Wednesday, October 28, 2009 LONDON: British authorities say the fossilized skull of a giant sea monster has been found off England's southern coast.The fossil came from a pliosaur, a ferocious predator that lived in the oceans 150 million years ago.The skull was discovered in Dorset by a collector and measures 2.4 meters (8 feet) in length. The discovery was announced Tuesday.Scientists believe the creature would have been about 16 meters (52 feet) long.David Martill, a palaeontologist from the University of Portsmouth, says pliosaurs had short necks and huge, crocodile-like heads with powerful jaws and a set of razor-sharp teeth.He said they used paddle-like limbs to propel their bodies through the water and were generally carnivores.The skull will be put on display in a Dorset museum.
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
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