New dino gets name fit for a 'Potter' dragon
Children's Museum will celebrate designation, which J.K. Rowling endorsesWith a green light from scientists and "Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling, The Children's Museum's 66-million-year-old dinosaur skull with dragonlike features finally has a name.
The museum will celebrate the naming of the recently discovered dinosaur species today with an unveiling of the artifact, which museum officials have spent the past two years cleaning and reassembling.
Dracorex hogwartsia, a member of the pachycephalosaur family, honors Rowling's use of dragons in her wildly popular children's book series.
The name comes from the Latin words draco (dragon), rex (king), and hogwartsia (after the fictional Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry in "Harry Potter").
Rowling cited her children's love of dinosaurs in endorsing the name. "The naming . . . is easily the most unexpected honour to have come my way since the publication of the Harry Potter books," she said in a written statement.
The dinosaur's skull mixes spiky horns, bumps and a long muzzle. But unlike other "pachys," which have domed foreheads, this one is flat-headed. That makes it a new species.
Here's your grenade -- you want fries with that?
Mon May 22, 10:10 AM ET
YORK (Reuters) - Workers at a British factory making French fries were evacuated two days running last week after bomb parts turned up in potatoes imported from France and Belgium, the site of battles in World War One and Two.
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The Scarborough plant, owned by Canada's McCain Foods, the world's largest producer of frozen fries, was emptied Friday after a worker spotted a shell tip among the potatoes as they were being cleaned for slicing.
"The police were called and the bomb squad advised a 100 meter exclusion zone should be set up," said a McCain spokesman.
Saturday, an entire hand grenade was discovered in the potatoes and the plant in northern England was evacuated again.
"The army took the device away and blew it up in a controlled explosion in a field nearby," a spokeswoman for the North Yorkshire police said.
The Scarborough plant was opened in 1969 and uses 1,400 tons of potatoes every week. Production is back to normal.
McCain's Whittlesey plant near Peterborough in eastern England has also been evacuated several times this year after World War Two ordnance was found in batches of potatoes.
"Occasionally during the use of imported potatoes from Belgium and northern France, ordnance debris from the First and Second World War is found," McCain said in a statement.
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