Kumar, Anirudh Krishna Kurve, Tirupati Bhavani Shankar Derangula , Upasana Choudhary, Swapnil Bharat Nerkar, Yallamraju Venkata Raja Chandra, Praveenkumar Palani, Asif Mohammad, Paras Pareshkumar Shah, Typhan Rai, Chetan Balasaheb Kadam, Vijay Bapu Chavan Prep Supervisor : Sugumar S Prep Lead : Kiran Veeraswarapu, Sachin Ranaware Prep Artist : Ritesh Patil, Sikandar Shaikh, Anuj Pathania, Prashant Kamble, Abhishek Deswal, Sagar Gawande, Bruno Roosewelt, Jagadeesh Dasari, Utkarsh Indis, Sagar Dasgaonkar Roto Supervisor : Sivakumar S Roto Lead : Rohit Charde, Moumita Ganesh Pratihar Roto Artist : Rahul Jagtap, Laxman Nathuram Bodere, Nitin Yashwant Thorat, Sudhir Balaram Jadhav, Ahamadulla Khan, Hrushikesh Kadu, Shrikant Jadhav, Sudev S, Tanmay Bera, Aditya Shrikant Salunkhe, Rakesh Gharti, Sekh Sahangir Versions Digitales VFX Producer: Kahina Lamblin

[j-r-macready]

F-AZKG / 51-3573 - North american T-28 A Fennec - F-AZKM / 99+24 - North American Rockwell OV-10 Bronco by Laurent Quérité Via Flickr: Pilote : Xavier Buffa Musée Européen de l'Avion de Chasse Meeting Aérien Airshow Le temps des hélices La Ferté Alais (LFFQ) France IMG_3982

[verdiprati]

Mostly Mezzo Mondays: Murrihy, Genaux, DiDonato, Cargill, and Lindsey; plus early, baroque, and galant goodies

Mostly Mezzo Mondays: a recurring (though not weekly) feature where, on Monday nights, I blog a list of the upcoming broadcasts that have caught my eye on World Concert Hall. My interests: baroque vocal music, art song recitals, and a list of favorite singers.

It’s a real mezzo-fest this week:

Paula Murrihy jumped in to sing the recital at Zeist that Sarah Connolly had to withdraw from due to illness late last month; with accompanist Sholto Kynoch, she performed works by Brahms, Mendelssohn, Debussy, Clara Schumann, and Robert Schumann, as well as a selection of Irish folk tunes. You can hear the recital in deferred broadcast Tuesday, June 4 on NPO Radio 4.*

This past Saturday, Vivica Genaux and Laurence Zazzo sang a concert of Handel arias (on the theme of “gender stories,” apparently) with the Lautten Compagney Berlin conducted by Wolfgang Katschner. It comes up for deferred broadcast Tuesday, June 4 on MDR Kultur.

I know one lucky Tumblr friend who has gone to Rome to hear her idol Joyce DiDonato in concert with the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. If you’re not quite that lucky, you can hear a live broadcast Wednesday, June 5 on Rai Radio 3.

I don’t often put instrumental stuff in my Mostly Mezzo Mondays list but I happened to listen earlier today to a previously-broadcast concert with Jordi Savall and Xavier Díaz-Latorre, and it was exquisite. Thus, their concert with Andrew Lawrence-King and Hesperion XXI has caught my eye on World Concert Hall tonight. Deferred broadcast Wednesday, June 5 on BBC Radio 3.*

Karen Cargill is scheduled to sing Das Lied von der Erde in Berlin on Wednesday this week, with Simon O’Neill and the DSO (Ticciati conducting). The concert will be broadcast a day later, Thursday, June 6, on Deutschlandfunk Kultur.

Anyone who would like to hear Kate Lindsey in Les contes d’Hoffmann can tune in for deferred broadcast of a performance recorded in Los Angeles in 2017. Vittorio Grigolo, Nicolas Testé, and Diana Damrau are among her co-stars. Saturday, June 8 on KUSC.

Here’s a post-baroque rarity that might be of interest: Galuppi’s opera buffa Il mondo alla roversa. The plot, I gather, involves a fictional island where women rule over men (spoiler alert: the moral of the story is not that this is a sensible idea). This performance by the French orchestra Akadêmia features singers I’m not familiar with. Deferred broadcast Sunday, June 9 on France Musique.*

Broadcasts marked with an asterisk (*) are on stations known to me to have a history of making concerts available for listening on demand for at least a week after the initial broadcast. (Stations that are not so marked might do so also; I just mark the ones I’m familiar with.)

[winterolympicssports2018-blog]

NCAA tournament loses NBA draft picks in Collin Sexton, Deandre Ayton, Michael Porter Jr

Click here for More Olympics Updates https://www.winterolympian.com/ncaa-tournament-loses-nba-draft-picks-in-collin-sexton-deandre-ayton-michael-porter-jr/

NCAA tournament loses NBA draft picks in Collin Sexton, Deandre Ayton, Michael Porter Jr

The best NCAA tournaments often feature the most skilled talents on the most dominant teams.

In 2015, the Final Four featured nine players who were selected in that summer’s NBA draft. Karl-Anthony Towns and Kentucky and Frank Kaminsky and Wisconsin authored a wild national semifinal matchup before Duke won a come-from-behind thriller over the Badgers in the title game.

Those matchups alone included some of college basketball’s marquee powerhouses and legacy programs. The future stars enhanced the buildup to that year’s finale.

Collin Sexton and Alabama fell to Villanova on Saturday. Geoff Burke/USA TODAY Sports

Three years later, many envisioned a similar fusion of team strength and NBA-level talent in this year’s final rounds. But the first weekend already has dispatched the game’s most intriguing prospects. Trae Young, a potential lottery pick, and Oklahoma, a team with a questionable résumé for an at-large berth, couldn’t escape Rhode Island in the Sooners’ first game.

The tournament has tipped off. Your picks are locked in. It’s time to find out how your bracket is holding up. Check your brackets

Deandre Ayton recorded a double-double, but it wasn’t enough to help Arizona — a trendy Final Four pick — from suffering a 21-point loss to Buffalo in the opening round. Collin Sexton carried Alabama to a win over Virginia Tech, but top seed Villanova destroyed the Crimson Tide on Saturday, eliminating one of the most exciting players in America.

Missouri’s Michael Porter Jr. decided to come back for the postseason after missing all but two minutes of the regular season. His brief time in the NCAA tournament — probably the projected top-10 pick’s only tourney appearance — ended with a 4-for-12 outing and double-digit loss to Florida State.

UMBC pulled the upset of upsets in the opening round. Do the Retrievers — or any of the lower seeds — plan on a second act?

Xavier advanced to Sunday’s second round with little trouble, but things could be very different against Florida State. That’s one of several matchups we examine to see which one has the best chance of an upset.

How is the NBA draft shaping up heading into the NCAA tournament? Jonathan Givony breaks down the new picks in both rounds.

2 Related

Mohamed Bamba, a shot-blocking savant, and Texas couldn’t finish against Nevada. Ohio State’s Keita Bates-Diop scored 28 points and made nearly 50 percent of his shots. Still, Gonzaga held off a hot Buckeyes team that erased a double-digit halftime lead.

In all, seven of the top 15 players listed in ESPN.com’s latest NBA mock draft — 12 in the first round overall — had been eliminated by Saturday night. We’re still left with a handful of intriguing, next-level players.

Marvin Bagley III is averaging 22.0 points and 8.0 rebounds for Duke in the NCAA tournament. Michigan State’s Miles Bridges and Jaren Jackson Jr., the most talented duo in the country, could secure slots in this summer’s lottery. Mikal Bridges, a 6-foot-6 wing and projected top-10 pick who has made 45 percent of his 3-pointers, is the most difficult matchup in the field. Kentucky freshmen Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Kevin Knox will earn multimillion-dollar deals from NBA franchises, too.

Injuries prevented Michael Porter Jr., right, from making much of an impact in his freshman season at Missouri. AP Photo/Jeff Roberson

They’re still here and they’re unique players with a trove of gifts they’ll employ in the coming weeks. But we wanted to see the best players in America collide. Young would have faced Bagley and Duke had he led his team to a win over Rhode Island. We missed an Ayton vs. Kentucky matchup in the second round when Buffalo spoiled that clash.

We never saw Porter in shape. Perhaps if he’d had a few more games to prepare for the postseason, he would have played up to his potential and helped Missouri beat Florida State and advance. And Sexton had become must-see television in recent weeks.

Their absences do not diminish the highs of the past three days. UMBC made history on Friday night, and Loyola-Chicago reached the Sweet 16 with a win over SEC co-champion Tennessee on Saturday. Michigan secured its place in the Sweet 16 with a buzzer-beater to shock Houston.

Villanova and Duke dominated their first- and second-round opponents. Kentucky continued its evolution into the most dangerous team outside the top two seed lines. Gonzaga tussled with Ohio State until the Bulldogs commenced a late run and exhaled. Seton Hall challenged Kansas.

It has been a solid tournament thus far. But we’ll miss some of the stars.

We don’t need Young, Sexton, Ayton, Porter, Bamba, Bates-Diop and other future NBA products in order to enjoy the next two weeks of the NCAA tournament.

We have missed out, however, on the appetizing individual and team matchups many expected the bracket to produce.

The 2018 NCAA tournament has been good. But it’s no 2015 NCAA tournament at this point. And if the exodus of NBA talent continues, it won’t be.

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[recentnews18-blog]

New Post has been published on https://shovelnews.com/avintia-stupid-for-giving-ponsson-motogp-debut-crutchlow/

Avintia “stupid” for giving Ponsson MotoGP debut - Crutchlow

Former World Superbike backmarker Ponsson, who currently races in the Spanish Superstock 1000 series, was chosen by Avintia to effectively stand in for the injured Tito Rabat for the San Marino Grand Prix, taking Xavier Simeon’s two-year-old Ducati bike.

Ponsson finished first practice outside the 107 percent cut-off, 7.4 seconds slower than pacesetter Andrea Dovizioso, but improved by almost two seconds in FP2 to put himself half a second inside the 107% mark.

A number of riders expressed concern about Ponsson’s lack of credentials on Thursday, although Crutchlow said he was willing to give the 22-year-old the benefit of the doubt.

But after sharing the track with Ponsson on Friday, Crutchlow admitted the speed differential between the newcomer and the rest of the MotoGP pack was “dangerous”.

“It’s great to give somebody an opportunity, but looking at how his day went, it’s quite dangerous for him to be on track with us,” said Crutchlow of Ponsson.

“I don’t blame the guy. If you get given the opportunity to ride the bike, you would do it. Why not? But the team is stupid.

“They are just making themselves look more like idiots than they already look.”

Marc Marquez echoed Crutchlow’s opinion that Ponsson himself is not to blame, but said MotoGP must take steps to ensure riders who lack experience cannot be allowed to disrupt a race weekend.

“It’s so difficult to ride a MotoGP bike for the first time in a GP [weekend], understand the tyres, understand the electronics,” said the world champion.

“Sure, he was very slow, but it’s normal. I was very slow also first time with MotoGP. It’s not his fault. But for sure we need to understand for the future.

“When more or less everybody has the same speed, you can [trust] in the rider in front, that he will do a normal line. But when he’s five, six seconds [slower] it becomes dangerous.”

Christophe Ponsson, Avintia Racing

Photo by: Gold and Goose / LAT Images

Jack Miller remarked he had a hot lap ruined when he encountered Ponsson on-track, costing him the chance of finishing the day inside the top 10.

“I did a very good lap right up until the last sector, I caught this wildcard who was 7s a lap slower than everyone else and destroyed my lap,” recalled the Pramac Ducati rider.

“Just bad luck, I know my ideal lap if I didn’t catch old mate was [1m32.7s], which would have put me through to Q2.

“I caught him from a long way back, 3s in the last sector, caught him right at the last corner, tried to pass him around the outside and got ridden into the grass.”

For his part, Ponsson said the difference between the GP16 Ducati and what he was used to was so big that it was “as if I start again riding on a bike”.

He added: “This afternoon I gained two seconds on this morning, we just tried to make me feel more comfortable on the bike. I feel a little bit better, the bike is very hard.

“I just need laps to understand more and more. I’m far from the laptime but everyone started one day. Today it’s for me.”

Additional reporting by Lena Buffa, Matteo Nugnes, Gerald Dirnbeck

Source: https://www.motorsport.com/motogp/news/avintia-stupid-ponsson-debut-crutchlow-marquez/3172871/