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Range of P. nivalis

Pennatomys nivalis is an extinct oryzomyine rodent from the islands of Sint Eustatius, Saint Kitts, and Nevis in the Lesser Antilles (range pictured). It is known from skeletal remains found in Amerindian archeological sites on all three islands, with dates ranging from 790–520 BCE to 900–1200 CE. No live specimens are known, but there are several historical records of rodents from Saint Kitts and Nevis that could conceivably refer to Pennatomys. The animal apparently belongs to a group within the tribe Oryzomyini that includes many other island-dwelling species. Pennatomys nivalis was a medium-sized species without many distinctive adaptations. The nasal bones were short and blunt-ended. The zygomatic plate, a bony plate at the side of the skull, was broad. The bony palate was long and flat. The root of the lower incisor was housed in a bony protuberance, the capsular process. The molars were low-crowned and possessed accessory crests such as mesolophs. The upper molars all had three roots. (Full article...)

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Stegodon aurorae cheek tooth

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In the news

Webb's First Deep Field

NASA releases the first operational image (shown) taken by the James Webb Space Telescope.
Protesters storm the President's House in Colombo, Sri Lanka, forcing President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe to agree to resign.
Angola's former president José Eduardo dos Santos dies at the age of 79.
Former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe is assassinated while giving a speech in Nara.

On this day

July 15

Rosetta Stone

1410 – The Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania defeated the Teutonic Knights at the Battle of Grunwald, the decisive engagement of the Polish–Lithuanian–Teutonic War.
1799 – French soldiers at Fort Julien, near the Egyptian port city of Rashid, uncovered the Rosetta Stone (pictured), an essential key in the decipherment of ancient Egyptian scripts.
1870 – Manitoba and the Northwest Territories were established following the transfer of Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territory from the Hudson's Bay Company to Canada.
2016 – The Peace at Home Council, a faction of the Turkish Armed Forces, staged a coup d'état attempt against the government and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Manuel Torres (d. 1822)
Anton Chekhov (d. 1904)
Betty Wagoner (b. 1930)

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The World Fantasy Special Award—Professional is given each year to individuals for their professional work in the preceding calendar year in fields related to fantasy that is not covered by other World Fantasy Award categories. The World Fantasy Awards are given each year by the World Fantasy Convention for the best fantasy fiction and art published in English during the preceding calendar year. Honorees have included editors of magazines and novels, publishers, and authors of non-fiction works. Occasionally, especially in the first few years of the award, some publishing companies were nominated along with individual editors and publishers. World Fantasy Award nominees and winners are decided by attendees and judges at the annual World Fantasy Convention. During the 47 nomination years, 157 individuals and four publishing companies have been nominated; 55 people have won, including ties and co-nominees. For his work at Donald M. Grant, Publisher Donald M. Grant has won three times out of eight nominations, and six other nominees have won twice. Ian Ballantine and Betty Ballantine have won twice out of two nominations each for their non-fiction and publishing work, and Peter Crowther twice out of four nominations for his work at PS Publishing. (Full list...)

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NASA space-flown Apollo medallion for the Apollo–Soyuz mission.

Apollo–Soyuz was the first crewed international space mission, carried out jointly by the United States and the Soviet Union in 1975. A United States Apollo capsule and a Soviet Union Soyuz capsule launched into orbit on July 15, and millions of people around the world watched on television two days later as the spacecraft docked and the two crews shook hands through the hatch. The project was a symbol of détente between the two superpowers during the Cold War, and it is generally considered to mark the end of the Space Race, which had begun in 1957 with the Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik 1.

Credit: Robbins Company for NASA; photographed by Heritage Auctions

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