Why are the cool papers always released on the days I'm busy?

I really wish I had time to do some blogging on two new peer-reviewed papers that have just come out, one in PLoS and the other in Nature. Unfortunately I start a summer math course this evening and can't give all the cool new discoveries my full attention. That doesn't mean that you can't check them out yourself, though.

• First up is a new PLoS paper by Darren Naish and Mark Witton on the weird and wonderful Azhdarchid pterosaurs. Rather than being skimmers (see a PLoS paper published last year on skimming pterosaurs here) or aerial predators at least some of these ancient creatures may have been terrestrial foragers, and Witton has produced some wonderful illustrations to go along with the article. Much more information can be found at Tetrapod Zoology, Mark Witton's Flickr page, the "support" blog Azhdarchid Paleobiology, Greg Laden's blog, A Blog Around the Clock, When Pigs Fly Returns, and The Dragon's Tales. Once again, you can get the new paper for free here.

• In the new issue of Nature there's a paper about the oldest record of a vertebrate that would have given birth to live young; a Devonian placoderm called Materpiscis attenboroughi (which is itself new to science). Not only were embryos preserved inside the mother, but the embryos were attached to their mother via an umbilical cord, reflecting that placoderms had a reproductive strategy more like that of some sharks than many modern actinopterygian fish that spawn (releasing both eggs and sperm into the water). You can read the Nature summary here and download the paper here (although it is behind the subscription walll).